Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri takes over reins of IPM Sri Lanka

Outgoing President Rohitha Amarapala with Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri, the newly appointed President of IPM Sri Lanka at the Annual General Meeting  

Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri, one of Sri Lanka’s renowned academic and professional personalities has been entrusted with the prestigious position of Honorary President of IPM Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka’s leader in human resources management, for the year 2016/17 in order to steer it to greater heights. Prof. Dharmasiri was elected at the Annual General Meeting held on Saturday 30 July at IPM Sri Lanka head office ‘HR House’ situated in Colombo 5. 

IPM was founded in 1959 and was subsequently incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1976. IPM is affiliated to the Asia Pacific Foundation of Human Resources Management and also to the World Federation of People Management Association. IPM, being a professional institute is also a constituent member of the Organisation of Professional Associations (OPA) Sri Lanka. Currently IPM comprises of over 1000 Professional Members who serve in both public and private organisations.

“I take this opportunity to thank the membership in placing their trust and confidence in me to lead IPM Sri Lanka in the forthcoming year which will be an important and challenging year for the human resources fraternity, for IPM as Sri Lanka’s leading human resources management and for Sri Lanka as a country,” said Prof. Dharmasiri in his acceptance speech. 

“I am simply delighted to serve as a servant leader in taking IPM Sri Lanka to greater heights. Having associated with IPM for almost 20 years, this is a key milestone in that journey. In fact, I will be the catalyst in transforming IPM to CIPM (Chartered IPM),” he added.

Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri is the Director and the Chairman of the Board of Management of the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. He also serves as an adjunct professor in International Human Resource Management at the Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, USA and has over two decades of both private and public sector working experience in diverse environments including at Unilever and Nestle. 

He has engaged in consultancies in 15 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and serves in the Boards of National Institute of Business Management (NIBM), Softlogic PLC, Citizens Development Business Finance PLC (CDB) and the Association of Management Development Institutions of South Asia (AMDISA).

“While thanking my fellow council members for extending their unstinted cooperation and my employer; Pan Asia Banking Corporation PLC for giving me time and space to handle the many demands as President of IPM Sri Lanka, I wish to welcome and extend my whole hearted support to our new president – Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri – in continuing the good work we have being doing during the past few years so that we can sustain our market leadership in the sphere of HR,” said Rohitha Amarapala, outgoing president of IPM Sri Lanka. 

“I am delighted to be able to handover the baton of leading this prestigious professional institute to one of Sri Lanka’s most respected professionals. He is regarded as an HR practitioner, trainer, mentor, academic, policy maker and leader who has been a live wire in the IPM in the recent past. Prof. Dharmasiri has contributed significantly to propel the HR profession to greater heights with his innovative, radical and out of the box thinking in HR which I believe is the need of the hour as our country has stepped on an ambitious path” he added. 

Prof. Dharmasiri is a Commonwealth AMDISA Doctoral Fellow and a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow and holds a Ph.D. and an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa.  He is a Chartered Electrical Engineer and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Management, UK as well. 

As an academic scholar, Prof. Dharmasiri has presented research papers at international conferences in more than ten cities in Asia, America, Australia and Europe. He has published articles in local and foreign journals, and is also an author of two books. He has won many accolades including gold medals for best papers in two international management conferences, Emerald best paper award in 2014, and in 2010, the platinum award by the Alumni of the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIMA) for outstanding academic contribution. He also won the prestigious IPM Lifetime Gold Award 2014, the highest honour for an HR professional in Sri Lanka.