PIM Alumni (PIMA) is the association of academic and professionals who graduated with Masters and Doctoral degrees from the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM), affiliated to the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. PIMA recently organised a vibrant felicitation ceremony for new Director and PIM Board of Governors Chairman Prof. Ajantha S. Dharmasiri, at JAIC 0Hilton.  

The objective of this colourful ceremony was to recognize Prof. Dharmasiri’s recent prestigious appointment to the PIM, and awarding him the full professorship of management and to appreciate 

his valuable services rendered to PIMA as its Patron, as well as longstanding advisor.   

Prof. Dharmasiri also serves as an adjunct professor at the Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, USA. He has over two decades of both private and public sector working experience in diverse environments including multinational Unilever and Nestle. He has engaged in consultancies in more than 14 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He serves in the Board of National Institute of Business Management (NIBM), Citizens Development Bank (CDB) and the Association of the Management Development Institute of South Asia (AMDISA). He was also a member of the governing council of the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM) in Sri Lanka. 

He is a Commonwealth AMDISA Doctoral Fellow and a Fulbright Post-Doctoral Fellow. He holds a PhD and an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and a BSc, in Electrical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa. He is a Chartered Electrical Engineer by profession and a member of the Chartered Institute of Management, UK as well. 

Prof. Dharmasiri as an academic scholar and has presented research papers at international conferences in more than 10 cities in Asia, America, Australia and Europe. He has published articles in local and foreign journals and also an author of six books. He has won many accolades including gold medals for best papers in two international management conferences. And in 2010, the Platinum Awards by the Alumni of the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIMA) for outstanding academic contribution. 

He recently won the prestigious IPM Lifetime Gold award 2014, the highest honour for an HR professional in Sri Lanka. He is also a fellow   member of the Sri Lanka Institute of Training and Development (SLITAD). He also functions as a certified Peer Reviewer of the South Asian Quality System (SAQS) as well.
The initiation of his career with the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and at the PIM has been truly interesting. Being an enthusiastic  and dedicated  young  senior corporate manager from   the  well-known  private sector in Sri Lanka, few visits to the PIM prompted  him  to commence  lecturing in management and within  a short period of time he  transformed himself as one of the leading   presenters  in the field of human resource management  in Sri Lanka. Soon after the tenure of Prof. Mangala Fonseka, Prof. Dharmasiri was entrusted to serve as the Acting Director of the PIM and during a limited period of time, PIM was fortunate to witness the gradual transformation of the institute with new MBA programmes here at the PIM in Sri Lanka as well as in the Middle East. During this period, several affiliations with world-renowned universities for post-doctoral studies have given extra strength to the PIM. His  valuable  contributions to the  field of human resource  management  was  highly recognized  recently by the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM), which  presented him the lifetime Gold Award for his invaluable contributions to the field of education and  human resource management .

The keynote address at the felicitation was delivered by Institute of Policy Studies in 
Sri Lanka Executive Director Dr. Saman Kelegama.