Upali Dharmadasa, the youngest son of the Nawaloka family, passes away

Hewakomanage Upali Dharmadasa (H. K.), a former president of Sri Lanka Cricket and a leading businessman in the country,

Upali Dharmadasa) has passed away. Further details regarding his demise and funeral arrangements are expected to be announced soon. Mr. Dharmadasa held several key positions in the Sri Lanka Cricket Board. He was also well-known as the founder of the famous 'Upali's by Nawaloka' restaurant in Colombo, which he started to promote local food culture, and served as the Managing Director of several leading companies within the renowned Nawaloka Business Group.

Mr. Upali Dharmadasa, the youngest son of the renowned businessman and social worker Deshamanya H. K. Dharmadasa (Nawaloka Mudali) and Mrs. Meelin Dharmadasa, was the brother of Mr. Jayantha Dharmadasa, Chairman of the Nawaloka Hospitals Group, and Mesdames Malini, Rukmani, Pushpa, and Priyani. He received his school education at Ananda College, Colombo, and later pursued higher education at Wandsworth Technical College in the United Kingdom. He possessed over three decades of practical experience in corporate management. The family's ancestral home, located on C.W.W. Kannangara Mawatha, Colombo 7, was where he grew up from childhood.

Mr. Dharmadasa played a prominent leadership role within the Nawaloka Group of Companies, holding Managing Director and Chairman positions in numerous companies such as Nawaloka Piling, Nawaloka Polysacks, Nawaloka Timber Stores, Nawaloka Industries, New Nawaloka Trading, and Nawaloka Developments. In addition to the business sector, he served as the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, a Director of Seylan Bank, the President of the Sri Lanka Timber Merchants' Association, and a Director of the Industrial Development Board. Furthermore, he also served at a diplomatic level as the Honorary Consul General of the Kingdom of Morocco in Sri Lanka.

Mr. Upali Dharmadasa, who played an active role in cricket administration in the country for a long time, entered cricket administration in 1989 by being appointed as the Vice President of the Sri Lanka Cricket Board. Subsequently, in 1996, he defeated Mr. Ana Punchihewa and was appointed as the Chairman of the Cricket Board, a position he held until 1998. Later, in 2011, he served as the Chairman of the Interim Cricket Management Committee, and under the guidance of the International Cricket Council, he was re-elected unopposed as the President of Sri Lanka Cricket in the 2012 elections.

While engaged in the business and sports sectors, driven by his personal passion for culinary arts, he took steps to establish the 'Upali's by Nawaloka' restaurant in 2013, as a tribute to his parents, on the premises of his ancestral home in Colombo where he grew up. This restaurant, which offered traditional Sri Lankan home-style meals, became widely famous for local dishes including fish head curry, Matara ambul thiyal, Jaffna crab curry, rural brinjal moju, hoppers, string hoppers, and kottu. His wife, Mrs. Sandhya Dharmadasa, also made an active contribution to this venture, which was even included in the Tripadvisor Travellers' Choice award and the World’s 50 Best Discovery list.