The much-anticipated I AM COYLE Leadership Forum was held this week, bringing together some of Sri Lanka’s most respected businessmen to inspire and celebrate their creativity, resilience, and spirit of enterprise.
Organised by the Chamber of Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE), this year’s forum featured a panel of three leading business figures from Sri Lanka: Sirocco Group Managing Director Suren Chandraratna, Nihal Hettiarachchi and Co and RHN Ventures Chairman Managing Partner Dinuk Hettiarachchi, and Celeste Founder and CEO Janik Jayasuriya. Adding a global perspective to the discussion, renowned international cricketer and coach Jason Gillespie delivered the event’s keynote address.
The event drew a packed audience of business leaders, professionals, and aspiring entrepreneurs, as well as a visiting delegation from New Zealand. The speakers shared insights and lessons learnt from their distinct entrepreneurial journeys, highlighting the importance of resilience, reinvention, and calculated risks.
Gillespie, in his keynote titled: ‘A builder of teams and business,’ reflected on his journey from a sports-loving kid in Sydney to representing Australia at the highest level, sharing how setbacks and self-belief shaped his career. He recalled a moment when people had laughed at him when he shared his dream to play international cricket by the time he was 21.
‘All they saw was a scrawny skinny teenager who bowled medium pace in the fourth grade. I’ve always referred to this as my light bulb moment. I call it that because I realised at that moment that I needed to change.’ Gillespie explained that this ridicule transformed his outlook and strategy.
Confidence came from evidence, from the planning, the preparation, and execution, he said. Gillespie also emphasised that the key to success, in sport or life, lay in ‘trust, communication, teamwork, empathy, and clarity of roles.’ He said that cultivating those qualities would give ‘yourself, your team, and your business the very best chance of success.’
This year’s forum explored the dual concepts of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, empowering both business owners and professionals to add value, drive innovation, and make meaningful change within their organisations.
Chandraratna shared his inspiring journey in his session titled, ‘Forged by Struggle, Defined by Purpose,’ a testament to perseverance and purposeful growth. Hettiarachchi spoke on ‘Balancing Legacy with a Vision for Tomorrow,’ delving into the delicate balance between heritage and innovation. Jayasuriya’s session was titled, ‘Born in Crisis, Built for the Future’, exploring the art of thriving in uncertainty and transforming adversity into opportunity.
Chandraratna spoke about his early years, describing how his leadership was born in hardship where home and school were rough proving grounds. ‘Either I was the hunter, or I was the hunted. And there were kids who went home without dinner. It made me more humane. It made me want to help them.’ This combination of compassion and toughness had later influenced and become part of his leadership style, with purpose being the key driver of his entrepreneurship.
He also emphasised that true entrepreneurship meant always finding another way. He shared a moment from his private life where he faced rejection: when his daughter’s school application was rejected, he had not only constantly reapplied and tried multiple ways to satisfy the conditions, he had even written a book about his family legacy to be able to qualify. Such resilience and creativity were also necessary for being an entrepreneurial leader, he highlighted.
Hettiarachchi explained that, for him, leadership and entrepreneurship were not rebellion, but a natural extension of his curiosity. ‘Even during my schooling career, I always wanted to do something, build something, be part of it.’
Influenced by his parents’ example, he had been drawn to leadership early on and remained driven by the question of adapting new ideas locally. He explained that insecurity was ineffective in entrepreneurship, and that business success rested not on being a specialist, but on building strong and smart teams. ‘You just need the right people, sometimes smarter than you, and the confidence to let them lead.’
Jayasuriya’s story reflected entrepreneurship under real-world pressure. When the pandemic paralysed his hospitality business, he decided not to pause and pivoted overnight into delivering essential goods. ‘It was purely situational. If I had to go back and do a feasibility study or plan it out, I don’t think I would have started.’
The early months of the business had taught him that leadership was not about control, but about momentum, where making fast decisions and ownership were key. Additionally, having a team that cared for the business had been the spine of the operation, he said, highlighting that ‘even today, if a complaint comes in at 2:00 a.m., the team reacts immediately. They care. That’s in our DNA.’
In addition to the speeches and discussions with business leaders, the forum also spotlighted audience members with interactive activities designed to help them share their ideas and engage in collaborative problem-solving. Through these sessions and activities, the forum encouraged a mindset of shared leadership which recognises and empowers leadership at all levels of the workplace.