Ornamental Fish International (OFI) welcomes the appointment of two new members to our Board of Advisors, Mr H. Chrishantha Alexander, Managing Director of Seylon Aquatics (Pvt) Ltd of Sri Lanka, and Mr Rajanta Sinardja Rahardja of CV Bellenz, Indonesia. Both new members were selected by members in their countries and act on their behalf to provide input to the executive on issues affecting their region and help to facilitate membership and communication.
The new positions were created out of recognition of Indonesia and Sri Lanka both to the ornamental fish industry as major exporting countries and the large number of members in these countries. OFI President Shane Willis sad “Indonesia and Sri Lanka are major producers and exporters of ornamental fish that were currently not represented at the board level of OFI, a decision was taken at the last AGM to expand our Board of Advisors to include a representative from each of these countries”.
Rajanta has been an OFI member since 2010 and is a world-renowned expert on breeding rare L-number catfish. He has held positions on a number of government working groups and industry associations in Indonesia, and is an active advocator for the industry in Indonesia. Chrishantha has a solid background in the industry having started working for John Keells Aquariums in 1993 where he was promoted up to Senior Marketing Executive. He established his own export business in 2003 which has been an OFI member for over 10 years. Chrishantha is currently the president of Association of Live Tropical Fish Exporters of Sri Lanka.
The appointment of these two new positions will allow OFI to work more in these two important countries, Willis said “I have known Chrishantha and Rajanta for many years and both are excellent appointments to the Board of Advisors I look forward to working with them in the future.”
