The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Sri Lanka held its 34thAnnual General Meeting (AGM) recently at The Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo, attended by an august gathering of members.
Gayani De Alwis was elected, uncontested as the 21st Chairperson of CILT Sri Lanka. It is the second time that CILT Sri Lanka elected a female Chairperson after 27 years. The three Vice Chairpersons elected were Dr. Namali Sirisoma, Channaka De Alwis and Gihan Jayasinghe. Dr. Lalith Edirisinghe and Upali Gunawardena were elected as the Secretary and Treasurer respectively.
De Alwis is an experienced supply chain professional with over two decades of experience in the profession, locally and overseas. She was the former Director of Customer Service of Unilever Sri Lanka. She was the founding Chairperson of Women in Logistics and Transport (WiLAT) Sri Lanka and had been an active Chartered member of CILT Sri Lanka Council since 2011.
The AGM also featured strong representation from the women’s forum of CILT Sri Lanka, WiLAT Sri Lanka and the Young Professionals’ Forum (YPF) Sri Lanka and below are the extracts from the newly elected Chairperson’s inaugural address themed “STRONGER TOGETHER”.
“We are the only chartered professional body in the country for professionals engaged in logistics, transport and supply chain. Our aim is to develop the science and art of logistics and transport.”
CILT was setup in 1919 in the UK, and we are celebrating our 100 years of existence next year. Over the years the CILT has been led by 20 exemplary chairpersons, bringing the CILT to what it is today. SL has been very progressive towards gender diversity with Mandri Sahabandu, our first female Chairperson appointed in 1991, long before CILT international appointed Dr Dorothy Chan in 2013.
Today in Sri Lanka there is much interest in logistics, transport and supply chain as a discipline.We have seen many universities and educational institutes venturing into this space both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.We have seen international university study programs launched in Sri Lanka.This in fact is an opportunity for us to develop a continuous pipeline of student and professional members by engaging them with CILT.
Another priority therefore is for CILT to continue to accredit more educational service providers and courses run by universities and position CILT qualification and accreditation as a preferred choice for the industry.
CILT will continue to assure quality of these programs by developing course curriculum and through the quality assurance process.Advanced certificate program, which CILT started, will be concluded in September this year with the batch completing the program.
CILT will also develop tailor made programs for companies and for public through experts from our membership.So we will be reaching out to the membership in due course to enroll them in our faculty.
“Logistics and transport landscape has changed significantly in our country and there are many national programs that will rely on logistics, transport and supply chain expertise. As the Premier Chartered Professional Body in this discipline, there is so much on offer and so much to contribute,” said Chairperson of CILT Sri Lanka Gayani De Alwis .
“This is an understanding that we all of us should have in ensuring delivery of our third objective; policy advocacy.We must be neutral and play an active role in offering our advice to the government on national issues of relevance to logistics and transport. Already our membership is engaged in this regard and we need to continue this to support the government in their endeavor to make Sri Lanka a logistics hub,” she said.
“National policy for shipping and maritime sector development, national civil aviation policy development, bus priority lane, Megapolis, evaluation committee on the issue of new route permits through tender, CCC National Agenda Committee on L&T etc., are some of the areas our members have got engaged with”, she said.
“Our two dynamic groups in our fold – YPF and WiLAT are assets to CILT.These two groups should be nurtured and guided to make CILT a vibrant place. YPF which was formed in 2012 has come a long way in the past 6 years and they are a treat to watch.
Their achievements have been recognised globally by CILT by making our YPF Chair an YPF ambassador, for the second time. Two areas I would like YPF to work on this year is to engage more working young professionals and bringing them to your fold and encourage student membership upgrade to MILT.
WiLAT too have made great strides in the past 5 years and their flagship “ignite” mentoring program has received global accolades and WiLAT SL is leading this initiative globally now,” she added.
