Mr. Edgar Gunatunga has been elected the chairman of the Sampath Bank succeeding the late Mr. Dunstan, D. de Alwis, P.C., an announcement from the bank said.

Mr. Gunatunga, while active as a full timer in the banking industry, has served as CEO of both the Commercial Bank and the Sampath Bank before his retirement from executive duties. He then took a seat on the board of the Sampath Bank.

Gunutunga's is a remarkable career that began several decades ago when he joined the then British owned Eastern Bank as a junior clerk. After two years in that capacity, he went to England and was taken on by the banks' principals as a trainee.

He was in England for six years during which time he passed his banking examinations and returned to Colombo as a covenanted officer of the Eastern Bank which, following a 1969 merger, became the Commercial Bank of Ceylon.

Gunatunga who served the Commercial Bank as manager of its Jaffna branch for one year, went up the senior management ladder there and served as AGM, GM and CEO/Managing Director until retirement.

The Sampath Bank was in trouble at that time and he was persuaded by the Central Bank/Monetary Board to assist this relatively new bank which he helped to turnaround. "I went there for two years and stayed four," he said.

When he retired from his executive functions at Sampath, he was invited to stay on its board. Following the death of Mr. Dunstan de Alwis, the directors of the Sampath Bank asked him to become its chairman.

"That was one of the two happiest days of my life. The first was when I got married and now when I was invited to become chairman of the bank. It's been a long march for a junior clerk."