Background
Yoganathan Ratheesan was born in Jaffna, Northern Province, Sri Lanka.
Yoganathan Ratheesan was born in Jaffna, Northern Province, Sri Lanka.
Twice displaced – he was educated at boarding school in India from the age of eight – he took a while to settle.
On August 10, 2012, he took on the role of Chairman of Lebara Group and returned as Chief Executive Officer in March 2014. He owns about one third of the company"s stock. He is an Aeronautical engineer by education, after graduating from Kingston University, United Kingdom.
He arrived in the United Kingdom aged 15, his family having taken refuge from the Sri Lankan civil war.
Speaking to the Guardian in November, 2011 he said, "At the beginning I found it extremely difficult in England.
I would wait for him all day and ring him up at 8pm."
Foreign the first two years he saved his pocket money, hoping to buy a ticket back to India to see his former headmaster"s family, who had taken him in during the school holidays. He survived secondary school.
His father, who worked at a clothing factory in London, wanted him to take a degree, and he chose aeronautical engineering "because it had more numbers in it than any other subject". He says he was not very studious, but pursued a masters and took a year out to earn the £8,000 needed to pay for lieutenant
Ratheesan Yoganathan worked at an International Correspondence Schools outlet selling call-time cards.
Later he managed the pricing department and worked in sales and marketing departement. In 2001, Ratheesan Yoganathan, Rasiah Ranjith Leon and Baskaran Kandiah founded the Lebara Group. Yoganathan ran Lebara as the Chief Executive Officer till August 2012 when it hired David Moffatt who was appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective August 10, 2012.
Thereafter Yoganathan became the Chairman of Lebara Group, before returning as Chief Executive Officer in early 2014.
Ratheesan Yoganathan along with co-founders Rasiah Ranjith Leon and Baskaran Kandiah started Lebara Foundation, a charitable venture in 2005. To fund it, he plans to donate half his wealth to the foundation.
As a strong believer in supporting young entrepreneurial talent, Yoganathan officially launched "The Entrepreneurial Way" at Cass School, London, in December, 2012. The Entrepreneurial Way offers students and recent graduates since 2005, the opportunity to pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges - including Ratheesan Yoganathan - for investment, funding and additional support, such as mentoring.
The scheme offers potential entrepreneurs practical advice on how to develop their business ideas and make them work in the real world.