Thilan to deliver Annual Olcott Oration at Ananda College

Thilan Wijesinghe, an illustrious old Anandian, will on 29 October deliver a lecture titled ‘Bridging the ideological divide that caused Sri Lanka’s economic crisis.’

This event, to be held at the Ananda College Kularatne Auditorium, has been a key feature of annual events organised by the Ananda College Old Boys’ Association in commemoration of the founder of Ananda, Henry Steel Olcott.

Previous speakers at the Olcott oration have included old Anandians Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe, current Governor of the Central Bank, Ravinatha Ariyasinghe, former ambassador to the US and Foreign Secretary and Sanjiva Senanayake, formerly with Citibank country head of IFC in Sri Lanka and Maldives

Thilan attended Ananda from grade 1 to 12 and was better known in his schooldays for his prowess at cricket. At 13 years of age, he was the youngest ever to play a full season for Ananda’s First XI, and has the unique record of having played for Ananda’s Under 14, Under 16 and First XI teams in the same calendar year.

He captained school cricket teams in all ages, establishing several records in the Ananda Nalanda Big Match series. These included scoring a century in the Big Match breaking a 44 year old record and record for the highest run aggregate for an Anandian in the Big Match and 50-over series. He captained 50th Ananda-Nalanda Big Match in 1979 and left for USA for his university studies. Returning to cricket in 1984, Thilan captained the Tamil Union Division 1 team and the Sri Lanka A team in 1991 and 1992

Thilan was also the youngest ever to hold the office of Chairman Board of Investment, and later became the first Chairman of the National Agency for Public Private Partnership. He is widely recognised as the pioneer in structuring Public Private Partnerships in Sri Lanka in the ports, power and several other sectors.

Thilan is currently Chairman and CEO of TWCorp (or TWC), an investment bank he founded 10 years ago. TWC also specialises in PPP structuring and policy and has expanded its footprint to Maldives and Bangladesh. The company is and currently engaged in assisting the Finance Ministry of Maldives in framing a PPP policy and PPP Law. He is also a co-founder and Director of SLIIT, Sri Lanka’s largest private not-for-profit university.