Dr. Ajantha Dharmasiri new Director of PIM

The University Grants Commission (UGC) recently appointed Dr. Ajantha Dharmasiri as the Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM). 

He will also continue as the Chairman of the Board of Management and the Board of Studies of PIM. Dharmasiri has been serving as the Acting Director of PIM for the last 10 months. 

PIM, being the pioneer in the postgraduate management education in Sri Lanka, is the only self-financed higher education institution in the State university system with ISO certification and AACSB accreditation membership. 

Dr. Dharmasiri has been associating with PIM for more than 10 years in various capacities such as a visiting faculty, a senior consultant and a senior lecturer. During his tenure as the Acting Director, he introduced a five-year strategic plan towards making PIM a centre of management excellence in South Asia, with five pillars in focus, viz. , teaching, research, partnerships, infrastructure and governance. 

Under a renewed theme, ‘igniting human imagination,’ PIM saw several new initiatives such as student research day, innovation forum and multiple MBA specialisations.   The new Director of PIM also serves as an adjunct professor in International Human Resource Management at the Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, USA. He is a Commonwealth AMDISA Doctoral Fellow and a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow. 

He holds a Ph.D. and an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa. He is a Chartered Electrical Engineer and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Management, UK as well. Dr. Dharmasiri has over two decades of both private and public sector working experience in diverse environments including Unilever and Nestlé. He has engaged in consultancies in more than 14 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. 

He serves on the Boards of National Institute of Business Management (NIBM), Citizens Development Bank (CDB) and the Association of Management Development Institutions of South Asia (AMDISA). He is also a member of the Governing Council of the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM), Sri Lanka.

He won the prestigious IPM Lifetime Gold Award 2014, the highest honour for an HR professional in Sri Lanka.