Don Harold Stassen Jayawardena, widely known as Harry Jayawardena, is a Sri Lankanindustrialist. He is currently chairman of Melstacorp PLC. and Jayawardena is the Honorary Consul General for Denmark in Sri Lanka. He was listed as the one of the richest persons in Sri Lanka in 2008 by business magazines. He controls major companies today in the country by controlling interest and he also was the chairman of many state run companies and state corporations.
Jayawardena first joined a British-owned tea export firm in Colombo as a tea boy, and quickly progressed to become a tea clerk. He then moved to government-owned State Trading Corporation, better known as Consolexpo Ltd becoming the Head of the Tea Department which controlled the monopoly of tea exports of Sri Lanka under the socialist-styled administration of Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike in the 1970s.
Private sector
After resigning from Consolidated Exports, he pioneered the Stassen Exports Limited on 7 September 1977 as a company to export Ceylon Tea. This happened when Sri Lanka ventured to the free market economy with the induction of the then Sri Lankan PresidentJunius Richard Jayewardene. By 1988, Jayawardena's companies became a significant shareholder of the country's largest private commercial bank, Hatton National Bank. The companies significantly owned by Harry Jayawardena ventured into many other areas such as food and beverage with the acquisition of majority shares of then state owned Lanka Milk Foods Limited in 1991 and later the Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka PLC in 1992 in the then-largest transaction in the Colombo Stock Exchange. In 2007 DCSL under Jayawardena's Chairmanship became the No. 1 listed company as per the "Business Today" Top 10 rankings. In July 2016.
Business interests
Currently, Jayawardena has interests in the following listed companies, where he is also acting as the Chairman of the board of directors.
and Aitken Spence, both in which Jayawardena is the chairman, were the first Sri Lankan companies ever to be listed in the Forbes List of best managed companies outside the USA. In 2007 Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka PLC is the sole Sri Lankan company to be listed once again in the Forbes List of Asia's best 200 under a US$ Billion. World-renowned First Asian Green Globe award winner Heritance Kandalama Hotel and award-winning Heritance Tea Factory hotel both located in Sri Lanka are owned by the companies in the group.
Controversy
During a December 2006 alleged attempt to remove the Chairman of the Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka, Jayawardena, then managing director of DCSL, was allegedly quoted as threatening to shoot the chairman. Subsequently, Harry Jayawardena assumed duties as the Chairman of DCSL. The same news paper alleged that Jayawardena threatened a customs officer, many years back. Harry Jayawardene announced his voluntary resignation from CPC on 12, January 2012, a post given by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. As reason for his resignation from CPC he stated due to his personal issues he has announced his resignation.
Honorary positions
Jayawardena also held several honorary positions including the Senior Adviser for International Trade and Foreign Investments to the then Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga. He was a member of Colombo Stock Exchange for many years. He was a member of the Apex Task Force to Rebuild the Nation established by the President of Sri Lanka after the December 2004tsunami that affected most parts of Sri Lanka. He was also appointed Chairman of SriLankan Airlines, Sri Lanka's National carrier, becoming Executive chairman in January 2008.
Honors
Jayawardena was awarded the title of Deshamanya by the President of Sri Lanka for his services to industry in 2005. In 2010, he was appointed Knight of the Order of Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe II for his services to Denmark as its Honorary Consul General in Sri Lanka.
