Colombo School of Business and Management Feb. ‘Talk of the Month’ features Mahela Jayawardene

• Sri Lankan cricketer, former captain and coach Jayawardene to speak on ‘Building a Winning team’ followed by interactive Q & A session moderated by Poorwaka Gamage 

Colombo School of Business and Management (CSBM) www.csbm.edu.lk, the premier ‘Business School of the Nation’ recently held its pioneering signature event ‘Talk of Month’ (TOM) by former Sri Lanka Cricket Captain, Mahela Jayawardene. Previous speakers in this CSBM signature TOM series included Deepal Sooriyararchchi, General Daya Ratnayake, Bathiya and Santhush (BnS) and Dilani Alagaratnam.

Talk of the Month was initiated by CSBM in August 2019 as a platform for prominent corporate personalities for mentoring and knowledge sharing the next generation of executives and management; following the success in CSBMs’ signature brand event series, ‘Evening with a Corporate Leader EWCL’ with top corporate leaders Dhammika Perera, Ashok Pathirage, Otara Chandiram, Ashroff Omar, and Dilith Jayaweera to name a few. 

CSBM featured Mahela Jayawardene as February’s social influencer on Talk of the Month speaking on ‘winning teams’; he shared his insights, experience and knowledge. As a veteran cricketer, coach and captain with international experience of building a career, lifestyle and image, his boyish good looks and charismatic charm left the audience focused and enthusiastic to engage in a positive question and answer session. 

Some advice that he shared with the audience was identifying all the entities involved around a scenario and concentrating on those which you are in control of and can control and the rest will take its course. Spending time on that which you can’t control will not serve any purpose, and it is after all ‘uncontrollable’. Assess your team, take risks, and be a decision maker. Whilst this line up of experience isn’t complete it is the challenging situations and victories through it that makes his experience unique and successful. 

Adversity in a career is not meant to deter you but build you up. How you deal with such challenges will ultimately dictate your success level and the altitude of your attitude. Changing mindsets, improving attitudes, regrouping and strategising after a set-back, these are all great methods to face challenges head on.

Mahela speaking on his business ventures and partnership in Ministry of Crab, recalls how all he knew about the business was that Chef Dharshan Munidasa was a good chef and that was all the information he needed to invest in it. Answering a question on handling social media – Mahela explained that what you can control is how often you scan social media and how you react to it – not what is going to be highlighted on it. Protecting your peace is what keeps you competing for the bigger success.  

Mahela Jayawardene is a Sri Lankan former cricket captain, cricket coach and mentor. He made his Test cricket debut in 1997 and his One Day International (ODI) debut the following season. In 2006 he made the highest ever score by a Sri Lankan in Test cricket, scoring 374 in the second Test of Sri Lanka’s home series against South Africa. He has a test cricket average of just under 50 runs and a One Day average in the 30s. He is the first player in the history of Sri Lankan cricket to score over 10,000 Test runs. He is also the second Sri Lankan player to score more than 10,000 runs in ODIs. 

Jayawardene was a key member of the team that won the 2014 ICC World Twenty 20 and was part of the team that made it to the final of 2007 Cricket World Cup, 2011 Cricket World Cup, 2009 ICC World Twenty 20 and 2012 ICC World Twenty20. In 2006, Jayawardene was named by the International Cricket Council as the best international captain of the year and was nominated in 2007 as the best Test cricket player of the year. 

He is also known for his fielding skills in the inner ring with a report prepared by Cricinfo in late 2005 showing that since the 1999 Cricket World Cup, he had effected the most run-outs in ODI cricket of any fieldsman, with the fifth highest run-out/match ratio in ODI’s. Statistics also reveal that Jayawardene-Muralitharan is the most common bowler-fielder combination in the history of Test cricket. 

Colombo School of Business and Management is a certificate-awarding institution registered under the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission of Sri Lanka (TVE) (Amendment) Act No. 50 of 1999. All its educational programs are in compliance with the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) approved Sri Lanka Qualification Framework (SLQF). CSBM was established with the patronage of prominent corporate leaders and institutions in Sri Lanka intending to promote a novelty in higher education, professional, executive training, career development, research, business support and consultancy. 

CSBM has successfully built international partnerships with AIT Extension in Bangkok, University of Lincoln UK and INSEAD Singapore, a European Commission registered research and innovation centre. The main objective of CSBM is to create a varied and inspiring learning environment in order to enhance the learners usual ways of doing business, thereby influencing them to explore new ways of thinking to face today’s global business challenges. 

The faculty of CSBM comprises of highly qualified academics and professionals, senior corporate and business leaders, bankers, industry renowned marketers, world-class research professionals and members from distinguished professional bodies, high-ranking public servants and visiting faculty from its foreign partner universities and associate institutions. Thus, it creates the best value added platform for teaching and learning. It offers a series of executive education, skill enhancement, workforce training and continuous education programs.

(The next CSBM Talk of the Month session by Strategist and Executive Coach Dr. Udaya Indraratne, former Executive Director, Policy and Strategy – Dubai Government, Former Senior Advisor – Abu Dhabi Government; is scheduled for Thursday, 19 March from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and entrance is free through prior registration on a first come first serve basis. 

For enquiries/invitation please contact Nalin 0703-338338 [email protected] or Poorwaka on 070-667684 [email protected] of CSBM: www.csbm.edu.lk #65/5, Ward Place, Colombo 7.)