Asanka Pathiraja

An honors graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Asanka is a New York Bar qualified Attorney-at-Law and resides in Manhattan, New York. At his former global AMLAW 50 Firm, during the course of 5.5 years, he focused on corporate transactions, entrepreneurial ventures, and entertainment and media. Further, he has served as the firm’s principal liaison to the ABANA (North America’s pre-eminent organization linking leading business figures/organizations on Wall Street and the Middle East/North Africa). In this capacity, he has hosted multiple delegations from the Middle East, helped to sponsor the Annual Achievement Gala, which has honored figures such as Mohamed Alabbar (Chairman of Emaar Properties), Larry Fink (CEO of BlackRock), David Rubenstein (Co-Founder of Carlyle Group), served as an ABANA speaker bureau, and was the original conceiver of its annual “Summit Forum” – held at Bloomberg to discuss topical issues related to the Middle East. Prior to the above, Asanka was a principal at a leading Duke University Endowment backed Venture Fund/Incubator located in Research Triangle Park. He has continued his interest in the venture space both in his legal practice and through his own seeds investments and advisory work with companies such as Virtualitics, a Caltech/Jet Propulsion lab based Virtual Reality-Artificial Intelligence Company, Engineer.AI., a global artificial intelligence company focused on software design for Small to Medium Size Enterprises, Arctic Juice and Cafe, Richard Taittinger Gallery and Tizoto Tea Estates. In the emerging market context, Asanka worked as an advisor to several private equity funds establishing themselves in Sri Lanka in the immediate post war – 2009 environment. Futher, he organized and lead trade delegations to the country in efforts to boost FDI investments while simultaneously working on the investment banking desk at Citibank – Colombo. ? Asanka is a member of the Royal Ascot, Royal Enclosure and the Conduit Membership Club in Mayfair, London, United Kingdom (https://www.ft.com/content/1a6eb278-582d-11e8-806a-808d194ffb75) ? In 2020, Asanka was selected for the prestigious 40 under 40 list of prominent Emory University Alumni – an award conferred by committee decision upon distinguished Alumni. ?