Shehara Gamage – MSc 2018 / 19.
Shehara Gamage – MSc 2018 / 19.
NEXT Education Group was established in 2007 and since then NEXT has been engaged in postgraduate education. Starting with general qualifications such as marketing and business administration (MBA), over time, NEXT ventured into specialized master’s qualifications with the changing needs of different industry sectors.
Unique in its roots, NEXT was born from the industry. Five industry practitioners came together in 2007 to establish a business school that caters to industry practitioners. The pioneering theme was ‘learn from the experts who have proved the theory in practice’ emphasizing the value of learning from proven industry practitioners. To date we believe in this mantra of bringing industry practitioners as faculty for our master’s programmemes to offer a ‘slice of real life’ in the classroom.
With the wealth of knowledge & relevant industry experience, NEXT has the capability to deliver postgraduate master’s programmemes which are designed to suit the needs of individual managers or corporates. Seasoned senior managers as well as young executives aspiring to move into managerial positions have followed NEXT master’s programmemes to stay ahead of their peers.
FUTURE IS ABOUT SMART PEOPLE. It’s about how capable & relevant you are in changing times. As much as products have an expiry date, your knowledge, skills & capabilities have one too. This means you need to constantly upskill & reskill yourself with either qualifications or skill development programmemes.
Public and Private enterprises will need to invest in upskilling and reskilling their human capital to stay ahead in their industries. The VUCA environment, changing technologies, customer preferences, and employee expectations continuously exert pressure on enterprises to change at an accelerated pace in the coming years. This means, corporates need to upskill and reskill employees with targeted interventions that address specific competencies.
At NEXT we believe in ‘Changing Lives, Changing Organisations’. We specialize in adult education and upskilling and reskilling corporate executives to keep them relevant with changing times.
NEXT offers multiple master’s with industry specialization targeting corporate leaders. These range from business management, supply chain, digital transformation, change management, project management, business psychology, aviation management, international relations, events – leisure & tourism and luxury management. NEXT brings together industry experts as faculty to deliver these courses to make them highly relevant to industry practitioners.
We partner with London Metropolitan University, UK to bring a portfolio of specialised master’s programmemes targeting corporate executives. London Metropolitan University was ranked #1 in London and #6 in the UK for teaching quality by The Times and Sunday Good Times University Guide 2022.
MA, MBA, DipM(UK),
MCIM, Chartered Marketer
Dusty is the Chairman of NEXT Education Group and a Non-Executive Director at Pepper Cube Consultants and the former Managing Director of Heineken Lanka. He is a corporate trainer, speaker at forums and a lecturer for Master’s programmes specializing in strategy, leadership and change.
Dusty has over 25 years industry experience with leading multinational companies, in diverse sectors, in different functions and leadership levels. He started his career in the pharmaceutical industry (1991-1995) and then moved to Caterpillar Marketing Services (1996-1998). He then moved into brand management in FMCG (1999) before taking a research role at British American Tobacco (BAT) PLC Colombo. Finally, he was Head of Brands at BAT (2000-05), and moved as Head of Marketing to Coca-Cola Sri Lanka (2006-11). Currently, he is the Managing Director at Heineken Lanka since 2011.
Dusty completed the Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) UK and became a Fellow Member and a Charted Marketer. He completed his MBA in 2002. Dusty is the first Sri Lankan to be selected and graduate (2017-19) from the ‘Executive Masters for Coaching & Consulting for Change (EMC)’ at INSEAD Campus. Currently, he is reading for his doctorate.
Dusty has been trained in University of Pretoria in Johannesburg, INSEAD Campus in Fontainebleau and Harvard Business School in Boston on leadership and strategic management. His areas of research interests revolve around managing change both at individual and corporate level with particular focus on digital transformation and
CEO succession and transition.
In his free time, he enjoys teaching, cycling, and travelling to new destinations. He is the founder of “Life after School Foundation” dedicated for career guidance and shaping future talent for corporate sector.
Kumudu joined NEXT Education Group as the founder General Manager in 2007, and is currently the CGO of NEXT Education Group.
Kumudu started her career as a professional banker at HSBC, she first moved to the education sector when she joined British Council in 2002. Prior to joining NEXT, Kumudu was attached to ICBT Campus Sri Lanka as the Head of Postgraduate Division, where she was responsible for the delivery of multiple Master’s courses and a DBA.
Kumudu has worked with multiple University partners and awarding bodies from US, UK and Australia. Kumudu holds a BA (Hons) in Social Sciences, a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Economics and an MBA from Birmingham City University. In addition, she holds a full professional qualification from Institute of Bankers and Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM) Sri Lanka.
She is currently a doctoral candidate on the PhD in Educational Research – Higher Education at University of Lancaster, UK.