Sivaguru Sahajananthan is a resourceful professor who loves learning and teaching. He is an expert on both the theory and the practice of project management and has extensive experience in managing several multimillion-dollar multidisciplinary projects. He has more than 10 years of experience in teaching project management to adult and post-secondary level students in Toronto. Sahaj started his first career as an assistant lecturer at the University of Colombo (Sri Lanka), immediately after completing his first degree. After teaching for about two years, he joined the Sri Lankan Government services as an Assistant Conservator of Forests, and rapidly rose to the position of Head of Forest Management and Inventory, in the Sri Lankan Forest Department. In this capacity, he developed and managed the entire country’s forest management portfolio for several years. Concurrently, he served as the director of several mega projects financed by agencies such as FAO of the United Nations, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, USAID, and IUCN projects. He also served as a visiting professor on forest management and silviculture for the Master’s degree program in forestry at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka.
Sahaj, after completing his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia, served as a post-doctoral research fellow for a year in the same university. Due to his desire to serve in an international development organization, he then joined the Asian Development Bank as a project management specialist and served in several capacities, namely forestry specialist, environment specialist, rural development specialist, and as a procurement cum consultancy specialist for eleven years. During his tenure at the ADB, he was responsible for the management of a large portfolio of programs and projects in several countries in the Asia Pacific Region, which included Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, the People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, and Viet Nam.
Sahaj holds a Doctorate degree in forest resource economics from the University of British Columbia, a Master’s degree from the University of Oxford, UK, a Bachelor’s degree in Science from the University of Colombo (Sri Lanka), and a Post-graduate Diploma from Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy in Dehradun, India. He is also a certified PMP, PMI-RMP, PMI-PBA, and a PRINCE2 Registered Practitioner, UK (2013-2018). Additionally, he has also successfully completed 2 of the 4-part examinations conducted by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) in the UK. Lastly, he is a proud holder of Centennial’s Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education with Honors.
Sahajananthan (Sahaj) is prepared to go to any extent to make a student understand. His other interests include spirituality, sustainability, culture, and travel.