As a company recognised for being one of Asia’s Best Places to Work and boasting
of a culture demonstrating great leadership, Airtel Lanka recently saw three of its department heads
take home accolades at the recently concluded Great Manager Awards 2021, hosted by the
Colombo Leadership Academy (CLA).
Through progressive manager development initiatives such as “Lead Right”, Airtel Lanka aims to
advance its managers to become effective and transformational leaders. The company often engages
in such initiatives through partnerships with local institutes and the Airtel Global Leadership
Academy.
“While we are being proactive in our journey to convey excellence in our offerings, we also strive to
nurture leadership and strategic expertise among our key managers and senior staff members.
Today’s achievements certainly mark a milestone in our relentless efforts towards developing
learned and multi-talented leaders,” commented Airtel Lanka Managing Director and CEO Ashish
Chandra.
From Airtel Lanka’s Finance Department, Eranda Siriwardena – Head, Business Planning and Analysis
and Fawaz Nizamdeen – Head, Contact Experience were awarded in the “Aligning Organisational
Vision” category, while Duminda Akalanka – Senior Manager, Channel Accounting was awarded in
the “Driving Results & Execution Excellence” category.
Airtel Lanka’s victory came following the successful recognition under two rounds of selection,
where in the first round, a survey was conducted among each participant’s peers and subordinates.
In the second round, the selected persons underwent interviews with the Governors of CLA.
These three participants stood out for their leadership styles, team management skills, strategy
execution, focus on personal development and more.
Sharing his views on the victory, Eranda Siriwardena said that, “An effective strategy coupled with
spot-on delegation of duties is a key winning factor seen at Airtel Lanka, and I am happy to have
played a part in it.”
Fawaz Nizamdeen shared a similar remark to his win, “Without the support from management, that
centres its operations on excellent customer satisfaction and a fantastic team that shares the same
view, any business would fail to deliver a stellar customer experience.”
Furthermore, Duminda Akalanka noted, “I have always believed that relationships, maintained well
over time, will bring about fruitful returns to all parties concerned. I am thankful to Airtel Lanka for
accepting, supporting and nourishing my leadership which has in return brought us many successful
long-term collaborations.”
On an individual level, the Great Manager Awards serves as an opportunity for each company to
learn of its own managerial and leadership effectiveness quotient and assess itself when placed
against the best in the country, identifying overall strengths and areas of development for the
managerial pool within the company. In this there is also an opportunity to evolve higher
engagement levels through building stronger managers and strengthen the manager community in the
industry. The awards also serve the greater purpose of assessing the eco system of nurturing great
managers and best practices amongst a wide spectrum of organizations in the country as a whole.
Bharti Airtel Lanka
Bharti Airtel Lanka commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka in 2009 and
was the fastest operator to reach 1 million customers. The Airtel Lanka offering of
technology innovation and service excellence has seen rapid adoption rates among the Sri
Lanka youth. Registered under the Board of Investment in Sri Lanka, Airtel Lanka provides
digital mobile services which include voice, data and enterprise solutions and currently
ranked the fastest 3G mobile network provider in Sri Lanka.
