ISMM President elected to Board of IFPSM

The International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management, the parent body of over 45 national supply chain institutions worldwide has elected the President of the Institute of Supply and Management, Sri Lanka Anil Ponweera to the Board of Directors for the fiscal year 2015. This is a rare honour for ISMM as well as for Sri Lanka.
Ponweera is currently serving the national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines as its Manager Materials and Logistics. He is fully responsible for the entire operation of materials management and logistics functions of the Engineering Procurement and Logistics Department.
He is a Fellow Member of two prestigious institutions, namely the Institute of Supply and Materials Management of Sri Lanka and the Institute of Certified Professional Managers, a Charter Member of the Institute of Logistics and Transport and Member of the International Purchasing in Supply Education Research Association (IPSERA) Italy.
He has vast experience in government as well as private sector organisations which includes multinational/local cultures in manufacturing, telecommunication, aviation, banking and financial sectors. Sri Lankan Airlines and Emirates Airlines are the two major airlines which he worked for to gain over 10 years of aviation exposure in supply chain management.
During his tenure as a supply chain professional he has attended many international forums, workshops, global and regional supply chain conferences and round tables conducted by foreign countries. In March 2014 he was invited to present a paper on ‘Supplier Relationship Management in the Supply Chain context for the Industry’ at the Supply Link Forum of the Philippine Institute of Supply Management. He also attended the IFPSM Summer School held in Austria in 2008.
Recently he was honoured by the International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management with the award of the prestigious Hans Ovelgonne Award. This Award is presented annually to a person with outstanding contribution to the development of purchasing and supply management based on research and development studies and works.
ISMM is the national body for supply chain education and training in Sri Lanka and has been in the forefront of training for the last four decades and is incorporated by an Act of Parliament and is also a member of the Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka since 1976.
ISMM is affiliated to the International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management and the National Association of Purchasing Management, USA. It is also affiliated to the International Trade Centre (ITC) Geneva, Switzerland which is the technical co-operation agency of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for operational enterprise oriented aspects of trade development. ISMM is the sole national body in Sri Lanka which posses the license to promote the principles of International Purchasing and Supply Chain Management (IPSCM) and is authorised to conduct courses and examinations of the Modular Learning System (MLS) in IPSCM in Sri Lanka on behalf of ITC Geneva
In recognition of the increasingly crucial role played by the ISMM in the development of the supply chain profession in Sri Lanka, the Department of Public Administration, by its Circular No 46/09 (1) of 20.06.1994 recognises the Corporate Membership of ISMM as equivalent to a First or Second Class Degree in the field of Supply and Materials Management awarded by a recognised university in the recruitment and promotional process.