Janashakthi announces 4 new Directors

Janashakthi Plc has announced the appointment of four new directors with effect from 11 May.

They are Dinesh Schaffter, Chandana de Silva, Saliya Wickr-amasuriya and Piranavan Sivagananathan 

Schaffter serves as the Managing Director of First Capital Holdings PLC and its subsidiaries. He has a finance background with managerial, investment and deal-making expertise of over 25 years. Schaffter was formerly the Managing Director of Kelsey Developments PLC and Dunamis Capital PLC. 

De Silva has 25 years of managerial and financial experience acquired in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom. He held several senior management positions including that of Chief Financial Officer of a Nasdaq quoted data communication services company during his 23 years of work experience in the UK. 

After moving back to Sri Lanka in 2002, he worked at MAS Holdings in a variety of roles and established a group supply chain management function, set up the MAS training centre and was the Chief Executive Officer of the MAS Investment Division until his departure in 2011. Since then he has served as a consultant specialising in institution building, good governance, talent management and planning for success in family businesses. 

He serves as a mentor to individuals in senior management roles. de Silva is an Independent Director on the Boards of First Capital Holdings PLC and its subsidiaries, Kelsey Developments PLC, Eureka Technologies Ltd., 24/7 Techies Ltd., and Bairaha Farms PLC.

Wickramasuriya joined the upstream oil and gas industry in 1984, working for Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services provider. Following 12 years on rigs as a Wireline Field Engineer, he held training, operations management, product development and marketing positions in the North Sea, Middle East, USA and West Africa. 

He was appointed Chairman/Director General of the Sri Lanka Board of Investment in 2004 and Chairman of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority from 2006 to 2008. He then served as Director General of the Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat, an institution tasked with developing Sri Lanka’s emerging oil and gas industry, from November 2011 to June 2017. 

Wickramasuriya, through his various assignments, possesses extensive experience in a spectrum of technical and marketing disciplines as well as areas of strategy, regulation, and national policy development. He currently serves on the Boards of Heritors Holdings Ltd., Lanka Energy Lubricants Ltd., and Suriya Residencies Ltd., and is a Co-Chair of the National Agenda Committee for Energy of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. Sivagananathan is a venture capitalist, investor and an entrepreneur, who is the co-founder of Hatch, a revolutionary workspace designed to support start-ups and budding entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. A 2015 Eisenhower Fellow and 2018 Kauffman Fellow, he has long been a supporter of local entrepreneurship and small businesses, as well as an active angel investor in the country. 

Sivagananathan brings in a wealth of experience in business and innovation from his former role as the Chief Growth Officer of MAS Holdings, and as a former Board Director of MAS Capital. 

He currently serves on the Board of Janashakthi Insurance PLC, as an Independent Director.