Lanka Milk Foods appoints Manil and Thusitha to Board

Manil Jayesinghe

Thusitha Cooray

Lanka Milk Foods (CWE) PLC has appointed Manil Jayesinghe and Thusitha Cooray to its Board as Independent Non-Executive Directors.

Jayesinghe is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, the

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK) and the Certified Management Accountants of Sri Lanka. He is also a member of The Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy.

Jayesinghe possesses over 41 years of experience in advisory and industry across key sectors in Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan. He served as the Country Managing Partner of Ernst & Young Sri Lanka and Maldives from 2021-2023, Head of Assurance Practice in Sri Lanka, and the Professional Practice Director of Sri Lanka from 2003-2023.

He is the current chairman of the Statutory Accounting Standards Committee. He serves as the Chairman of the Accounting Standards Committee of the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), a member of Commission of Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka, a board member of the Board of investment of Sri Lanka and a member of the Governing Board of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Jayesinghe is the immediate Past President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. He is an independent Director on the Boards of Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC, Ceylon Hospitals PLC, C W Mackie PLC and Sahasiya investments Ltd.

Thusitha Cooray holds an MBA from Henley Business School, UK, and a BSc in Management from the University of London (Int). He holds a Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK. Most recently, he completed a Transformational Leadership program at INSEAD Business School in Fontainebleau, France.

He began his career in 2001 in apparel manufacturing and has held numerous positions within the industry. He possesses over 22 years’ experience in marketing and business development, business transformation, corporate planning, strategy and operations. 

He currently serves as Chief Transformation Officer – Hirdaramani Industries Ltd. Previously he served as Chief Operating Officer, Hirdaramani Discovery Lab where he was responsible for setting up the state-of-the-art Design and Product Development Centre focusing on Innovation, Co-creation, and Product Sustainability. 

With the latest appointments, the Board of Lanka Milk Foods (CWE) PLC comprises D.H.S. Jayawardena (Chairman), C.R. Jansz, D.S.K. Amarasekera, S. Arinesarajah, D. Hasitha Stassen Jayawardena, D.S.T. Jayawardena, H.M.A. Jayasinghe, and J.T.M. Cooray.