Johann, Arjuna appointed to SriLankan Airlines Board

Top professionals Johann Wijesinghe and Prof. Arjuna de Silva have been appointed to the SriLankan Airlines Board of Directors. 

The duo will make up the new seven-member SriLankan board headed by former senior banker Ranjith Fernando tasked with restructuring the national carrier. Other members of the Board are Mano Tittawella, Susantha Katugampala, Dr. Roshan Perera and Kapila Jayampathi.

For Johann it will be of homecoming of sorts as he worked at the national carrier previously for 19 years. He held several senior positions at SriLankan Airlines including management positions in Europe, Middle East, the Far East and the Head Office in Colombo and was also a member of the Group Senior Management Team of the airline. He headed the SriLankan office in London, was Singapore and Indonesia manager prior to that and was the head of SriLankan Worldwide Cargo Operations at the time he resigned in October 2008 with the departure of the Emirates management. 

At present, Johann is the Managing Director of Hayleys Aviation and Travels and Alufab Plc. He joined the diversified blue chip Hayleys Group in 2008 and was appointed to the Group Management Committee in 2011. 



He holds an MBA from the University of Leicester (UK) and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK). 

Prof. de Silva is Oxford-educated and the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Anti-Doping Agency (SLADA). De Silva, 52, has experience as an administrator and a regulator. He was a Director of the Consumer Affairs Authority. He is a physician by profession in addition to being a university don and a sports medicine expert. He has been a physician at international sporting events, including the London Olympics and has been a member of the medical advisory panel of Sri Lanka Cricket since 2015. He obtained an MRCP (UK) in 2010, MSc from the University of Oxford in 2001, FCCP in 2009 and FRCP (London) in 2010.