GAYANI DE ALWIS
Gayanide Alwis has always been steadfast in shattering the omnipresent glass ceiling and helping others do so. The first female Director for Supply Chain and Global Lead Auditor appointed from South Asia in Unilever, she is also the Chairperson of Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT) and the Founding Chairperson of Women in Logistics & Transport (WILAT) Sri Lanka. de Alwis has also garnered numerous accolades such as “Women at the Helm Award for Most Outstanding Female Business Leader of the Year” at PIMA National Management Awards, “Distinguished Mentor and Role Model” award from WILAT Nigeria for her efforts in promoting mentoring globally and most recently, Women in Management (WIM) “Top 50 Professional & Career Women Achievement Award” Gold Award for her Career Achievement in Logistics and Supply Chain. We recently caught up with de Alwis who spoke of life, her achievements and her desire to empower women and promote Supply Chain as a career choice.
I AM STILL NOT CONVINCED FULLY WHETHER WOMEN ARE GETTING THEIR DUE PLACE AT THE TOP
TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF?
I am the eldest of a family of three. I have a sister and a brother. Both our parents have a lot of siblings so we grew up with this large circle of cousins and even now we are a closely-knit family. My mother was a housewife. Both our parents never forced us to do anything but gave us the freedom to do what we want. I have a very supportive husband. I met him while I was studying at the University of Moratuwa. While I was in my second year in campus, he got a scholarship to Cambridge University to do his PHD. We got married four years later and I joined him in the UK to continue my studies there. We love to explore different cultures and places and whenever time permits, and make it a point to travel locally and overseas with family. After leaving Unilever and starting my own consulting career, I have devoted my time now on women empowerment and also to promote supply chain education in the country to make this profession a preferred career choice.
YOU WERE A DIRECTOR AT UNILEVER. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR CAREER LEADING TO THAT?
After I finished my MSC in food process engineering from the University of Reading in the UK, I returned to SL and joined Uswatte Confectionery as a Food Technologist. I worked there for 1.5 years and resigned and joined Unilever as a Management Trainee. In Unilever, my first job was in the Foods R&D department as my background was food process engineering. After a short stint, I was moved to Quality Assurance and later promoted to be the company Quality assurance manager responsible for all the factories in SL. At that time we had 3 factories; ice cream, instant tea manufacturing and black tea blending and packing operations. During this time I was also appointed as a Global Lead auditor to audit Unilever world wide manufacturing operations and corporate offices. I was the first to be appointed to this role in South Asia. In addition to my main role in SL, I had to travel extensively to audit 4 to 5 operations annually with a 3-member audit team from different countries, which I consider a great exposure I got during my auditing career. I did this role while doing my normal job for almost 10 years till 2008. In 2000, I was sent to India on a secondment to Unilever Research Centre in Bangalore, where I was working as a senior research and development manager. Two years later I returned to Sri Lanka in 2002 and I was offered a role in supply chain as raw material buying manager. I consider this as the turning point in my career. Although that was not my specialisation and the area was totally new to me, I accepted the challenge. From then onwards I worked hard to learn the basics of Supply chain management and within a period of 5 years, additional responsibilities were given to me where I was able to prove to the management of my competence in managing all areas of the supply chain department. In 2008, I was promoted to the Board as Director Customer Service responsible for supply chain, the position I held till July 2013 before I took early retirement to pursue my consulting and lecturing career. I was the first female supply chain director to be appointed to Unilever in the whole of South Asia and it was a proud moment indeed for me.
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR ROLE AS THE CHAIRPERSON OF CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF LOGISTICS AND TRANSPORT SL?
