Ceylinco Insurance Board restructured

In a move to prepare the company for climbing greater heights, Ceylinco Insurance has restructured its Board. Senior marketing professional, J. Godwin Perera has been invited to take over as Chairman and Ajith Gunewardena as Managing Director/CEO of Ceylinco Insurance General and R. Renganathan as Managing Director/CEO of Ceylinco Insurance Life.

Both Ajith Gunewardena and R. Renganathan will hold executive authority and responsibility for steering Ceylinco Insurance towards a new chapter.

J. Godwin Perera

The position of Deputy Chairman is no longer applicable following the re-structuring, said a company spokesman.

A Director/Chief Consultant of Unitary Marketing Services and former Head of Marketing at Bank of Ceylon, Godwin Perera has also been the Group Marketing Consultant at Aitken Spence for over a decade where he was actively involved in the Aitken Spence Group, with special emphasis on the Group's leisure sector. He has also served as Director Corporate Planning at Lanka Milk Foods. Godwin Perera is former President of the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing UK and is also a Fellow - CIM. When SLIM introduced a new standard of marketing excellence for the profession in 2009, he was one of the first to be recognized and conferred with the title of Practising Marketer. He has served as Chairman of the Panel of Judges at SLIM's Brand Excellence Awards in 2008 and 2009. He was also a judge in 2008 at SLIM's Effies Advertising Awards . He has been a highly respected and recognized senior lecturer at SLIM for a considerable period of time, sharing his expertise with students sitting for the Chartered Institute of Marketing examinations.

Godwin Perera has authored a popular series of articles titled Marketing for Non Marketers. He has also been a regular contributor to several business journals.

Having served in key state appointed committees viz the steering committee to make recommendations for the accelerated development of the Bandaranaike International Airport to be a South Asian hub and the Committee to make recommendations on steps to be taken by the Apparel Industry to face the challenge of the termination of the Multi Fibre Agreement which preceded the GSP Plus concession, Godwin Perera has also been a member of a government appointed team of business leaders sent to Japan and South Korea to study the concept of Trading Houses. He is an old boy of Royal College, Colombo.

Ajith Gunawardena entered the Ceylinco Group through The Finance Company, where he was able to pioneer the first ever leasing and project financing division in Sri Lanka. He is also credited with the setting up of a hire purchase scheme for consumer durable and import financing, a first for finance companies in Sri Lanka. He pioneered the first ever venture capital company to be set up in Sri Lanka. Having taken over as Director in charge of the General Division of Ceylinco Insurance in 1987, Gunewardena introduced the concept of a direct sales force for the insurance industry in Sri Lanka. On the Spot claim settlement' introduced by him was a concept won the 'Innovation of the Year Award' at the Asia Insurance Industry Awards in 2003. Under his leadership,Ceylinco Insurance selected was one of the top four general insurance companies in Asia in 2000.

It also clinched the Innovation of the Year Award at the 7th Asia Insurance Industry Awards in 2006. Ceylinco Insurance is the only company to win this award twice over. He was also the driving force behind the first ever overseas joint venture for Ceylinco Insurance a strategic alliance with Sagarmatha Insurance of Nepal.

The company was also extended to the Maldives. He has successfully negotiated key joint ventures with Indian giants Larsen and Toubro and the Aditya Birla Group; alliances that resulted in the Ultra Tech Cement brand being available throughout Sri Lanka. Under these joint ventures, the L & T Inforcity, the largest ever call centre in Asia, was engendered.

A chartered accountant by profession, Rajkumar Renganathan joined Ceylinco Consolidated in 1983 and set up the Life Division of Ceylinco Insurance. Ceylinco Life has continued to maintain its leadership in the Life insurance industry for the past six years and won the Asia Insurance Review award for Corporate Social Responsibility in 2005.

Renganathan is also a member of the LIMRA India Sri Lanka Executive Board and was invited to speak at the LOMAL/ LIMRA strategic issue conference held in Kuala Lumpur. He has now ventured into the health care sector providing affordable healthcare facilities to people of Sri Lanka.

With the affiliation of the Washington Cancer Institute, he initially set up a Diabetes Centre, Cancer Detection Centre and a state of the art Cancer Treatment Centre.