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Commencing her career at Jetwing as Assistant Sales and Reservations Manager, Jayawardena then moved to Cinnamon Grand as Manager Corporate Sales where she took up the role to develop and increase business, while boosting strategic business opportunities and selling the benefits of the hotel to new clients with an overall aim of increasing its account base and bringing on new business. She also had brief stints at the management consulting firm, Ma Foi Randstad as a Business Development Manager and at Vogue Jewellers as Manager Marketing.
Speaking of her current role in business development she stated that she works to ensure all opportunities are taken to promote and establish key relationships with corporate clients.
“Throughout my career I have had the opportunity of dealing with over 200 corporate clients and I am confident that the relationships I have built with these clients can prove to be beneficial to ACCA, as I will work on making them both understand and endorse the benefits that a qualification such as ACCA can give to both students and business entities,” Jayawardena said.
Explaining the marker position gained by ACCA and its reputation of being among the largest, most pro-active and dynamic accounting bodies in the world, Jayawardena assured that the body offers the ideal finance qualification in the country.
“ACCA works closely with multinationals to promote global standards and aims to meet the current and future needs of international business,” she said. “Today the ACCA qualification is considered to be one of the highest-ranking accountancy qualifications in the world and many ACCA holders have taken up top financial positions in both the public and private sectors. This is due to the length and breadth of the qualification that covers all the key aspects of finance from taxation, auditing and even ethics that play a key role in todays context. Therefore ACCA is easily the best option for accountancy in the industry, she said.
With the role of accountants changing so radically from a back-office operation to playing a key role in an organisation that includes analysing information and preparing reports for management decision-making to better the future of the company, ACCA’s holistic coverage on theory and practicals helps with strategic decision-making and providing information to company boards.
Jayawardena elaborated saying, “with such a scenario existing, the qualification you choose to do should be a globally represented one and should be accepted by employers worldwide and not be restricted to certain regions of the world. This is where the ACCA qualification has a definite edge”.
Outlining the marketing efforts that have been taken to build awareness of the qualification in Sri Lanka, Jayawardena cited the “Approved Employer Programme” where global best practice in the provision of learning and development opportunities for trainees and members are inculcated. This program looks at granting recognition for in-house training policies and development activities and will actively support the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) of qualified accounting and finance professionals.
Jayawardena also pointed out: We are also working on increasing this base in order to give more benefits not only to our members but to corporates as well, as they will have the benefit of having employees that have the knowledge and know-how of globally accepted accounting practices and ethics.”
ACCA have also been working closely with universities with the aim of offering benefit of the ACCA qualification to university students as well by recognising the degrees that they have achieved and offering them relevant exemptions to gain a global qualification while obtaining their university degree. “This we believe will give them a definite edge when it comes to interviews and will also give the county graduates with a global outlook,“ she concluded.
