21st January 2014: Eminent Chartered Accountant, Arjuna Herath was inducted as the 22nd President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) on 21st January 2014 in the presence of a high-profile audience comprising of top accounting personalities from across the world, members of the Institute and business leaders in Sri Lanka.
Herath was ceremonially inducted under the distinguished patronage of Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and Warren Allen, President of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), at the Cinnamon Grand Colombo.
A leading figure in the corporate world, Herath is a fellow member of CA Sri Lanka with over 20 years of experience in industry and practice and is presently a Partner of Ernst & Young.
The high-profile guest list also included Subodh Kumar Agrawal, President of the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), the Presidents of the Institutes of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal, and the Presidents of the Institutes of Cost and Management Accountants of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepaland Brian Blood, Chief Executive of the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants (CAPA).
Herath serves on several regulatory bodies including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Sri Lanka Accounting & Auditing Standards Monitoring Board. He is also a member of the Accounting Standards Committee and the Auditing Standards Committee in Sri Lanka.
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He also plays a significant role in the international accounting arena, in his current capacity as the Vice President of SAFA, which is an apex body of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) and as a Board Member of CAPA. He also serves as a member of the Professional Accountants Development Committee of IFAC, the world’s apex body of the accounting profession, which represents over 2.5 million accountants across 130 countries.
Herath, a product of Royal College, Colombo qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1990 and holds a B.Sc. degree and a MA in Financial Economics from the University of Colombo and a MBA from the University of Strathclyde, UK.
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He has also been extensively involved in Institute activities and has served as Chairman in several important committees of the Institute over the years.
Meanwhile, Lasantha Wickremasinghe, Partner at B. R. De Silva & Co. Chartered Accountants was elected as the Vice President of CA Sri Lanka along with the new council members.
A fellow member of the institute, Wickremasinghe qualified as a chartered accountant in 1996. He is currently the chairman of the SAFA Committee for Improvement in Transparency, Accountability and Governance (ITAG) and the SAFA Best Annual Report Awards Competition.
He has also served as a Council Member of the Association of Accounting Technicians of Sri Lanka during 2004-2007.
A former member of CA Sri Lanka’s Urgent Issues Task Force (UITF), Professional Conduct and Ethics Committee and the Statutory Auditing Standards Committee, Wickremasinghe has also served as a judge for the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ Awards organized by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka and the ‘Achievers’ Awards organised by the Ceylon National Chamber of Industries.
