Jayamin Pelpola appointed to BOC Board

Bank of Ceylon yesterday announced the appointment of Jayamin Pelpola to its Board as a Non-Executive Director with effect from 22 February.

The appointment was by Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies.

Pelpola has over 15 years of international experience in investment banking, asset management and digital finance. 

Jayamin is the only Sri Lankan to have worked in the coveted Goldman Sachs Principal Strategies (GSPS) group, a team recognised for its creative and highest yielding investment strategies on Wall Street. In his career, Jayamin has structured and managed international investments worth more than $ 20 billion in various sectors and countries.

Later, as a senior consultant, Pelpola also advised US banks and international Central Banks on banking sector reforms. Specifically, he advised the regulators and the Board of Directors at Bank of America, DBS, Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank on capital adequacy decisions, recapitalisations and the application of digital Innovations In banking.

Building on his finance sector experience, In 2015 Pelpola entered the Financial Technology (Fintech) space as an investor and entrepreneur. He started his entrepreneurial journey by developing a proprietary market pricing model to value non-traditional assets and selling it to a Wall Street bank. Jayamin leveraged on this success and shifted his focus to the digital finance space and invested in six tech companies based in USA, Hong Kong and India. 

While managing the portfolio of investments, Jayamin worked closely with these companies to strategise and implement ideas for consumer adoption, technology integration, monetisation of digital assets and products.

Currently Pelpola serves as a Director of Onterra Group, a company he co-founded, which provides IT and Artificial Intelligence (Al) services to a global clientele. Additionally, he is a Director of Jayaru TP, a company he co-founded, which provides infrastructure, financing, processing and technology services to Asian soft commodity markets. As of now, the company is a leading exporter of durable agricultural commodities serving more than 10 international markets.

In 2020, the President of Sri Lanka appointed Pelpola as a Board Member of the Board of Investment

(BOl) of Sri Lanka, a position he held for 3 years. As a Board Member at BOI, he oversaw the formation and implementation of national investment and FDI policies and was also the Chairman of the BOI Audit Committee.

Pelpola received his MBA from Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). He also obtained his charters from the CFA Institute (USA) and CIMA (UK). He became the youngest CIMA Management

Accountant in the world at the age of 20. He was also the youngest CIMA prize-winner at the time. He also received his Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from CIM (UK). Jayamin is a past pupil of Nalanda College and Gateway International School.