‘Toast of the Town’ Lakmini ready for a new challenge
SPEECHLESS IN COLOMBO: Perhaps Lakmini Wijesundera should have paraphrased the memorable opening line from Marc Antony in his eulogy to Caesar and begun her address to the audience gathered earlier this month to honour her by saying: “Friends, Sri Lankans, countrymen, lend me your ears”.
Her biggest fear and no-no is public speaking. So she was nervous – tightly gripping her spectacles in one hand and the sheets of paper on which she had written her speech in the other - as she faced the podium ready to conquer her personal Everest and engage the audience at the annual Women Entrepreneur Awards presented by the Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
Shakespeare’s Marcus Antonius came to bury Caesar and not to praise him. But he then used rhetoric to portray Caesar in a good light thus rousing the rabble against Brutus and his fellow-conspirators. I discover that Lakmini’s Bucket List includes how to move the crowd in a similar fashion.
That night was her first public speech and she was all nerves. Yet asking the audience to lend their ears might have been superfluous for everyone, including President Maithripala Sirisena, was already rapt with attention as they waited to find out what makes the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year tick.
Freezes when speaking to an audience
“I had typed my speech in big letters so that I could read it easily. Half-way through my address I suddenly found out that I had my reading glasses in my hand and thought “oh my God, should I put them on’. But I didn’t want to lose my place in the script, and as such I also didn’t span the crowd and make eye contact as much as I wanted to,” recounted Lakmini.
“At the end, it wasn’t as daunting as I thought it would be. But I’m still learning. A friend suggested I try a few toastmasters but it is a skill you acquire,” says Lakmini, who having survived her first public speech is confident she is up to the challenge in the future.
Having a one-on-one or conducting a board meeting, Lakmini is the picture of poise and confidence. But when it comes to standing in front of a sea of faces she freezes.
“When you are asked to give a speech to inspire people, whoa!. When the Women’s Chamber asked me to give a speech, I pleaded and said can we do without one but they insisted. I forced myself to write a speech a few days before the awards gala and practised it in front of one of my people in the office who is a good public speaker.
“He listened to my speech and said I was like a robot and went on monotonously for five minutes. So I asked him to show me how it was done and he read it out to me. I tried it again and it was a little better but I was still nervous. At the function when it came to our tagline – Think. Innovate. Lead – I paused dramatically between each word for maximum effect. I could see my friend in the audience with a big smile on his face,” relates Lakmini.
Shy schoolgirl
Lakmini has just one word to describe the driving force which has turned her from shy schoolgirl into chief executive of mobile IT solutions company IronOne Technologies which has a presence in more than 15 countries – Curiosity.
An inherent inquisitiveness has made her excel in the corporate world and turn IronOre Technologies into a company that provides products and IT solutions for local blue-chip and Fortune 500 companies in the United States as well being a powerhouse in Singapore, Malaysia and across Asia.
“If something is no more curious, I quickly lose interest. Some people have causes or deep reasons which drive them, I feel a little bit shallow for it is nothing but a sense of curiosity which makes me tick. Even in childhood, I would lose interest if something no longer made me want to know more about it.”
As a schoolgirl at Ladies College, Lakmini was the quiet one in the group. She had a clique of boisterous friends and although she was game for anything and as bad as the rest when it came to doing a prank of getting up to mischief, she always stayed in the shadows.
“At school I was extremely shy and didn’t speak for a long time until I made some good friends. But I was with the naughtiest bunch and did all the naughty things. Many of my friends are more equipped than I am to run a company but I’m the only one from that group who does so,” she reveals.
The shy girl has blossomed into a corporate leader – and Lakmini says it is all due to her having more time and few distractions. Divorced, and with no children, she spends most of her time thinking of ways to make her software company, a leader in Sri Lanka, more competitive on the global stage.
It is also probably in her genes. Coming from an influential family which has a long and illustrious line of matriarchal figures, Lakmini feels she still has a long way to go before making a permanent mark on the local landscape.
Powerful family
She points proudly to her great-grandmother Helena Wijewardana who was responsible for the refurbishment of the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara in the early half of the 20th Century.
“Helena was the wife of Don Philip Wijewardana. They had nine children and my mother was the child of one of those nine siblings. Our family story really begins from the time of Don Philip. His father sent him to St. Thomas’ so that he could study English.”
It was during the British Colonial era. Don Philip put the Queen’s English to good use and won contracts to supply building material including wood, sand and bricks to build the Colombo Museum, the Supreme Courts Complex in Hulftsdorp and the Eye Hospital among other major landmarks.
“There was two significant points in the history of our family, the first moving from their ancestral home in Tudugala, Kalutara to Colombo and for my great-grandfather to go to St. Thomas’ to learn English. He died fairly early and it was Helena who was the matriarch of the family who carried on bringing up her nine children including my grandfather.
“Helena was a role model for me. There have been a lot of influential women in my family, my mother being another,” says Lakmini who feels she has a long way to go yet before she can walk in their shoes.
The nine children of Don Philip and Helena have resulted in more than 300 cousins and assorted relatives for Lakmini today. It is a Who’s Who of Sri Lankan society. Among her relatives are such illustrious names and political heavyweights like JR Jayewardene and Ranil Wickremesinghe. Her mother’s brother was Upali Wijewardene, the business magnate who went missing with his airplane in 1983.
Six years after that tragedy, Lakmini’s mother faced another heartbreak when her husband Prof. Stanley Wijesundera was assassinated by members of the JVP in the library of the Colombo University.
An inherent inquisitiveness has made her excel in the corporate world and turn IronOre Technologies into a company that provides products and IT solutions for local blue-chip and Fortune 500 companies in the United States as well being a powerhouse in Singapore, Malaysia and across Asia.
Awful day
That left a huge mark on Lakmini who still remembers that awful day. “I was 19 just a year after finishing school. My father had retired as vice-chancellor of Colombo University but that day he had gone back and when Amma asked why he said he had some filing to do.
“I remember clearly Amma and a family friend coming to pick me up (I was at an IT College in Narahenpita) and she was crying. I thought something had happened to my two brothers (they had been involved in a car accident a year before). But on the way they told me that Dad was critically ill. I wondered why we were going to College House (in the University) and not to hospital.” Soon after that calamity, Lakmini was packed off to London where she did her degree in electronic engineering and computer science as well as a Masters in Communications and Signal Processing both at the University of London.
“Amma was very strong and she didn’t make us feel that there was a difference in our lives after my father’s death. She played a big role in my life.”
Not only did she get the finishing touches in her education thanks to her mother, but Lakmini also got the flair for entrepreneurship which still holds her good these days.
“When we were small we used to sell small handloom items at a shop which we had in Liberty Plaza. The money we made was our pocket money and I remember going and eating plenty at Sponge. Amma gave us that gift for entrepreneurship. I owe her a lot.”
Her mother died two years ago at the age of 81. She had lived to see her daughter create a software company whose products business leaders in Sri Lanka as well as abroad cannot do without.
Having climbed the corporate peak, she is now looking at other challenges. She has set a target of three years to complete her current quest of being number one in the world – IronOne is already a leading player in Asia – and wants to move on to do “something crazy”.
Already involved in a charity (Give 2 Lanka) which helps the underprivileged by raising awareness among corporates, she is also keen to empower women. “I don’t want to be seen as driving an issue. But I want to use myself as an example. I just evolved, it just happened. Women are 50 per cent of the population and traditionally they are happy to be just housewives. While this is an important role, if half your population is not productive you can’t achieve growth.”
Ever curious, Lakmini is now impatient to take on a different role. Like she says, she is evolving. Already she is able to confront her demons and face a crowded room with confidence.