Resume
Thamara Kandabada
I am a Sri Lankan professional currently living and working in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I have a keen eye for detail and a strong work ethic. I pride myself in my ability to adapt and learn new things—be it technology, operational processes, or creative endeavours. In my free time, I frequent the cinema, play guitar, game, read, and tinker with this website.
At a glance
2017
Left my job in marketing to start my own business. Built a very successful e-commerce business over the next 5+ years.
2020
Started a manufacturing arm for the business. Developed key skills in the apparel manufacturing sector.
2022
Moved to Belfast to support my partner with her further education plans. Started working at Desk Warehouse.
Key skills & qualities
- A keen eye for detail
- A strong work ethic
- The ability to adapt quickly
- A lifelong love of learning
- A creative brain
Hobbies & interests
- Avid cinema-goer and physical media collector
- Blues and rock aficionado
- Bedroom guitar player
- Amateur gamer
- Alternate movie poster designer
- More on my now page
Professional & personal milestones
- Co-founding and managing two successful businesses early in life
- Moving across continents with my partner with our lives packed into a few bags and starting anew as migrants
Networks
- BNI (Invictus Chapter)
Experience
Desk Warehouse | Belfast, UK current
Desk Warehouse is the leading office furniture supplier in Northern Ireland. Our showrooms are based in a large converted Victorian linen mill, and we have an extensive selection of new, clearance and used office furniture to suit any requirement.
General Manager
–Present
While making sure all aspects of the day-to-day run smoothly, I also take primary responsibility for the sales pipeline of the business.
Admin Manager
–
Daily admin tasks including showroom operations, online/offline sales support, order processing, delivery route planning, customer support, credit control and marketing content creation.
Bear Appeal & Bear Supply Global | Nugegoda, Sri Lanka
Bear Appeal is a men’s clothing brand that is all about convenience and peace-of-mind. Offering high quality everyday wear that help you get through your day, Bear Appeal boasts an extremely loyal customer base, which continues to expand thanks to a tried and tested customer-centric formula. In 2022, Bear Appeal expanded into the Maldives market.
Bear Supply Global is an apparel manufacturing company, primarily founded as the production arm for the Bear Appeal brand. Since then, Bear Supply Global has expanded operations to service other clients such as Uber Sri Lanka, 99x Technology, Calcey Technologies, CodeGen International, Surge Global, and more.
Co-Founder & Director
–
Primary responsibilities:
- One of the key decision makers for the company regarding all matters
- Corporate account management
- Production floor supervision
- General administration
- Supervision of all day-to-day operations including order management, fulfilment, customer service, inventory management, supply chain and finances
- Team building, coaching and training
- Representing the company at industry events and in the media
Notable achievements:
- Cutting down production lead time by more than half (compared to outsourced manufacturing)
- Maintaining low production costs, enabling us to keep Bear Appeal products affordable through the pandemic and an economic crisis
- Creating a fully bootstrapped profit-making startup with no external funding
- Offering exceptional customer service and great products (Rated 4.9/5 on Google with 1000+ reviews)
- Growing sales and new customer acquisitions through a pandemic
- Excellent customer retention and loyalty throughout the years
- Offering a lenient refund/exchange policy to all customers
Sana Commerce | Colombo, Sri Lanka
Sana Commerce is a class leading B2B e-commerce solution that helps companies sell their products online while keeping their ERP system at the heart of everything. I primarily explored opportunities in Australia & New Zealand.
