In 2023, a handful of senior practitioners (chartered accountants, marketers, CFOs) were comparing notes on the staff they were hiring out of university. The pattern was familiar: bright, motivated, hungry, but unable to read a basic P&L or sketch a marketing plan from scratch. What used to be on-the-job learning had quietly become a prerequisite, with nowhere local to learn it.
Signing up for a foreign MBA was the obvious answer, but it was wrong for Sri Lanka. The fees alone, paid in dollars, ruled it out for the people who needed it most. The visas, the moving, the year out of work were impossible for most working professionals. And worst of all, the case studies were nearly always American or Indian; the lessons rarely transferred.
So we built a school we wished had existed. Self-paced, because a working professional cannot sit a 9 am lecture. Priced in rupees, because none of our students earn dollars. Taught by people still practising, because the textbook only takes you so far. And rigorously assessed at the end, because a credential without rigour is no credential at all.
We launched our first course, Foundations of Financial Accounting, in March 2024. Fifty-two students enrolled in the first month; thirty-eight completed it. Today we have twenty-four courses across four faculties, thousands of students, and a growing list of employers who recognise our certificate.
The Academy is small. The ambition is not.