SLASSCOM elects new Chairman, Board of Directors and General Council for 2019/2020

SLASSCOM Board of Directors and General Council 2019/20

Ranil Rajapakse, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at IFS R&D International was elected as the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Association of Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM) on 28 June at the Annual General Meeting held at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo. 

Addressing the gathering, Ranil stated that having a strong country brand and a creative and innovative talent pool with the right mindset are key success factors for the industry and country going forward. He continued to state that his main areas of focus would be on Developing Capacity by focusing on enriching the talent pipeline where there is a strong need to strengthen numbers, quality and mindset of the talent pool coming into the industry, Country Branding and Positioning building on the Island of Ingenuity brand, and continuing to provide more value to SLASSCOM member organisations.

The members also elected the Office Bearers for the term 2019/2020. Channa Manoharan, Chief Operating Officer at PricewaterhouseCoopers was appointed as Vice Chairman 1 while Sandra De Zoysa, Group Chief Customer Officer at Dialog Axiata PLC was appointed as Vice Chairman 2. Ashique Ali, Director at Talliance was appointed as Director Operations and Shevan Goonetilleke, Chief Operating Officer at WSO2 was appointed as Director Finance.

The other Board Directors include Chandi Dharmaratne, Senior Director – Human Resources at Virtusa, Hasith Yaggahawita, Chief Technology Officer at 99X Technology, Rasika Karunatilake, Vice President & General Manager at Sysco Labs, Haridhu Abeygoonaratne, General Manager at SimCentric Technologies, Nuwan Perera, Director Software Development at IFS R&D International, Nishan Mendis, Executive Director – Consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Srikanthan Jayarajah, Operations Manager at RR Donnelley.

The following were appointed to the SLASSCOM General Council from member companies.

Shehani Seneviratne, Chief Operating Officer (99X Technology), Shiraz Lye, Managing Director/Vice President Sales, South Asia (IFS), Rohith Pradeep, CEO (SAKS Global), Rishi Batta, Managing Director and Centre Director (HSBC Electronic Data Processing Lanka), Lakmini Wijesundera CEO (Ironone Technologies), Chamira Jayasinghe, Managing Director/CEO (Arimac), Boshan Dayaratne, Group Director and CEO (CICRA), Dilan Rajapakse, General Manager (B-Sharp), Bani Chandrasena, Head of Inclusive Diversity (LSEG), Anura De Alwis, CEO (Pyxle), Sampath Jayasundara, CEO (hSenid Business Solutions), Mudith Uswatte, Director Sales and Product Marketing (Calcey Technologies), Shanaka Fernando, General Manager – HR (WNS Global Services), Dee Liyanwela, Head of LSEG Technology Sri Lanka (LSEG), Rohan Fernando, Associate Director (Moody’s Analytics), Shanaka Rabel, Chief Technology and Solutions Officer (Millennium I.T.E.S.P.), Chamil Jeewantha, Software Architect (Zone24x7), Firaz Markar, Manager (Stax), Kushani Kalpage, Senior Manager – Marketing and Corporate Communications (Sysco Labs), Shehan Kumar, Senior Manager – Employee Branding and Engagement (Pearson), Dakshika Jayathilaka, Technical Lead (WSO2).

Guest speaker Prashan de Visser, Founder of Sri Lanka Unites spoke on the importance of building an inclusive Sri Lankan national identity, that will pave the way for a peaceful and prosperous future. Potential areas of collaboration with SLASSCOM include setting up ICT labs in the regions, volunteers to serve as mentors and flag hate speech content. Madu Ratnayake, Past Chairman SLASSCOM and CIO Virtusa facilitated this session.

The IT/BPM industry is recognised as a thrust industry within the National Export Strategy (NES) as is promoted globally as the ‘Island of Ingenuity’ for world-class knowledge solutions. Currently Sri Lanka’s fifth-largest export earner, the industry goal is to reach $ 5 billion by 2022, powered by over 200,000 skilled jobs in the industry, along with a thriving ecosystem for startup companies.