Chief Executive Officer
Elpitiya Plantations PLC - Manged By Aitken Spence Plantations PLC
In February, 1999, I joined Elpitiya Plantations Plc., my present employer, as a Group Manager on Elpitiya Estate, which is the largest plantation of the company. consisting over 1,100 hectares and cultivated with Rubber , Oil Palm, Cinnamon, Coconut etc.,Elpitiya Plantations Plc is managed by Aitken Spence Plc, which is one of the leading Blue Chip conglomerate in Sri Lanka which is traded in Colombo stock exchange.
At the time of my taking over Elpitiya Estate, it was ranked in the bottom of list of 15 estates managed by Elpitiya Plantations Plc and I was managed to bring it up to the No. 1 position in the company, after a span of five years. This transformation was made possible due to the many field development works undertaken by me with introduction of mechanization in addition to diversification of uneconomical crop fields in to economical crops such as large scale Palm Oil cultivation.
During my tenure as Group Manager on Elpitiya Estate, the Rubber Factory on that estate was developed to produce specialty natural rubber shoe soles , adding value to the raw material, exclusively to export to Messes. Clarks Shoe Company of UK, at premium prices. when the global rubber market was on the downward trend.
In recognition of my performance on Elpitiya Estate, the company promoted me as the Deputy General Manager in the year 2006 and the management of two more estates was entrusted to me, in addition to Elpitiya Estate, making the total number of estates under my charge to three.
In the year 2008, I was elevated to the position of General Manager of Elpitiya Plantations Plc and was given with an additional responsibility of Managing the Elpitiya Lifestyle Solutions (Pvt) Ltd Factory, where rubber wood was treated to turn into house hold furniture,and industrial brush blocks which was another value addition project of rubber timber.Elpitiya Lifestyle Solutions (Pvt) Ltd Factory was a Joint Venture Project between Elpitiya Plantations PLc and the Life Style Solutions Company of the USA.
During the period my tenure as the General Manager, the Cluster of estates under my charge made the highest profit in the company for two consecutive years in the years 2009/10 and 2010/11.
In July, 2011, I was promoted as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Elpitiya Plantations Plc and moved to the Head Office in Colombo, In July 2013, Elpitiya Plantations Plc elevated me to the position of Chief Executive Officer entrusting more responsibilities on me in the operations of the Company.
At this time, I took the initiative to formulate the ‘Plant ERM’ Project in collaboration with the Ace Technologies Plc to introduce the first indigenous “In house IT Solutions System “ amongst the RPCs in Sri Lanka to link the plantations with the Head Office live, which is now being put into practice among the 13 estates managed by this company,
The implementation of the Strategic Investments by Elpitiya Plantations Plc into diversifying its activities into generation of hydro power, Commercial Forestry, Eco Tourism, marketing of own branded teas etc., and commencing Joint Venture projects to process Palm Oil and producing specialty black teas exclusively for export markets, mainly targeting the high end users in China, have paid rich dividends.
2013/14 financial year, Elpitiya Plantations Plc ranked as the No. 2 place Company among the twenty two RPCs in the country on earned profits, and topped the ranking as the No. 1 RPC in terms of profit per unit area.
In the financial year 2014/15 ended on 31st March, 2015, Elpitiya Plantations Plc become the No. 1 Plantation Company among all the RPCs both in terms of earned profits and profit per Unit area.