New Chairman, Deputy Chairman at ComBank

Chairman Prof. A.K.W. Jayawardane (left) and Deputy Chairman Sharham Muhseen 

Commercial Bank PLC has announced the appointment of a new Chairman and Deputy Chairman with effect from 1 March. Current Deputy Chairman Prof. A.K.W. Jayawardane will be the new Chairman, succeeding Justice K. Sripavan who is retiring, whilst Sharham Muhseen will be the new Deputy Chairman.

Justice Sripavan was appointed Chairman on 21 December 2020 whilst he joined the Board in April 2017. Prof. Jayawardane has been a member of Commercial Bank board since April 2015 and was appointed as the Deputy Chairman in December 2020.

Jayawardane was Vice Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa until 27 November 2017 and is a Senior Professor in Civil Engineering as well as an academic of high repute. He was the Dean, Faculty of Engineering for six years at the University of Moratuwa.

He holds a PhD in Construction Management and a Master of Science Degree in Construction from the Loughborough University of Technology, UK and a BSc Eng. Degree in Civil Engineering with first class honours from the University of Moratuwa. 

Also a Corporate Member, a Fellow and an International Professional Engineer of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL), CEng, FIE(SL), IntPE(SL), Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka, FNAS(SL), Founder Member of the Society of Structural Engineers Sri Lanka MSSE(SL), Fellow of the Institute of Project Managers, Sri Lanka, FIPM (SL) and a life member of Sri Lanka Association for Advancement of Science.

Deputy Chairman Muhseen was appointed to the Board in February 2021. He is a senior investment banker with extensive experience in areas of Mergers and Acquisitions, Corporate Finance and Capital Markets, who has served in a senior capacity working with company boards and senior leadership teams of financial institutions across Asia to help drive their strategic corporate agenda and roadmap.

In his career spanning over 20 years in Investment Banking, he has completed landmark mergers and capital raising transactions in excess of $ 100 billion. The Asia FIG sectors team at Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse has won the “FIG Asia House of the Year” award from the Asset magazine for several years under his leadership. Multiple transactions he led have been awarded as best country deals and best financial sector capital raise transactions.

He holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Colombo, a Bachelor of Business Administration (Hons) from Western Michigan University and has completed the Corporate Finance training program with JPMorgan in New York.

Previously Muhseen worked in best-in-class global investment banks, Credit Suisse, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan in leading regional coverage roles. His most immediate previous role was as Managing Director, Head of South East Asia Financial Institutions Group (FIG) and Head of Asia Insurance at Credit Suisse based in Singapore. He was an Associate Director of Deloitte.