Field Marketing Manager
–
Primary responsibilities:
- Designing and executing campaigns for brand awareness and demand generation, especially in Australia and New Zealand
- Email marketing (using Marketo)
- Social Media marketing (primarily LinkedIn Advertising)
- Web Advertising and PR (with external partners)
- SEA and SEM (with external technical partners)
- Event marketing (primarily SAP and MS Dynamics related)
- Acting in an advisory capacity to the Database Marketing team which I managed earlier
- Overseeing the regional business development (cold calling) team in close collaboration with the regional Sales Manager
Notable achievements:
- Maintaining a 35%+ QoQ increase in incoming qualified leads for the sales team to engage (2016)
- Introducing CamCard to the sales and marketing teams in order to streamline the process of collecting, recording and following up business cards (I prepared documentation and conducted one-on-one sessions to onboard colleagues)
- Close cooperation with Sales, Product Dev and Upper Management to develop effective campaigns that aligned with broader company goals
- Special focus in Sales and Marketing alignment
Database Marketing Manager
–
Primary responsibilities:
- Heading the team which was responsible for managing and effectively distributing all inbound lead-related data that gets captured in the company’s CRM and Marketing Automation (Marketo) systems on to the sales team
- Liaising with the Digital Marketing and lead generation teams to optimise processes of lead generation, lead nurturing and data enrichment, while providing the international Sales team the best data to work with.
Notable achievements:
- Introducing and onboarding (by creating and conducting tutorials, documentation, videos, support material and one-on-one sessions) the international marketing team spread across 3 continents to the task management platform Trello.
- Training a member of my team to take on the team leadership role
Team Captain – Marketing Support
–
Primary responsibilities:
- Conducting market research
- Supporting the International social media marketing team
- Formulating and implementing the online content strategy of the Sri Lankan operation (social media and website content)
Notable achievements:
- Producing a weekly video content programme which featured employees as the ambassadors of the company
- Co-ordinating the Great Place to Work 2015 programme for the company
Junior Business Developer
–
Primary responsibilities:
- Data entry and enrichment
- Lead generation via social media prospecting
- Market research and analysis
Notable achievements:
- Training new colleagues for the data entry team
- Actively contributing to making a fully-fledged business development centre with separate teams for sales, marketing support, and lead generation
eBEYONDS | Pannipitiya, Sri Lanka
Intern
–
I worked briefly in the company as a trainee where I mainly supported the organising of a soft skills training programme. PACE Institute, the educational arm of eBEYONDS, organised this event focused on filling the much needed gap in the academic and professional education industry to mould and build a high value employee.
UNICEF | Remote
Blogging Intern
–
I was selected as one of the 20 blogging interns from around the world for Voices of Youth remote internship programme in 2014. During the 6-month internship, passionate youngsters from around the world published articles regularly on a range of youth and development related topics.
Sri Lanka Anti-Narcotics Association | Colombo, Sri Lanka
Intern
–
I worked as a project official for the 16th National Health Run (2014), the annual national awareness event organised by SLANA. I also helped in organising and conducting two other community-based awareness projects for schoolchildren, labourers, and vulnerable communal groups.
Education
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants
CIMA Professional Qualification
–
Management Accounting qualification with a focus on business strategy and financial performance.
Recommendations
“Thamara joined Sana as one of the first members of the business development team in Sri Lanka. He more than successfully carried out all the responsibilities in this role while directly being involved in recruiting for and growing the team further. Next to that he took on the challenge of building the marketing support function in Sri Lanka and went on to manage the marketing activities for the APAC and Middle East regions for the Sana product. Overall, I’ve come to know Thamara as someone who likes challenges and is keen to grab opportunities. He’s entrepreneurial, a great communicator and simply very pleasant to work with.”
Former CEO, Sana Commerce
“I worked with Thamara when I was managing the Business Development Department at Sana Commerce. Thamara proved to be a very bright and ambitious person, with a clear drive to continuously improve himself, both personally and professionally. Thanks to his contribution we saw a boost in the efficiency of the Marketing support team in Sri Lanka and we managed to structure the first marketing campaigns for the Business Development Department.”
Former Business Development Manager, Sana Commerce
“Thamara has a great intrinsic ambitious drive. With his curious mind and early adoption of new technologies he is a great asset for any organisation.”
Former General Manager, Sana Commerce Sri Lanka
“Thamara is very enthusiastic and pro-active. He is a result driven individual with a lot of dedication to marketing management activities for Sana Commerce in Asia Pacific & Middle East. I really enjoy working with Thamara.”
Former Sales Manager, Sana Commerce Sri Lanka
