SL-born entrepreneur listed as FT1000 Europe’s fastest growing companies
The luxury brand of British award-winning toiletries and gifts ‘ Winter in
Venice ( WIV)’ has earned a place in FT
1000 Europe’s Fastest
Growing Companies in 2022. Sri Lankanborn Ermila Jayasuriya- Curtis is the Founder and Managing Director of WIV Global Limited and WIV Property Holding Ltd in the UK.
The survey was carried out by Statista, the research partner of the Financial Times. The FT 1000 is the result of a joint initiative by The Financial Times and Statista, which conducted months of research, public calls for participation, intensive database research and directly contacted tens of thousands of companies in Europe.
The brand is the brain wave of Ermila, a then 23-year-old student who mustered the courage to set up a manufacturing and distribution company. At age 26 with an investment of just sixty pounds and a phone book, she made her first million in one year, her office said in a media release.
Ermila, is the eldest child of Dr. Nalin and Ranjani Jayasuriya. With both parents’ quite high in the corporate world, she was expected to follow in the footsteps of her lawyer mother who was former Director/ General Manager of Housing Development Finance Corporation of Sri Lanka which was an institution under the Ministry of Housing. Her father, Dr Nalin Jayasurya was a former Regional Director of a Phar maceutical Multinational, Sterling Winthrop, for East Africa Region overseeing 08 countries and thereafter, he was the Regional Head of Special Projects and Regional HR Consultant for Smithkline Beecham for Southeast Asia & India.
Having finished her schooling at Ladies College, Colombo 7, Ermila left for England in 2000 to further her education i n Psych o l o g y and Business Administration.
Just before her 29th birthday, she created a media storm in the U. K. when she swooped up award after award at the British Inventors and Innovators award ceremony in 2009. Over 600 inventors and innovators from around the world were short- listed and only 43 made it to the finals. Ermila won three of the top British Awards, for innovation, packaging, and performance.