Dharshana Wanniarachchi and Thilan Dassanayake win CTC Chairman’s Award

Dharshana Wanniarachchi and Thilan Dassanayake 

Ceylon Tobacco Company PLC (CTC) recently bestowed the company’s highest honour, the Chairman’s Award, upon Dharshana Wanniarachchi, the Leaf Production Manager and Thilan Dassanayake, Business Development Manager, for the years 2020 and 2019 respectively. 

The award is presented in recognition of outstanding personal contribution to the growth and development of the business. 

“Winning the Chairman’s Award was the proudest moment of my career and I am honoured that my efforts have been recognised in this manner,” said Dharshana. “I am also extremely proud to lead this project that will contribute significantly to the company’s ESG agenda by improving efficiencies, which in turn will enhance farmers livelihoods. I would like to thank my team for their support during this past year, which helped me to successfully launch this project and I believe its implementation will help us to continue delivering value to our leaf farmers in line with our ambition of creating A Better Tomorrow.” 

Thilan speaking on his recognition noted, “It’s a great feeling to see your efforts being rewarded and I am overwhelmed and happy to win the Chairman’s Award. I am proud that the project led by me was successful in redefining our Trade Marketing and Distribution model to enhance efficiencies and deliver better value. I must also add that you can’t achieve this on your own; it was a collective team effort, and I must extend my heartfelt gratitude to my entire team for the support extended.”

CTC Chief Executive Officer Nedal Salem said, “I am very happy that Dharshana and Thilan won the Chairman’s Award in recognition of their hard work and dedication. I take this opportunity to congratulate them on this well-deserved win. Here at CTC, we drive a culture of recognition; rewarding good things done by our employees. We continuously challenge our people to move out of their comfort zone and push the bar higher day in, day out. We empower them to be bold and resilient in the face of challenges and I believe this is what makes our people some of the best talent within the BAT group as well as across Sri Lanka.”

CTC has continuously implemented various initiatives that highlight and recognise hard work and innovation by its people, which inspires employees to strive to reach greater heights and shapes their thinking towards working proactively. Most recently CTC was also recognised as a Top Employer 2021 by the prestigious Top Employer institute.