Lalith, Harsha, Hasitha & Visakha appointed to BOC board 

January, 16, 2020

Finance Ministry has appointed four new high-profile Non executive Directors to the Board of Bank of Ceylon effective from 14 January 2020.

Accordingly, Mr.P.Lalith P.Withana, Mr.G.Harsha Wijayawardhana, Mr.Hasitha Premaratne, and Visakha Amarasekere have been appointed to the board.

Lalith P.Withana was appointed to the BOC board on 14 January 2020 as a non-executive director. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer at Sri Lankan Catering Ltd.

Withana has held management positions in the corporate sector for over 25 years, in which he had been at senior management levels for more than 18 years in Banking and Manufacturing & Trade. He has worked with many organizations including Brandix Group, M/s. Ernst & Young Chartered Accountants, Amsterdam Rotterdam (Amro) Bank, IBM World Trade Corporation, Carson Cumberbatch PLC, MJF Group, Yamaha Corporation in (USA) and SriLankan Airlines.

He also functions as a member of the Advisory Board for the School of Apparel Merchandising and Management at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona USA. He is currently a Co-Chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka and is a Vice President of the Project Management Institute, Sri Lanka Chapter.He had previously served as an Independent Non-Executive Director on the Boards of Bank of Ceylon, Dankotuwa Porcelain PLC, Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka PLC, Ceylease Limited and at Seylan Bank PLC. Mr. Withana had also been a Commissioner of the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.

Harsha Wijayawardhana was appointed to the Board of Bank of Ceylon on 14th January 2020 as a Non-Executive Director. He is a Biochemist turned Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Consultant with more than twenty years of experience in hardcore ICT.

He has been involved in Government ICT projects and has designed and implemented government networks such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Information Department of Sri Lanka. He was responsible for setting up of Software Development Unit (SDU) of University of Colombo and is the COO/CTO of Theekshana, a company which is associated with University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC). He was also responsible for some of the major national level software projects such as the Birth, Marriage and Death Certificate Issuance System and House Holder List set up at every Divisional Secretariat. He is also involved in developing an Electronic Government Procurement System (eGP) with the Department of Public Finance of the Ministry of Finance.

Wijayawardhana was appointed as the ICT Consultant to the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRCSL) of Sri Lanka in January 2014. He served on the Board of Directors of Lanka Government Information Infrastructure (LGII) from 2010 to 2015. He is also a Board Member of nic.lk (LK Domain Registry) since its inception. He was the founding president of ISOC LK Chapter. He is the Co-Chair of Sinhala Generation Panel of ICANN.He has been recognized as one of the Internet Pioneers in Sri Lanka in 2015 and was honored by Lanka Education and Research Network (LEARN) as one of the seven founding members of LEARN at its thirty-year celebrations. Wijayawardhana has published several scientific papers and authored several books.

Hasitha Premaratne was also appointed to the Board as a Non-Executive Director. He is the Group Finance Director of Brandix Group. He leads the overall Finance Function of the group and is also responsible for Strategy and Long Range Planning. He is the Managing Director of Brandix India Apparel City and overlooks all Joint Ventures and Investments of the Brandix Group. He is a Director of many subsidiaries of Brandix Group, including listed company Teejay Lanka PLC.

He was formerly the Head of Research at HNB Stockbrokers (Pvt) Ltd and possesses plenty of experience in the fields of capital markets, economics, strategic finance, management and research. His lecturing experience expands for 11 years, for CIMA (UK), ACCA (UK) examinations, in Sri Lanka, India, Singapore and Philippines. He was a Board Member of CIMA Sri Lanka during 2016. He is presently a Committee Member of Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and a Board Member of the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board.

Premaratne was the winner of the “Tutor of The Year Award” at CIMA Global Financial Management Awards 2009 held in London during November 2009. He was the Winner and Gold Medalist of prestigious “CIMA Star of the year” award in 2012 and the Winner of “Young CIMA Star of the year” award, in 2006.

Visakha Amarasekere was appointed to the Board of Bank of Ceylon on 11th January 2020 as the Non-Executive Ex-Officio Director representing the Ministry of Finance, Economy and Policy Development.

She has represented the Government Treasury on the Boards of several key State-Owned Enterprises including the Ceylon Electricity Board, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and People’s Bank.

She is at present attached to the Department of External Resources of the General Treasury of the Ministry of Finance, Economy and Policy Development as a Director and has over 15 years of experience at the Treasury.

Accordingly upon new appointments current Director Board of BOC stands as below:

(i) Kanchana Ratwatte - Chairman

(ii) Visakha Amarasekere - Ex-Officio Non-Executive Director

(iii) Lalith P. Withana - Non-Executive Director

(iv) Harsha Wijayawardhana - Non-Executive Director

(v) Hasitha Premaratne - Non-Executive Director