About us ▶ ▶ board-of-management

Dr. Rohan Fernando who heads Plantations and Business Development at Aitken Spence PLC., holds a PhD and a MBA from the University of Colombo and is also a Chartered Marketer and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, (CIM) UK. He has extensive experience in the plantation industry both in the public and private sectors and played a key role in the plantations privatisation programme.

He also leads the CSR and Sustainability Initiatives of the Group. He was awarded the Brand Leadership Award at the Asia Brand Congress 2008, held in Mumbai in September 2008.

He is the Honorary President of CIM, Sri Lanka region and Chairman of United Nations Global Compact Network, Ceylon. He also serves on the Advisory Committee of the Sri Lanka Business at Biodiversity Platform of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

He was appointed to the Board of Aitken Spence PLC., in April 2005

Ms. Nilanthi Sivapragasam who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Group is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants of UK. She is a member of the Statutory Accounting Standards and the Statutory Auditing Standards Committees and serves on the Committees of the Tax and Financial Reporting Faculties of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. She is also a member of the Urgent Issues Task Force which was set up by the Council of the Institute to provide clarification and interpretation on the application of the Sri Lanka Accounting Standards and is the Chairperson of the CFO forum.

Ms. Sivapragasam currently serves on the Sri Lanka Accounting & Auditing Standards Monitoring Board which has been set up by an Act of Parliament and is a council member of the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors and is also a Member of the Taxation Sub-Committee and Financial & Regulatory Reporting Steering Committee of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. She previously served on the Board of Governance of The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants – Sri Lanka Division.

She completed her articles at Ernst & Young Colombo and has over 25 years of post qualifying experience in industry

Mr. Dinesh Mendis who heads the Financial Solutions segment is additionally responsible for Aitken Spence Technologies (Pvt) Ltd.

He is also involved in new business initiatives of the Group. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree (Magna Cum Laude) in Business Administration specialising in Marketing and Economics from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, USA. During his final year he was chosen as the Outstanding Student in both Marketing and Economics of the University.

He also obtained a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from The University of Texas, USA. He worked in the Logistics sector of the Group for 11 years from 1994 to 2005, the last five of which was as a Subsidiary Director. During this period he also served two years in the Executive Committee of the Sri Lanka Freight Forwarders Association and as a Director of

SLFFA Cargo Services Ltd. He also has international experience working in the retail industry in the USA.

Mr. Rohan Pandithakorralage is the Director/Chief Human Resources Officer of Aitken Spence Group Ltd. At present he is a member of the Board of Governors of National Institute of Labour Studies (NILS), National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC), the Board of Directors of CSR Sri Lanka and the Council of the Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC). He is a Business graduate of Victoria University of Australia with an Executive training at NUS Business School in Singapore and has received extensive management training at Nippon – Keidanren International Cooperation Center (NICC) in Japan.

He is a past president of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources – (IPMA-HR) Sri Lanka Chapter and Executive Committee Member of the IPMA-HR Asia Network. He is a Founder/Fellow member and a past president of the Association of Human Resource Professionals in Sri Lanka (HRP).He was the Chairman of the Executive Committee of HRM Awards 2010.

He was a visiting lecturer at the University of Colombo and University of Ruhuna. He won the Prestigious HR Leadership award at the Asia Pacific Congress (APHRM) 2007/08. He was recognised under the global HR excellence category, for the contribution made to HR for the economic development of the country.