Colombo. Monday 23 January 2023. Media personality Kumar de Silva celebrates a successful decade in Corporate Etiquette training this year.
In the past ten years, several thousand of corporates, both young and old, have been through the different modules of his interactive Personality Development and Corporate Etiquette training sessions.
There have also been several hundreds of school leavers and undergraduates from national and private universities, many of whom will constitute the corporates of tomorrow.
“Ten years ago, just as I turned 50, this was a new journey in my life, and one that I never thought would hit it this big. Right along I have been known as a media and television personality and this was a totally new avatar. I’m truly happy that my work that has spoken for itself”, he says.
His interactive training modules cover a wide range of topics such as ‘The Smart Corporate’, ‘Hygiene and Grooming’, ‘How to face an Interview’, ‘Wining and Dining’, ‘Communication with Confidence’, ‘The Art of Public Speaking’, ‘How to be an effective Company Spokesperson’, ‘The Art of Foreign Travel’, ‘How to become a successful Secretary / Personal Assistant’ and even ‘How to become an efficient Driver / Office Assistant’ to name a few.
A recent addition to his successful portfolio of training sessions was Hotel/Restaurant Service Excellence for all Front Office Teams, and Culinary / F&B Teams.
De Silva works with the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management Sri Lanka (CIPM) which presents his sessions to hundreds of corporates across the country.
Parallely, AICPA & CIMA Sri Lanka also work with him on a regular basis and present his sessions to hundreds of AL students, school leavers and CIMA students, island wide.
He has also been the Official Corporate Etiquette Trainer for several local beauty pageants and continuously since 2015 for Miss (World) Sri Lanka.
Educated at Wesley College Colombo, de Silva graduated with an Honours Degree in English and French from the University of Kelaniya.
Multi-lingual de Silva has been honoured by the Government of France as Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres) for his longstanding contribution to the propagation of the French language and culture in Sri Lanka.
A Paris-trained, award-winning television personality, he is also a former ITN news reader and is best remembered for the ‘Bonsoir’ and ‘Fanclub’ programmes he hosted over ITN.
More recently were his celebrity talk shows – ‘Anything But with Kumar de Silva’, ‘Lockdown Diaries with Kumar’ and ‘Apéritifs with Kumar’ on Pulselk.
He currently co-hosts ‘Rendez-Vous with Yasmin and Kumar’ for the Embassy of France in Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
“And so as my journey as a Corporate Etiquette Trainer moves into my sixties decade, I thank all those hundreds of organisations for their trust and confidence in me and look forward to a greater 2023”, he added.