Two Sri Lankans receive awards for HR excellence

Four leading professionals received Excellence Awards for their contribution to their respective professions at the seventh Annual Convention on Leadership - 2005 sponsored by grid Consultant (Pvt) Ltd, pioneers in leadership training in India, held at the Nehru Centre, Mumbai, India. Amongst them, there were two Sri Lankans, Prof. Gunapala Nanayakkara and Jayanta Jayaratna.

Prof. Gunapala Nanayakkara - Director Post Graduate Institute of Management received the Excellence Award for the Development of Management Education. Prof Nanayakkara who is presently the President of the Association of the Management Development Institutions of South Asia, revolutionised and infused a new vision into the Management Education in Sri Lanka. For nearly quarter century, through the untiring efforts of Prof. Nanayakkara, PIM developed Leaders and produced Managers who created value in their enterprises for the benefit of the larger society.

Commencing post graduate study programs in a modest scale at the Sri Jayewardenepura University in early 1980's, under his able leadership it was transferred in to a dynamic corporate entity.

PIM has now become a centre of Excellence for Management Education in South East Asia. Professor Nanayakkara made a special address on "Collaboration-The Key to Success for Young Leaders" to a distinguished audience comprising leading academics, professionals and business leaders.

Other recipient from Sri Lanka Jayanta Jayaratna - Chief Executive Officer/General Manager of X-Pertise Limited, (a fully owned Subsidiary of Commercial Bank of Ceylon Limited) received the Excellence Award for Human Resource Development. Jayaratna who was former Deputy General Manager (Human Resource Management) of the Commercial Bank, provided the leadership for the Bank to win the Overall National HR Award 2002, for Best HR Practices.

He was a past President of the Institute of Personnel Management Sri Lanka, and a Vice President of Asia Pacific Federation of Human Resource Management.

Jayaratne read a paper on "Career planning for young professionals".

Other two recipients of Excellence Awards were Prof. Syed Zahour Hassan Vice Chancellor, Lahore University of Management Science (LUMS) Pakistan and Professor Hafiz Siddiqi Vice Chancellor North South University (NSU) Bangladesh.