Dilith Jayaweera

Dilith Jayaweera is a well-known Sri Lankan entrepreneur who founded an advertising agency, Triad Advertising (Pvt) Ltd, while he was a law student. Established in 1993, the agency was modelled as the country’s first local advertising house. In 2005, the agency gained prominence for running the advertising campaign of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s candidacy for the presidential election. Subsequently, Jayaweera admits to investing in a range of other businesses. Jayaweera was named Director of the Reefcomber in August 2010 after one of his subsidiary companies, Emagewise, purchased significant shares of the hotel. In October 2010, the Reefcomber was re-branded as Citrus Leisure PLC and currently has hotels at three locations – Hikkaduwa, Waskaduwa and Colombo. Jayaweera remains a Director at Citrus Leisure PLC today. In 2011, Jayaweera and another prominent businessman, Nimal Perera, were appointed to the board of directors after securing around 43 percent of shares at the George Steuart and Company Limited. Sitting as either Chairperson or on the board of directors, Jayaweera is currently the Chairperson of the George Steuart Group as well. This includes a finance company – George Steuart Finance Limited.

In 2015, the Colombo Magistrate Court approved an investigation into the financial transactions of Dilith Jayaweera, Nalaka Godahewa, Varuni Amunugama and Sarvajana Anandaraj Ameresekere over the alleged irregularities in the share transactions of Lanka Hospitals. After such claims emerged, Jayaweera had reportedly warned to sue the brother of the incumbent Prime Minister and the Chairperson of Telshan Networks (Pvt) Limited, Shan Wickremesinghe. This was owing to allegations that Wickremesinghe’s channel, TNL, had telecasted views against Jayaweera. The lawsuit was dropped after Wickremesinghe had reportedly issued an apology. Wickremesinghe’s daughter Ishini was also closely linked to the operations of Jayaweera’s Triad (Pvt) Limited previously. In the same year, Jayaweera's lawyers had reportedly warned to take legal action against the Chairperson of The Capital Maharaja Organisation Limited, R. Rajamahendran. A legal suit was to be filed claiming compensation of LKR 2 million (around USD 12,500) for defamatory statements allegedly aired on Rajamahendran's channel, Sirasa TV. However, Rajamahendran’s lawyers had also reportedly warned to counter-sue Jayaweera for LKR 20 billion (around USD 125 million) if Jayaweera proceeded with the suit.