Financial Times

Athwela in joint seminars with Kent Academy

Athwela Business Journal, the Sinhala business magazine has joined hands with the Kent Academy of Career Training to conduct a series of seminars on personal excellence. The seminars will have the objective of helping the participants to realise the full potential of their mind.

It is targetted at business owners and operators, employees and youth with the first seminar of the series being held in on January 25.

Managing Director of Athwela (Private) Ltd, Ms. Nilooka Dissanayake said the new seminar series said as a result of extensive research they developed the VISHISTAGHARAYA series of seminars to help people bring about a positive change in their lives. So far 30 such seminars have been conducted across the country.

Pradeepa Kekulawala, Head of Career Training of the Kent Academy says the vision of the Kent Academy of Career Training is to be "the catalyst in human talent development."

ComBank's overall winner in HRM awards contest

Commercial Bank was the overall winner of the coveted National HRM ward 2002', at the first ever National Human Resources Management Awards Convention held recently.

The competition was jointly organised by the Institute of Personnel Management, Sri Lanka, Post Graduate Institute of Management and Association of Human Resource Management Professionals. About 47 companies including several blue chips and multinationals took part in the second and final round of this competition.

M.N.J. Jayaratne, the Bank's DGM (HRM), said the Commercial Bank has consistently maintained that the people factor is one of the most critical contributory factors towards the success of the bank. Significant investments have been made to provide staff with a conducive and motivating work environment, with accent on continuous learning and improvement as well as a well equipped Staff Development Centre, which now caters not only to bank staff but also to several other banking and mercantile institutions as well, according to a bank statement.

Asian Paints offers free insurance to accredited painters

Asian Paints (Lanka) Ltd., the Sri Lanka operation of the India-based multinational coatings giant, is offering free insurance to painters in a unique gesture of caring and appreciation for the artisans who use the company's products.

The insurance cover, possibly the first to be provided by a product manufacturer in Sri Lanka to users of its products, is a comprehensive accident insurance scheme that would pay up to Rs. 250,000 in compensation per painter, the company said.

Painters who complete a two-day training cum accreditation programme developed by the company now receive their accreditation certificate plus a one-year insurance policy from Ceylinco Insurance, courtesy Asian Paints."We believe that a painter is our partner in delivering a quality product to the customer.”

Nextventures sets up an International Advisory Panel

Nextventures Ltd has setup an international advisory panel that will provide strategic advice to the company. The setting up of the panel comes at a time when the company is planning to extend investments to international companies through share conversion options, a company statement said.

Nextventures already has secured an investment of this nature in Textcentric Technologies (Pvt)Ltd, the local development centre of a company based in Pittsburgh, USA. Textcentric has been identified by Nextventures as an investment that has good potential in the areas of digital content solutions and E-learning.

It said the Sri Lankan government has recognized the importance of this international perspective by allowing - through the last budget - an investment of upto 20 percent of new venture capital funds in off-shore subsidiaries or holding companies of local investee companies.

Advisors who have been already invited to the panel are Herman Ziegelaar, Chairman Millennium Information Technologies (Pvt) Ltd, Dr. Sivaprakasam Sivakumar, Director/Research of the Schwendiman Group of Companies, Boston, USA and Dr. Bandula Wijay, a scientist and renowned businessman who has founded three medical device companies in the US. The panel has also been strategically selected because of their expertise in specific markets in the US, and Europe, the key markets for the majority of Nextventures investee companies in the technology sector.

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