Colombo, Thursday 9th February 2023: Kamal Munasinghe, Area Vice President Colombo Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts and General Manager, Cinnamon Grand Colombo was recognised as the Hospitality sector Business Leader of the Year at the annual CEO Awards held recently.
The glamorous, black-tie event recognises outstanding business leaders who are game changers in their respective categories. Conceptualised by the CEO Magazine, the awards featured distinguished categories recognising every type of successful executive and transformational business leader.
Veteran hotelier and industry powerhouse Kamal Munasinghe was previously the General Manager for Alila Bangsar Kuala Lumpur (a Hyatt Hotels Corporation property). Munasinghe has nearly three decades of international and local hospitality expertise in managing luxury hotel brands including several local hotels. Some of his most notable career accomplishments have been the opening of the first-ever Alila in Malaysia; a 410-room refurbishment of the Renaissance Kuala Lumpur; and introducing the Liquid Sky Bar at Renaissance Riverside Saigon, to name a few.
Munasinghe’s proven track record of establishing brand consistency and proactively leading, identifying and capitalising on opportunities to drive excellence in operations, enhance financial performance, and growth across the Cinnamon Colombo hotel portfolio, has not only guided teams to deliver exceptional service standards but also to create inspiring moments for guests across the Colombo city. His passion for giving back to communities also led him to spearhead meaningful CSR initiatives that has now won the PATA Gold Award for Community and Social Responsibility just last year.
“Guided by one of our core values of caring for our people and our communities, Meals that Heal is a project that we were proud to initiate as an effort to make a difference in our communities by helping them recover and rebuild at the most challenging times of our recent past. We will be continuing this initiative as a long-term project and look forward to the support of our customers and guests to strengthen this initiative further”.
Munasinghe was first appointed as General Manager of both Cinnamon Grand Colombo and Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo as a part of the restructuring that took place at Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts post-pandemic. Since then, he has been instrumental in spearheading the transformation of the Colombo properties under the brand. Munasinghe believes in the need to develop a professional hospitality workforce to deliver a memorable experience for guests and allow foreign workforces to be part of the industry, so that we can gain much-needed exposure and certify Sri Lanka as a key travel destination. In addition, he also advocates for the belief that Sri Lanka holds the opportunity to become the world’s most sustainable tourism destination featuring wellness, wellbeing, and mindfulness. His mission has been to motivate the teams at Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts Colombo to achieve these goals.
Speaking after receiving the awards, Munasinghe thanked his entire team of the Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts Colombo for their unconditional support extended to him during the last 2.5 years he has been with the company. “If not for my team, and for their support, we would have not been able to achieve what we have achieved in the past 2.5years”. I would also like to thank my superiors for giving me a free hand to operate Cinnamon Hotels in Colombo in line with overall corporate strategy and for their guidance.