Livewire Sunil retires from Dankotuwa Porcelain; Sitendra succeeds

Widely considered as the livewire behind Dankotuwa Porcelain Plc, Sunil Wijesinha has retired from the Company and controlling shareholder Environmental Resources Investments Plc (ERI) has appointed Sitendra Senaratne as the new Chairman.

Senaratne is currently the Managing Director of Ceylon Leather Products Plc.

Wijesinha at the end of his contract served as Chairman and Managing Director. His association with Dankotuwa Porcelain began in 1989 with the appointment to the Board when he was  the Chairman of ETF and a year later as Chairman under which capacity he served for four years. He returned to the Company in late 1990s whilst he was appointed Chairman and MD in July 2005.

Dankotuwa Porcelain also announced that K.S Mallawa Arachchi will be appointed as the Acting CEO whilst Eric Wikramanayake has been added to the Board of Directors.

In FY2012, Dankotuwa Porcelain suffered a loss of Rs. 97.8 million, up from Rs. 2.1 million loss a year earlier. Turnover was down to Rs. 1.15 billion from Rs. 1.29 billion. Loss in the fourth quarter was Rs. 3.4 million, considerably lower in comparison to Rs. 16 million loss a year earlier.

Mallawa Arachchi holds a BSc. Engineering (Hons) Degree in the discipline of Materials Engineering from the University of Moratuwa. He is the President of the institute of Materials Engineers, Sri Lanka and a council member of the Ceylon National Chamber of industries.

He counts extensive experience in the field of manufacturing and marketing of Porcelain Tableware, Maliawa Arachchi joined Dankotuwa Porcelain in 1984 as a Technical Manager and headed the factory from 1992. He was the head of the technical management team which transformed Dankotuwa Porcelain from the position of a non-viable venture to its glory in 1996/1997, During the period June 2004 to April 2005 he was the Acting CEO and led the Company to achieve a turnover of Rs. 1 billion for the first time in the history of the Company and a net profit of Rs. 38 million which was the highest net profit achieved during 2001 - 2011.

He was instrumental in introducing several new foreign buyers and several new products to the company which entranced the domestic as well as the international market.

The previous positions held by him include General Manager of Paramix Stoneware Company and as an Assistant General Manager (Technical/Export Marketing) at Lanka Ceramic Limited and Lanka Refractories Ltd.

Wickramanayake is the Chief Executive Officer of ERI and serves as Chairman of Olancom Ltd., and its subsidiaries, Enterprise Technology Ltd., as a Director of South Asia Textiles Ltd., which are all ERI Group companies.

His Experience includes working as a Management Consultant at Coopers & Lybrand (now known as Price Water house coopers) and at Ernst & Whinney (now known as Ernst & Young). He also worked at Lockheed Information Management Services Company, Los Angeles as a Manager for international Business Development He founded Qualitek Systems in 1994, Sasianet Ltd., and Roomsnet International.

He had his early education in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Singapore and graduated from the Singapore American School in 1980. He has a BSc degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California, and also passed the U.S. Certified Public Accountancy Examination (CPA) in the State of California, He obtained a MBA from Pepperdine University, California.