Adheesha Perera is a mid career professional from Sri Lanka with over 15 years of experience in policy and practice in Sustainability and Sustainable Finance domains. Over the past decade, he has served in expert committees appointed by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Banks’ Association’s Sustainable Banking Initiative and The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce to advance Sri Lanka’s Sustainable Finance Roadmap and the private sector mobilization on climate action. Adheesha had also served as a Youth Representative in multiple Sectoral Oversight Committees of the Parliament of Sri Lanka contributing to policy in relation to domains such as energy and transport and on food security and agriculture. He has been engaged at firm level in setting up and scaling sustainability frameworks for three listed banks in Sri Lanka in the capacity of Head of Sustainability and had gained his foundation on corporate sustainability through field experience at Aitken Spence PLC, a Sri Lankan multinational conglomerate with over 15 industry verticals including tourism and hospitality, transportation and logistics, power generation and agriculture.
A key area of professional and research interest for Adheesha is the topic of “unlocking international finance for climate adaptation and resilience, as well as for broader sustainability transitions of developing countries, especially those countries that are vulnerable due to high debt distress”. He has been active in working on Sustainable Finance innovations including blended finance mechanisms in Sri Lanka and had convened sessions on adaptation finance at Adaptation Futures conferences in 2023 (in Montreal) and in 2025 (in Christchurch) to foster research collaboration on this topic.
Adheesha is keen to further this research interest as a student of MA in Global Governance, to explore how developed nations like Canada could lead global governance reforms on the international financial architecture for more equitable outcomes, whilst balancing their own development priorities in relation to public finance allocations and mobilization of private capital. Adheesha also intends to learn and engage through BSIA’s Technology Governance Initiative on how technology could be harnessed for equitable outcomes rather than accentuating disparities.
In his spare time, Adheesha enjoys hiking, reading and listening to podcasts. He is also a fan of sci-fi movies and TV series, with Battlestar Galactica and Mandalorian being his favourite shows.