Amitha appointed to Lanka IOC Board

Former top banker Amitha Gooneratne has been appointed to the Board of Lanka IOC Plc as an Independent Non-Executive Director.

LIOC also announced that B. Ashok, Executive Director (Retail Sales) Indian Oil, Mumbai has also been appointed as a Non-Executive Director replacing H.S. Bedi.

Gooneratne has held several senior positions at Commercial Bank of Ceylon Plc and was appointed as the Managing Director subsequently. He is a Fellow member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants, United Kingdom and Wales and a Fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Sri Lanka.

He was the Founder Chairman of the Financial Ombudsman Sri Lanka (Guarantee) Ltd, and is the current Vice-Chairman of the Sri Lanka Banks’ Association (Guarantee) Ltd.

He is also the Managing Director of Commercial Development Company PLC, a Public Quoted Company listed in the CSE and is also the Chairman of Commercial insurance Brokers (Pvt) Limited. He was also nominated to the Board of SriLankan Airlines during 2002-2004 by the Government of Sri Lanka.

On his retirement, Gooneratne, assumed duties as Managing Director of Melstacorp Ltd., which is a strategic investment arm of the Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka Plc. He also joined the boards of several subsidiary companies of Melstacorp Ltd., namely, Melsta Regal Finance Ltd., Melsta Logistics Ltd., Pericey Ltd., Balangoda Plantation Plc., Lanka Bell Ltd., Bellvantage Ltd., Texpro Industries Ltd., Bogo Power Ltd., and Continental Insurance Ltd.

He also serves on the Board of Textured Jersey PLC as an independent Director.

The other appointee Ashok is a Mechanical Engineer from Guindy Engineering, Chennai and Management qualification from the prestigious National Management Program of MDI, Gurgaon, Ashok joined Indian Oil after a two year stint in the private sector and has over 31 years experience in Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOC).

He began his tenure in IOC in Lubes Technical Services in which he continued until 1991. Subsequently he has seen various disciplines such as Training & Development, Divisional Head, Corporate Communications, Business Development, State Head, Kerala and State Head, Karnataka, India before taking over the current assignment as Executive Director (Retail Sales) based at Mumbai.

Besides Chennai, Kochi, Coimbatore and Bangalore in South India, he has worked at IOC’s Head Office, Mumbai, Corporate Office, Delhi and an international tenure at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as Regional Manager, SE Asia, handling the ASEAN Region between 2001 and 2004.

While he has established several benchmarks in IOC, some key initiatives include the innovation of pilfer proof Abloy locks for Tank Trucks, when he was the Divisional Manager at Coimbatore in 1997 and across the state Auto LPG Dispensing Stations in Kerala between 2004 and 2008.

Ashok has presented papers in many national and international forums and has been a visiting faculty at management institutions in India.