Three Chartered Accountants won the Best Entrepreneur, Best CFO, and Rising CFO awards for transcending businesses to the next level and effectively contributing to society and country.
The awards were presented by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) at the 43rd National Conference of Chartered Accountants at the Monarch Imperial.
Chairman and Managing Director of Mega Heaters Group, Upali Jayasekara was declared CA Sri Lanka’s Best Entrepreneur for the year 2022, while General Manager – Finance at Ceylon Biscuits Limited Daham Gunasena was adjudged CA Sri Lanka’s Best CFO and Head of Finance at NSBM Green University, Ms. Randi Kailashinie Thiranagama was named Rising CFO.
The three outstanding members of CA Sri Lanka were selected following a stringent evaluation process.
The awards were presented by President of CA Sri Lanka, Sanjaya Bandara.
Sanjaya Bandara said that CA Sri Lanka has produced and continues to produce exceptional Chartered Accountants, who have moved away from the traditional number-crunching roles to take on leadership and strategic positions, apart from being identified as the brains behind many successful corporates.
“Our Chartered Accountants don’t limit themselves to only steering the corporate world, many of them have also gone on to set up businesses or continue their family legacy and convert small and medium businesses into successful business empires,” he said.
Upali Jayasekara was adjudged Best Entrepreneur for been instrumental in turning around his family-owned business from a dying enterprise into a market leader with four state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. Today, the business has branched out, diversifying into manufacturing, restaurants, hotels and accommodation, real estate, and information technology. The primary criteria for judging the best entrepreneur were based on the contribution to the economy, the volume of the enterprise, recorded growth and future growth plans.
Daham Gunasena was awarded the Best CFO for his contribution to the corporate world, the profession and society. He is a senior c-suite executive with over 20 years of experience in finance and supply chain and has a proven track record of successfully delivering outstanding commercial results to leading Sri Lankan and multinational organisations.
Ms. Randi Kailashinie Thiranagama was adjudged Rising CFO for her contribution to the organisation in terms of innovation, strategy deployment, and new product development. She has been an important pillar in contributing to the success of NSBM Green University due to ensuring the smooth financing of the project apart from being a member of the top management, where she contributes to the corporate and strategic leadership of the university.