Appreciation
Mallory Wijesinghe

It is a year since Mallory Wijesinghe passed away. In his prime in the 1960s, he stood out in the private sector as few have ever done. He was the first to simultaneously hold the most prestigious posts in the private sector including Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon. He was also regularly nominated as Sri Lanka’s employer delegate to ILO meetings. He was the Chairman of the Employers’ Federation when it concluded a path-breaking Collective Agreement with the CMU. He headed a host of other organisations as well, in fields such as share brokering produce brokering, and shipping, but his achievements as Chairman of the Chamber and the Employers’ Federation were the pinnacles of his business career.

Blessed with a sunny disposition and natural charisma, he laughed easily, radiated bonhomie, and related effortlessly to people. He was an excellent negotiator, because his natural geniality was combined with a basic shrewdness and common sense, and a knack of finding common ground and building on it. Negotiations tended to develop into joint searches for mutually beneficial solutions, rather than abrasive confrontations. Rarely did anyone see him with a furrowed brow; but at these times he bore an uncanny resemblance to Orson Welles! Honours and high office sat lightly on him.

Many business leaders are set in their views, and do not take kindly to advice or suggestions. It was one of Mallory’s great strengths that he was refreshingly receptive to new ideas, from whatever quarter, and sensitive to developing trends and the needs of small business. He created a working environment where everyone knew the chief was approachable and reasonable.

With his twin Chairmanship of the Chamber and the Employers’ Federation, and his natural flair for public relations, he came to be called Mr. Private Sector. When the leading chambers decided to form a federation of chambers to derive the benefits of combined action, the founder members, in a rare show of unanimity, wanted Mallory as the founder-Chairman, though by that time he had relinquished the Chairmanship of the Ceylon Chamber. He was drafted by popular request, with the smaller chambers being especially insistent that this was the chairman they needed to lead the FCCISL in its formative years.

He was full of novel ideas. He once startled members of the staid Ceylon Chamber of Commerce at an annual general meeting by speaking briefly in Sinhala. He effectively made the point that communications could no longer be made in English alone. Journalist Nalin Fernando, then PRO of the Chamber, wrote whimsically in the Chamber’s tabloid "Enterprise" that after Mallory’s Sinhala excerpt he happened to glance at the portraits of the bewhiskered past English Chairmen of the Chamber which lined the walls of the meeting room, and noticed a distinct raising of eyebrows!

He was by nature an integrator. At a time when there was polarisation between the private and public sectors, he deplored the division and encouraged government corporations to join the Chamber. We are all in business, he would say.

Mallory was the second Ceylonese to be Chairman of the CCC (the first being Terrence de Soysa). They both succeeded in achieving a seamless transition from English to Sri Lankan leadership of the Chamber, maintaining the traditions of the Chamber while injecting a national outlook. As the founder-Chairman of the Sri Lanka Shippers’ Council, he stood firmly for the national interest when it clashed with the powerful foreign shipowning lobby. He could simultaneously moderate the young Turks and stand up to the powerful shipowning interests without offending either.

He was a great family man. Late in life he briefly sported a beard, which transformed his genial look into one of uncharacteristic ferocity. To curious seekers of information on this aberration, he would explain that his son had returned from abroad flaunting a luxuriant beard, and that "if that fellow can do it, why can’t I? I can grow a much better beard than he can." Who emerged the victor in this family contest no one knows.

Fittingly, the CCC accorded him the rare honour of Honorary Membership of the Chamber. He was the second Sri Lankan, and the last Chamber Chairman, to be so honoured.
S. S. Jayawickrama