Rajendra Theagarajah wins Asian Banker Leadership Award:

Hatton National Bank named Best Managed Bank

RajendraTheagarajah, Managing Director and CEO of Hatton National Bank has been named the winner of The Asian Banker Leadership Achievement Award 2013 for Sri Lanka. Under his leadership, Hatton National Bank has also been recognized as The Best Managed Bank in Sri Lanka. Theagarajah received both awards at the Leadership Achievement Awards. Ceremony held in conjunction with The Asian Banker Summit 2013 at the Ritz Carlton Kuningan in Jakarta,on April 23rd 2013.

Rajendra Theagarajah, Managing Director/CEO, HNB with William Isacc, Former Chairman, FDIC and Boon Ping Foo, Managing Editor, Asian Banker at the event.

The Asian Banker and the Council of Advisors for the Leadership Achievement Awards programme were impressed with Theagarajah’s achievements in the period under review. Under his leadership, the bank experienced solid growth in core banking profits above industry peers despite the challenges from global economic crisis and a volatile local macro economy.

It is the first Sri Lankan Bank to receive an International Credit Rating on par with a sovereign rating due to the successful capital augmentation efforts to keep capital adequacy ratios well above industry peers.

Under Theagarajah, the bank developed a strong and robust risk management infrastructure through a progressive journey to implement Basel IRB infrastructure for Credit, Operational and Market Risks. Theagarajah counts over 28 years of experience in Banking including overseas assignments in Europe, Middle East and the Africa region.

His leadership as the Managing Director and CEO of Hatton National Bank has not only helped the bank achieve strong financials with a robust and sophisticated business that straddles a broad range of business lines with strong fee-generating capabilities, with the remarkable progress that the bank made under his leadership, Theagarajah rightfully wins the Leadership Achievement Award for in 2013 and leads to the Best Managed Bank award win.

In 2010. Theagarajah was awarded the Asian Banker Leadership Achievement Award and is the only recipient to win this award for two successive 3 year evaluation cycles.

The Leadership Achievement Award is a recognition programme that is run once every three years to assess the leadership of bank Chairmen and CEOs on their respective businesses and the industry as a whole.