First Sri Lankan elected to Exco of ACIIA

Institute of Internal Auditors – Sri Lanka and the Group Internal Auditor of Prima Group President Dharshana De Silva was recently elected as Honorary Secretary to the Asian Confederation of Institute of Internal Auditors (ACIIA) for the year 2012, at the recently concluded AGM held in Seoul, South Korea.

De Silva became the first Sri Lankan and only the second South Asian to get elected to the EXCO which comprises of President, Deputy President, Honorary Secretary and Treasurer; he also became the youngest elected Exco Member to date of ACIIA.

ACIIA serves as the only Asia and Pacific body for Internal auditors, serving 18 countries in the region, which includes Australia, Azerbaijan, China, Chinese Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Fiji, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. ACIIA also acts as the regional body for IIA Global, which is the only global recognized professional body for Internal Auditors with over 170,000 members in 165 countries.

De Silva has been actively involved with ACIIA since 2008, and was instrumental in getting IIA Sri Lanka as a Full Member of ACIIA in 2009; he has served and chaired several subcommittees of ACIIA before been elected to his current post. De Silva is a founder member of IIA Sri Lanka since the inception in 2006, and represented IIASL at many international meetings and conferences across 6 continents since 2007. He was also the first Sri Lankan to be invited to speak at both the ACIIA International conference held in Sydney in 2010 and the Asian CAE Leadership Forum held in Seoul in 2011. De Silva was an International Guest Presenter at the IIA Global Conference Held in Malaysia in 2011, which attracted over 2500 delegates from close to 100 countries.  

IIASL was also successful at bidding to host the “2015 Asian CAE Leadership Forum” to be held in Colombo. This would be a great opportunity for Sri Lanka, to host an internationally acclaimed forum of a highly reputed regional professional body.