Bharti Airtel has appointed Suren Goonewardene as the chief executive officer (CEO) of its Sri Lanka operations.

Bharti Airtel Lanka (Private) Limited is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel that commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka in January 2009, and reached the 1 million customer milestone in the country. Since then, Airtel has expanded its presence to 1500+ base stations across Sri Lanka and introduced a wide range of service offerings.

Suren Goonewardene, who has earlier worked with Dialog Telekom and Lanka Bell to now join Airtel Sri Lanka as CEO, has over 16 years of work experience across areas of finance, sales, marketing and operations.  At Dialog Telekom, he managed the fixed telecom services and television portfolio. Previously, he also  held  the  position  of managing director at Bell Lanka.

He holds a degree in business accounting from Monash University in Australia and is a member of the Certified Practicing Accountants of Australian. He also holds a Graduate Diploma in Marketing from Chartered Institute of Marketing in UK. In his new role, he will report to Vineet Taneja, Operations Director, South & Sri Lanka at Bharti Airtel.