Shemara Wikramanayake, 56, is the head of management of the Australian financial services provider, Macquarie, best renown globally as an infrastructure investment leader. She has led the asset management of the company to A$472 billion.
Wikramanayake, who is also the Chair of Macquarie Group Foundation, used to live in London. Her Sri Lankan father worked as a doctor in the UK before the family moved to Australia where she attended the reputable Ascham school for girls. She went on to complete her education in Bcomm and LLB, from the University of New South Wales, Australia in 1984, and completed an Advanced Management Programme at Harvard University, in 1996.
She enjoyed being low profile until her photograph was on the cover of the Australia's Boss magazine in 2016. Shemara shares, “People would look at me after that interview and ask, 'Is that what you really look like?' But I'm not Nicole Kidman. They found it very uplifting to see a picture of a non-white female on the magazine cover. It helps kids to think, 'I could do that job'.”
