Rohan Somawansa takes over reins as new SLIM President

Rohan Somawansa, General Manager (Marketing) at the DSI Samson Group was recently inducted as the new President of the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing for 2010/2011.

 

 

With twenty years of marketing and sales experience, Somawansa has held several senior management positions during his career. He qualified from the Chartered Institute of Marketing with a Post Graduate Diploma, and from the Asia Marketing Federation with the Certified Professional Marketer Status. He also has DBFA from the Instituteof Chartered Accountants (Sri Lanka).

 

 

His work experience with some of the Fortune 500 companies and local stakeholders is expected to add extra value to SLIM in strategic decision making of which he is a firm believer. Introducing a link between the financial, human resources, and marketing organisations is his next important task. He says that this will be the pinnacle organisation of the business sector with discussions already underway.

 

 

One of his main objectives for the year is to get recognition for marketing by producing better quality marketers who can contribute in the Board Room.

 

Rohan is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and a Board Member of the Asia Marketing Federation.

 

 

Joining the SLIM Executive Committee in 2005, Rohan was also the Chairman of the first-ever Peoples Awards Programme that year. This innovative project won accolades from the corporate world for its research based findings.

 

 

In 2006 he joined the Council of Management as Assistant Secretary and went on to become Secretary. As Vice President – Education Somawansa initiated many value additions which helped to publish results in record time, upgrading the syllabus and providing on-line education.

 

 

2009 saw Somawansa taking over as Vice President – Projects, where he was involved with all national projects handled by SLIM including NASCO, Effies, Brand Excellence, and Peoples Awards. NASCO was completely revamped that year making it a competition rather than having NASCO as an awards ceremony for participants.

 

 

He is also a well known trainer, visiting lecturer and Chief Examiner for the’ Marketing’ paper at CMA examinations.

 

 

Somawansa was also involved in activities of national importance such as the Volleyball Federation, where he is Vice President. He was Media Director of the Asian Junior Volleyball Games in 2009. In addition to his professional career he is also a sportsman having played cricket at inter-school level and also at club level.

 

 

Using the experience gained as a sportsman has given him an advantage when taking corporate decisions. “Both types of decisions require the team to be better motivated to achieve the final objective. This, plus team spirit and leadership, have always worked wonders in the corporate sector”, he says.