Lilamani de Soysa’s work in the Women in Sport movement began when she was inspired after attending the IWG World Conference in Montreal in 2002. She was instrumental in designing and managing the Women’s Development Programme of the International Table Tennis Federation, which won a Sport Accord Award as well as an award from the Islamic Women’s Sport Federation and also initiated an international Women and Sport Management seminar, held in Lausanne.
A professional in international sport management and international relations, Lilamani has been invited to speak on many at the International Olympic Committee world conference on women and sport in Marrakech and the UN conference on sport and gender. Lilamani is a native of Sri Lanka, with Swiss dual nationality. She holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Lausanne, speaks several languages fluently including English, French, Sinhalese and Russian. After working as International Director and researcher for over four years at the Tsukuba International Academy for Sport Studies (TIAS) in Japan, a legacy education programme of the Japanese government for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, she is now working as an Independent Sport Consultant in Lausanne.