Growing With the Group: A 25-Year Journey of Growth, Grit, and Transformation
By Harsha Senanayake
I joined JKH Group IT in 2001, fresh out of school, a young and impatient software engineer with far more ambition than experience. Each morning began with a ride on the 138 bus, a walk down Glennie Street, crossing the railway tracks, and a quick step into the office before 8:30 a.m., quietly hoping to avoid a light-hearted complaint from the Chairperson reaching my manager. Those early routines, though simple, instilled discipline that would quietly shape my professional life.
In my formative years, I worked on developing systems for the Group’s plantation companies. Much of what we built was done in-house, and I was determined to prove myself. Over time, that early impatience matured into curiosity, resilience, and a growing passion for transformation.
A defining chapter came in 2004 with Project Excalibur; the Group’s landmark ERP implementation and one of the first projects of its scale in Sri Lanka. Being entrusted with managing complex integrations across nearly 70 companies was both overwhelming and transformative. For the first time, I fully understood the breadth and diversity of JKH. The experience pushed me beyond technical execution and broadened my understanding of leadership, collaboration, and enterprise-wide thinking.
That exposure opened doors to the JKH Young Forum, where candid conversations with senior leaders reshaped my perspective. During this period, I also had the opportunity to help conceptualise and organise the first-ever JKH Talent Show; an initiative that earned me my first Chairperson’s Award and remains a milestone I deeply cherish.
In 2015, I was honoured to serve on the JKH Digitisation Committee as Secretary, working alongside the Chairperson and sector leadership to shape the Group’s digital agenda. It reinforced a lesson that has stayed with me: transformation is not merely about technology — it is about mindset, courage, and collective ambition.
The next major turning point came in 2016, when I joined Union Assurance as CIO to lead a long-awaited legacy transformation. It was a defining challenge, navigating board expectations, mastering a new industry, and driving change at scale. The journey was demanding, but seeing Union Assurance receive global recognition, including the Celent Model Insurer Award and multiple Chairperson’s Awards for Disruptive Innovation, made the effort deeply rewarding.
From walking down Glennie Street as an eager young recruit to looking out at Cinnamon Life from my office at Union Assurance, I have had the rare privilege of growing alongside a Group that continues to redefine possibility. It has been a journey not only of professional advancement, but of personal evolution; shaped by opportunity, challenge, and the courage to transform.
