Managing Director, Carbonix Limited
Saiyad Omar Zain Mowlana
Omar Mowlana is an international development and institutional capacity-building specialist with more than 35 years of experience spanning public-sector reform, leadership development, technology transfer, environmental management, disaster-risk reduction and organisational development. His career has involved working at local, provincial, national and international levels with governments, municipalities, universities, civil-service institutions, NGOs, communities, private-sector organisations and international development agencies.
A model that succeeds in one country cannot simply be transferred unchanged to another.
Omar began his career as an Industrial Engineer with Sri Lanka’s leading can-manufacturing company. This early role provided him with practical experience in industrial engineering, production planning, workforce management, productivity improvement and employee relations. He provided operational leadership involving more than 300 employees and contributed to successful negotiations with trade unions concerning work standardisation and remuneration.
He subsequently moved into the public sector by joining the Management Services Division of the Textile Training and Services Centre. The Division was established by Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Textile Industries with technical support from UNDP and UNIDO to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness of the textile sector.
Working alongside international experts, including specialists supported by the Canadian International Development Agency, Omar contributed to productivity improvement, management consultancy, professional training and feasibility analysis across the textile industry. He was instrumental in establishing a diploma programme intended to introduce more professional management practices and strengthen managerial capability within the sector.
During this period, Omar also produced a corporate plan for Thulhiriya Textile Mills, then Sri Lanka’s largest integrated textile mill, under an assignment commissioned by Bombay Dyeing Company. He served as Team Leader for a World Bank-funded US$10 million modernisation study and conducted cost-benefit, feasibility and productivity-improvement studies for public- and private-sector organisations.
From the textile sector, Omar moved to the USAID-supported Technology Initiative for the Private Sector as Director of Project Development. Working with private enterprises, banks, chambers of commerce, trade associations, the media and international technology providers, he helped attract more than 1,000 private-sector organisations during the programme’s first two years. The initiative exceeded its target of supporting six organisations per month through cost-sharing grants, achieving an average of approximately ten organisations per month.
Omar later held a senior leadership position at the Sri Lanka Institute of Local Governance, working with all nine Provincial Councils and approximately 330 local authorities. He directed national capacity-building programmes, managed geographically dispersed teams, conducted institutional and training-needs analyses, and developed programmes for elected representatives, public officials, NGOs and community stakeholders.
While at the Institute, Omar managed the European Commission-funded Managing Information for Local Environment in Sri Lanka (MILES) Project, implemented in partnership with the City of Munich, Germany, and the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. The project adapted European municipal environmental-management knowledge, technology and information systems to meet the institutional and operational needs of Sri Lankan local government. Its success led to invitations from the United Nations to present the programme at international conferences in Barcelona, Spain, and Havana, Cuba.
Omar subsequently served for nearly nine years as the Commonwealth Secretariat’s principal thematic adviser on Human Resource Management and Public-Sector Leadership Development. In this role, he designed and coordinated pan-Commonwealth, regional and country-specific programmes across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and the Pacific.
Omar’s international work reinforced a principle that is central to Carbonix’s approach: a model that succeeds in one country cannot simply be transferred unchanged to another. His work has therefore consistently begun with institutional and training-needs assessments, stakeholder consultation and a careful understanding of each country’s governance arrangements, socioeconomic conditions, available resources and cultural sensitivities.
Omar contributed as a team member to Sri Lanka’s national Roadmap for Disaster Risk Management, prepared for the Ministry of Disaster Management with UNDP support. He subsequently participated in post-tsunami reconstruction and early-warning learning initiatives, including an international study visit to examine recovery and early-warning experience.
He also served as a consultant to Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health. His work for the World Health Organization, titled A Review of the Current Basis of Resource Allocation for Health Care by the Government to the Provinces, was formally published. He conducted the World Bank-funded study Violence Against Women in collaboration with the then Inspector General of Police of Sri Lanka.
Throughout his career, Omar has undertaken assignments involving organisations such as the World Bank, UNDP, WHO, JICA, USAID, the European Commission, UN-Habitat, UN-ESCAP, GTZ, DFID and UNIDO. As Managing Director of Carbonix, his role focuses on building effective partnerships, ensuring that proposed solutions respond to genuine local needs, and combining international expertise with the knowledge and capabilities of national institutions and local communities.