17th January 2012: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) inducted Sujeewa Rajapakse as the 21st President of the Institute on 17th January 2012 at a ceremony attended by corporate leaders and elite professionals in Sri Lanka at the Oak Room of the Cinnamon Grand Hotel Colombo.
Mr. Rajapakse was ceremonially inducted in the presence of the Chief Guest Mr. Ajith Nivard Cabraal, the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
A leading corporate figure in the world of finance, Mr. Rajapakse is a fellow of the Institute with over 25 years of experience in practice and has wide exposure in diversified businesses and activities both nationally and internationally.
He is the Managing Partner of BDO Partners, a firm of Chartered Accountants in Sri Lanka which is a member firm of BDO International, the world’s fifth largest accountancy and advisory services network and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Development Bank and Asian Alliance Insurance PLC.
Mr. Rajapakse who holds a MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura was enrolled as an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka in 1994 and as a Fellow of the Institute in 1999. He was elected as a Member of Council of the Institute in 2003 and as the Vice President of the Institute in 2009.
He has also been extensively involved in Institute activities and has served as Chairman in several important committees of the Institute.
In addition, Mr. Rajapakse also represents the Institute in the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board, South Asian Federation of Accountants (Board Member), Confederation of Asia Pacific Accountants as a Technical Advisor, the International Federation of Accountants and in the Monitory Policy Consultative Committee of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, Mr. Arjuna Herath, Partner at Ernst and Young with over 20 years of experience was elected as the Vice President of the Institute. Mr. Herath was initially appointed as a Member of Council during the periods of 2002/03 and 2005/06 and was subsequently elected to the Council in 2010/11.
He presently serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board and has served as a member of the Board of Directors of United Motors Lanka Ltd., Nepal Sri Lanka Merchant Bank Ltd. in Nepal, GTE Directories Lanka Pvt. Ltd., Orient Financial Services Corporation Ltd., Astron Ltd., and GTB Colombo Corporations Ltd.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka has been in existence for over 52- years and is a globally recognised accountancy body, and one of the country’s largest professional organisations. The institute has 4200 members and over 36,000 registered students, making it among the largest tertiary education providers outside the university system.
The institute is the first professional accountancy organisation to be incorporated under an Act of Parliament in 1959 and has been conferred the sole authority of formulating Accounting and Auditing Standards in Sri Lanka. The Institute provides a wide variety of services, setting a benchmark for the highest ethical and professional standards as well as governance procedures.
