Employee Stories
Ransi Dharmasiriwardhana
An inspiring journey of career growth
Let’s hear from Ransi Dharmasiriwardhana as she shares the story of her impressive growth at Standard Chartered Bank, her beliefs, experiences, and more.
I was born in Kuwait and raised in the USA and my first job out of University of Maryland with an Internal Business degree was as a Management Trainee at Khols. Having completed the program and placed into a management role, I knew this was not my calling and, on a whim, the 22 year-old me resigned and boarded a flight to Sri Lanka to find my roots and purpose in life, never to look back. Within few months, my first job in Sri Lanka was as a Project Manager in the American Chamber of Commerce and then moved onto what I thought was my passion into non profit as a Project Director for a USAID/Microsoft-funded project.
I consider myself fortunate for having held significant portfolios but new this still didn’t feed the “fire in my belly” until 16 years ago, Standard Chartered took a chance on me and hired me as an interim HR Business Partner on a fixed-term contract. It didn’t take long to figure out that HR was my calling. I wanted to impact people’s lives and make the bank a better place to work. I was young, ambitious, and hungry to learn and most importantly make an impact.
Holding various roles in HR and a stint in the Singapore People Capability team, I swiftly moved up the ladder and was designated as the Head of HR in Sri Lanka in 2018, making me the youngest member of the Country Management Committee. During my term as Head of HR in Sri Lanka, the country underwent several crises, from the most recent economic meltdown to the dark period post the Easter attacks in 2019.
I saw the challenges the staff was dealing with and swiftly converted them into opportunities, collaborating with the entire HR team, group, and country CMT. The benefits we introduced were new in the market, delivered in a timely manner, and well appreciated by the staff and pensioners. We saw firsthand the impact we made in their lives. At one point, we had 80% of our staff working from home with the flexibility to choose their stands.
I continue to be passionate about touching people’s lives and making a positive impact, and this passion has helped me drive and deliver outcomes. I truly trust in the bank’s intent of prioritizing internal moves, which helped me navigate through various roles. Having done 5 years as HOHR, I knew it was time for a new challenge, to test my abilities and had an aspiration to step into a global role and learn more.
As luck would have it, I recently moved to Singapore as the Global Talent Partner for CCIB. It’s been an insightful six months as I continue to delve deeper into my role and driving the Global Talent Management strategy with our ambition of shifting our colleague’s mindset from roles to skills.
Beyond my core work, coaching and D&I are my passion. Apart from Co-chairing the Sri Lanka D&I committee for the past 5 years, with my move to Singapore, I have taken on Co-leading the Culture ERG. I was als0 professionally certified as a coach through the International Coaching Federation five years ago and am part of the bank’s IGNITE program, where I coach female leaders across the global network and have been humbled by the individual transformations and impact. Seeing them grow gives me a deep sense of fulfilment and connects me meaningfully with my purpose
On a personal front, I think a key ingredient to success is to take risks and never settle in a comfort zone and I am so grateful for the opportunities and the leaders that have taken a risk on me to grow in my career. It’s important that we find what ignites your passion and I sign off with a favourite quote from Oprah Winfrey: “We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”