COYLE to unveil leadership facets: ‘The Untold Truths of Sri Lankan Entrepreneurs’

The Chamber of Young Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE), the vibrant forum of the new generation entrepreneurs of Sri Lanka, plans to conduct a highly interactive short series of programmes named ‘Different facets of Entrepreneurial Success – The Untold Truth of Sri Lankan Business Heroes’.

The motive behind this endeavour is to bring to the surface the untold truths of success factors and the strategies adopted by leading entrepreneurs in the country in leading their businesses to roaring success despite turbulent and hostile market conditions prevailed during the past three decades.

The programme will help the young entrepreneurs and others practicing managers running organisations to be more efficient and effective in the value creation process and will also provide guidance for facilitators to develop more entrepreneur friendly policies in future.

The first event will take place on 13 October 2011 at the Colombo Hilton and four leading and well-known and highly successful Sri Lankan entrepreneurs – W.K.H. Wegapitiya, Ashok Pathirage, Samantha Kumarasinghe and Sumal Perera – would be featured at this event.

It is globally accepted that entrepreneurs are the people who create wealth for the society and drive innovations and change. Behind these nice words lies their huge responsibility toward the society and all other key stakeholders.

Academics, researches and professional managers around the globe are keen in learning entrepreneurship proving its importance in building sustainable economies and societies, said Nayana Dehigama, Chairman of COYLE.

“We intend interviewing many leading entrepreneurs of the country where a high calibre group of panellists will probe and provoke the discussions to bring to the surface the untold stories together with strategies adopted to address vividly different and unique situations faced by them,” he added. COYLE also plans to document the findings with the help of a group of academics representing several leading universities and professional institutions so that Sri Lankan managers and students will have local case studies of high standards with adequate academic rigor.

“COYLE believes that one day we have to give up learning solely from case studies from the west and the time is right for us to bring to the surface the stories of world class local enterprises and leaders behind such empires. This way we are certain that local talents and achievements will be quoted in international publications, journals and forums. Our effort will also help researchers to contribute to the global public domain of knowledge with grounded theories emanating from Sri Lankan enterprises. In this post war era where accelerated economic growth is the common objective of all patriotic people, it is timely we address these lesser discussed areas which are also vital for us as a country in promoting our image globally,” Dehigama explained.

Established in 1999, COYLE has a membership of over 125 active members who are young entrepreneurs from different parts of the country representing almost all the industry segments.