The business story
Don Harold Stassen “Harry” Jayawardena (1942–2025). Began as a tea trader; headed the State Trading Corporation’s tea department in the 1970s; founded Stassen Exports in 1977. Acquired a controlling interest in the Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka (DCSL) in 1992 — then the largest transaction on the Colombo Stock Exchange — and built a conglomerate (Melstacorp) spanning Aitken Spence, Lanka Milk Foods, plantations and bank stakes (HNB, DFCC). Executive chairman of SriLankan Airlines from 2008. Deshamanya (2005); Knight of the Order of Dannebrog (2010).
Early life and background
Don Harold Stassen Jayawardena, known to everyone as Harry, was born in Ja-Ela, just north of Colombo, in August 1942. He entered business through tea, the commodity at the centre of Ceylon's economy since colonial times.
In the 1970s he ran the tea department of the State Trading Corporation. Sri Lanka's economy was then tightly controlled, with the state dominating trade, so the role gave him a detailed view of how the country's main export was graded, priced, contracted and shipped. He learned the brokers, the buyers, the auctions and the logistics of getting a perishable crop to distant markets, practical knowledge that later proved hard for competitors to match.
Building Melstacorp
In 1977, the year Sri Lanka began opening its economy to private enterprise, Jayawardena left that position and founded Stassen Exports to sell Ceylon tea abroad. The export house generated foreign-currency income and established him as a successful private operator. By 1988 he had already become a significant shareholder in Hatton National Bank.
His defining move came in 1992, when he took a controlling interest in the Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka. The deal was described at the time as the largest transaction the Colombo Stock Exchange had seen. DCSL led the national liquor market, a legal but socially contested business with steady demand that held up in downturns. Control of it gave him a reliable source of internal cash for the next three decades.
He used that cash to assemble a diversified group, eventually organised under the Melstacorp holding company. It came to include a major position in Aitken Spence, with hotels, shipping and logistics; Lanka Milk Foods in dairy; plantation companies including Madulsima and Balangoda; and stakes in Hatton National Bank and DFCC. He was consistently counted among Sri Lanka's richest people.
