Ruchi Gunewardene

Ruchi, a seasoned executive with over 25 years experience in General management, Marketing and Advertising is the founder and chief executive officer of the STING Consultants which was established in 2002.

Formerly, Ruchi held senior management positions within the Bangkok based Coca-Cola South East & West Asia divisions. During his tenure at Coca-Cola, he had several assignments including business development in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal and Bangladesh executing marketing plans with bottling partners to grow business in each country.

As the Country Manager of Coca-Cola in Sri Lanka, he converted a weak bottling operation to a stable and viable unit in just 2 years. His influence re-aligned the organization introducing greater flexibility in its operations, restructuring departments and upgrading competencies.

Ruchi also held various management positions at SmithKline Beecham, J. Water Thompson and Reckitt & Colman of Ceylon Ltd. Some of his key achievements were fuelling the growth of SmithKline Beecham through successfully re-launching the Panadol brand and initiating Reckitt and Colman’s expansion with the launch of Colman’s Orange, becoming a key contributor to the company in the mid to late 80’s.

Ruchi received Bachelor of Science (Hons.) Degree in Applied Biology from the University of Bath, UK, followed by a Postgraduate Diploma in Business & Financial Management from the Chartered Institute of Accountants. He has also served as the President of the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing between 1992 and 1994.

Sue Evans

Sue has more than 20 years experience in marketing consulting as well as marketing & brand management in the UK and India.

She worked as a consultant for A T Kearney Ltd in New Delhi where she developed a long-term strategic business plan for an Indian apparel retailer to achieve leadership. She also developed a mid-term strategy and implementation road map to improve the competitiveness of a national agricultural industry in Asia. Her significant contributions include development of a positioning strategy and marketing plan based on detailed segmentation analysis for a leading passenger car brand in India.

In addition to her experience at A T Kearny, she also held key consulting positions with Industrial Aids UK, where she was responsible for managing client projects across Europe for an expanding consultancy specializing in the Chemical industry.

Sue has worked as the marketing Director for Whirlpool of India Ltd. where she identified a new business opening to meet company growth targets, approved by the US management. She led a team to develop a CRM and database marketing strategy, setting up a market research function dealing with knowledge management needs and pioneering new methods to gather consumer insights.

Sue also held management positions at SmithKline Beecham and Gillette UK where she was responsible for the management of a nutritional drinks portfolio with a worldwide turnover of 330 million Pounds. In addition she implemented regional brand plans for a complex portfolio of consumer products including Gillette, Right Guard and Papermate respectively.

Shanti Nadarajah

During the past 30 years, Shanti has developed a broad and varied marketing/ communications perspective on both the client and agency aspects of the business. As a Consultant for STING, he has worked on several assignments including the setting up of Sri Lanka’s first pharmacy retail chain (Healthguard) and for the turn around in Maliban business.

He worked as the Client Services Director for Phoenix O & M (Pvt) Ltd and was also a member of the new business team that doubled agency turnover propelling it to become the number one marketing communications agency in Sri Lanka.

He also led a client service team that was responsible for over 40 multi-national and local Brands in FMCG, Financial Services, Insurance, Mobile Communications, Personal Care, Paints, Computer, Automobile, e-Commerce, Real Estate & Housing, Lotteries as well as in Airline industry.

While working as a Marketing Manager for Eureka Online (Pvt) Ltd, he doubled their client base and developed the business plan and products, leading the company to enter web development and mail servers. In addition he has held key positions at Pure Beverages Co. Ltd (Coca-Cola Bottler) in Corporate Planning, Marketing Research, Marketing Services and Sales while being a member of the core team that led the growth of market share from 12% to 65% through remarkable sales growth of over 6000% within 10 years.

At Pure Beverages, he covered areas such as planning, organizing & implementing Marketing Strategy, Brand and Package launches, Media Advertising, Sales Promotions, Channel development and Marketing Information system. Serving as the President of the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing between 1996 and1998, he was also an Associate Founder Member of The Management Club in Colombo.

Shanti gained his primary education at Trinity College, Kandy and received a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from The Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK. In addition he holds an Executive Diploma in Business Administration from the University of Colombo.

Tiara Anthonisz

Tiara joined STING Consultants, fresh out of University, having successfully completed a BA Honours degree in Economics and an MA in Corporate Social Responsibility, both of which she gained at the University of Nottingham, UK. Tiara is entrusted with the role of developing and spearheading the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of the consultancy.

Roshni De Fonseka

Roshni has over 20 years experience in Marketing in a wide range of industries.

In her role as Consultant for STING, Roshni was involved in the reintroduction of Ovaltine into the Sri Lankan market through Scan Products Ltd. In addition she is involved with the repositioning and fuelling the growth of the well established and leading dessert brand, Motha.

She was the Head of Marketing at Hutchison Whampoa Group where she was responsible for launching a new telephone service for the rural market, creating a new brand, “Rankatha” and using the Home Zone selling technique. The latter was a test operation, which was later transferred to South America as well.

She has held positions of Marketing Manager and Marketing Services Manager at Unilever Ceylon Ltd. Establishing a new Marketing Services Department, which includes Market Research & Media Buying she further rationalized the Foods brand portfolio to improve profitability in the Foods business.

Roshni was also the Head of Marketing at Ceylon Tobacco Company Ltd. where she revived the marketing function, in a distribution oriented organization, establishing a fully-fledged Marketing department. She also held the position of Head of Marketing for New Zealand Milk Products where she handled Marketing and Sales of Anchor and Ratthi. During this period Anchor surpassed Lakspray to become market leader in the milk powder market while Ratthi was positioned as the second strong brand.

Roshni has hands-on experience in brand Management in the Leaver Brother Group where she successfully re-launched Lever detergents, becoming the stronghold of the business in the face of tough competition. She was also accountable for establishing Leaver toilet soap brands as market leaders, through clear brand positioning and product superiority.

Roshni has gained her primary education in St. Bridget’s Convent, Colombo and received a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) degree in History from the University of West Indies, Barbados.