Razik Zarook new BOC Chairman

Tuesday, 15 January 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Top lawyer and former diplomat and head of several State entities Razik Zarook has been appointed as the new Chairman of Bank of Ceylon.

He succeeds Dr. Gamini Wickramasinghe, who resigned last week after a six-year stint at the State giant.

Zarook is expected to assume office at BOC this week.

A senior Attorney-at-Law, who was enrolled to the Bar in 1969, Zarook’s management skills came to the limelight when he was appointed Chairman of the Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) by the then Trade and Shipping Minister late Lalith Athulathmudali PC.

He was given the responsibility of turning around the CWE to become an efficient and viable much sought after consumer organisation responsible for the wide distribution of essential commodities without letting any artificial scarcities be created even during turbulent times.

Under his tenure, the CWE was a model profitable and viable organisation having diversified and acquired many assets, developing real estates, and establishing a number of public quoted companies as Sathosa Motors Limited, Sathosa Printers Limited, and Lanka Milk Foods Limited, of which he was founder Chairman.

Zarook, an old boy of St. Servatius College, Matara, and Zahira College, Colombo, also held office as Chairman of the Agricultural Development Authority and National Aquatic Research and Development Authority (NARA).

Late President Premadasa appointed him as Ambassador to the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and thereafter as the first Ambassador to Hungary. Subsequently he was appointed as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Singapore.

Apart from his professional education at the Sri Lanka Law College, Zarook is also an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management Ahamedabad.