HDFC Bank announces two new appointments to Board

Nishan Fernando

Kithsiri Wijeyaratne

Top professionals Nishan Fernando and Kithsiri Bandara Wijeyaratne have been appointed to the Board of HDFC Bank as Independent, Non-Executive Directors.

Nishan Fernando is a Fellow Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Global Management Accountant with Associate Membership of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK. 

He holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, and is a Graduate of the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors. 

He counts over 30 years of experience, during which period he has held the position of CFO/ Head of Finance at leading corporates in Sri Lanka. 

Fernando is a Past President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. He has served on the International Accounting Education Standards Board of the International Federation of Accountants, and its Consultative Advisory Board. He has also served on the Board of South Asian Federation of Accountants. He had been representing Sri Lanka in the Asia Oceanian Standard Setters’ Group for over 10 years and functioned as its Vice Chair and Chair from 2020-2023. He had been a Commission Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka and also served on the Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board, Governing Boards of Postgraduate Institute of Management and of National Institute of Business Management. He has been serving on the Sri Lanka Accounting Standards Committee for over 18 and chaired it in 2009-2013 during which period Sri Lanka fully converged with IFRS. He had also been chairing the SLFRS Implementation and Interpretation Committee of CA Sri Lanka till 2023. 

He is presently functioning as BDO Consulting Ltd. Managing Director. He is functioning as a member of the Dispute Resolution Panel of the Colombo Stock Exchange and of the Academic Board of the Management Faculty of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. He functioned as the Chairman of First Capital Holdings PLC and First Capital Treasuries PLC for nearly 10 years till mid-2024.

Kithsiri B. Wijeyaratne is the Chief Financial and Strategic officer in the Pintanna group of companies overseeing the areas of financial operations, strategies, planning, product costing and effective production flows. 

Currently Wijeyaratne is the Senior Director of the Richard Pieris Finance Ltd. He was the Senior Deputy General Manager of the National Savings Bank and was employed for 10 years. He was also the Head of Finance and Administration at the Trade Union Insurance Company EC in Saudi Arabia for more than 13 years. The company has five braches all over the Kingdom and the Head Office is in Bahrain. 

Wijeyaratne counts over 38 years’ experience in the Audit and Financial services sector locally and overseas having served in senior management positions at premier financial institutions with extensive experience mainly in the field of Insurance and Banking. He is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (FCA), Fellow Member of the Certified Management Accountants of Sri Lanka (FCMA), Senior Member of the Association of Accounting Technicians of Sri Lanka (FMAAT) and Fellow Member of the Institute of Bankers of Sri Lanka (IBSL). Wijeyaratne is the Management Representative Member of the Executive Council of the Organisation of Professional Association (OPA). He holds a Second-class Honours degree, BSc in Business Administration from University of Sri Jayewardenepura Sri Lanka and Diploma in Public Finance and Management (DPFM) from Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration (SLIDA).