While I was at Unilever, I was associated with Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) SL and in 2011, I joined as a chartered member, since then there was no turning back. I was invited to join the CILT council in 2011, during Mr Saliya Senanayake’s Chairman tenure. I was actively involved in various sub committees as a member and as sub committee Chairperson. I also held the vice chairperson position for 4 years before getting elected as the 21st Chairperson of CILT in 2018. I am the second female Chairperson to get elected to lead CILT after 27 years! The role is very challenging as the expectations are very high among the membership and corporate partners. I feel that we have raised the bar through various value adding initiatives to our membership. My passion is to develop capable professionals for the industry. I will be completing my two-year tenure at the AGM on 31st March 2020. CILT’S main objective is to promote the art and science of logistics and transport. We are the only chartered professional body in the country for professionals engaged in transport, logistics and supply chain. We cater to Professionals engaged in passenger and freight movement including infrastructure development in land transport, aviation, maritime, supply chain and logistics. We conduct educational programmes, accredited education institutes, mentor young professionals, policy advocacy etc., to promote women representation and young professionals, WILAT and Young Professionals Forum (YPF) under CILT have been formed. My role is to provide leadership and be accountable to drive this agenda of the institute. CILT has a dynamic and a supportive council consisting of senior industry leaders, academia and officers from the public sector who are all volunteers committed to support the professionalism in the industry. CILT is a globally recognised 100-year-old professional body supporting to develop professionals in supply chain, logistics, and transport. CILT is present in 36 countries with over 35,000 members.
YOU'RE ALSO WILAT GLOBAL VICE CHAIRPERSON AND YOU ARE OVERSEEING SOUTH ASIA?
Let me give a bit of a background on the formation of Women in Logistics and Transport (WILAT) in SL. Globally, CILT identified the low levels of women in logistics and transport and wanted to increase more women representation in the industry, hence the birth of Global WILAT in June 2013 in Colombo. Sri Lanka was one of the pioneering WILAT fora, on 21st March 2013 which I co-founded with Namali Siyambalapitya ahead of the global launch. I was elected as the founding Chair in 2014 and continued my tenure till 2016 before handing over to my successor. WILAT SL is an active organisation in global WILAT and our initiatives have been adopted globally. Especially our “Ignite” mentoring programme which is in its 6th year running successfully in SL and many other countries. Globally WILAT is focusing on four strategic thrusts; Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Mentorship and Empowerment. I was appointed as the global WILAT lead for mentorship strategic thrust. In 2018, with the formation of WILAT Global Steering Committee I was appointed as the WILAT Global Vice Chairperson responsible for South Asia. Currently WILAT is present in India, Pakistan and in Sri Lanka. My role is to support and drive initiatives in the countries and to set up new branches in South Asia and support to increase the footprint of WILAT globally.
WOMEN HAVE BEEN SHATTERING GLASS CEILINGS AND ACHIEVING SUCCESS NOW MORE THAN EVER. IS THIS SOMETHING YOU HAVE NOTICED? DO YOU THINK WOMEN STILL FACE CONSIDERABLE CHALLENGES?
I am still not convinced fully whether women are getting their due place at the top. Female labour force participation in our country is 36%, where as the global average is 48.5% and South Asia is at 27%. In the logistics and transport industry female participation is abysmally low at 3%. More young females are passing out from the Universities than the males at 60%, but however, we do not see the same increasing trend being reflected at the workplace. So before we think of shattering the glass ceiling, I feel we must manage the sticky floor and the leaking pipeline! We need to get more women to enter the world of work, equip them with the right skill set and the mind-set and retain them to take on higher roles with confidence to reach the top. In SL, we see only 8% women in boards of companies. But I must say, there is awareness now more than ever before and a more focused approach and a push towards getting more board ready women to take up higher positions in organizations. Women Directors Forum (WDF) of Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) which I too am part of was formed in 2019 is making an effort to create awareness and capacity building to develop board ready women. Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka too recently launched the ‘Board Ready Female Members Directory’ to promote more female representation across boards in corporate Sri Lanka. While all these efforts are positive news and should improve the situation, still conscious and unconscious biases and stereotyping exist. We must shatter stereotypes before shattering the glass ceiling. If we are not given a seat at the table, we should bring a folding chair and sit at the table!
In 2008, I was promoted to the Board as Director Customer Service responsible for supply chain, the position I held till July 2013. I was the first female supply chain director to be appointed to Unilever in the whole of South Asia and it was a proud moment indeed for me.