Hello, I’m Nisal. Firstly thanks for taking the interest to know more about me. Let me give you a small snapshot of myself.
I come from a tiny farming village very close to the centre of my island country, Sri Lanka. We lived in a textile mill that was surrounded by nature close to forest reserves and ancient ruins. We didn’t have much, but It was amazing. Very early on in life, I realised I had a passion for design, acting, music and telling stories.
I decided to move to the city, school there for a bit and I eventually found a job doing graphic work at a photo editing company. But I knew I wanted to tell stories through campaigns and advertisements. So I quit my job there and got an opportunity to work at Grants McCann Erickson in Sri Lanka.
While work was going on, I had a yearning to complete a degree in design. That can be hard to do with a full-time advertising job, so I took up a consultancy role at Grants and found another 3 odd jobs with flexible hours to make time and money to pay and complete a design degree from the Academy of Design in Colombo City (affiliated with Northumbria University).
Needless to say, I was stretched thin, but by the end of the organised madness, I got my degree and Grants McCann Erickson hired me again as a Senior Art Director. Shortly after that, I got a golden opportunity to work at Mullen Lowe in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City from January 2015 to May 2016.
Vietnam exposed me to the international world of high-stakes advertising and while working there I was asked to join a multi-award-winning boutique agency called Ki Saigon. Things were going great, I was in a foreign land, loving my work and international clients, I picked up a Spikes Silver award but still, I decided to come back to my island home, Sri Lanka.
The reason? Love. Love has an interesting way of shaping destiny if you let it.
This love led to marriage, marriage led to fatherhood and I found myself working as the Associate Creative Director at J. Walter Thompson. I was leading a ragtag team of highly specialised individuals with the primary purpose of winning pitches.
And win we did. Within a span of a few months, we were the team that added 4 big clients to our company portfolio. Sri Lankan Airlines. Sri Lanka Telecom. Hatton National Bank. Fonterra. So much so the larger office started to call us the Pitch Kings - Because our blood would adrenalize at the thought of winning a new pitch.
It was fun while it lasted, and by the time the frenzy settled, I was offered a role as a Creative Director at Response Marketing and Isobar, two companies under the Dentsu Aegis Network. I was handling international brands and the team and work were good, but I was offered an interesting challenge to form and be the creative Head of one of the largest producers and exporters of tea in Sri Lanka - Dilmah
Currently, this is where I work, leading a team of individuals who are doing groundbreaking work and transforming the image and outlook of a great company to appeal to a wider and younger audience. I have managed to create a hybrid creative department to support and revolutionise the way creatives are done within a corporate structure. It was not about reinventing the wheel, but more about finding new roads the wheel can take.
The work is good, and things are looking very positive. Along with my day job, I also travel the country as a DJ and I get part-time acting gigs. I like my life in Sri Lanka. But as I mentioned before, there is a four-letter word that has a funny way of shaping destiny - Love.
My greatest love and achievement, my son, lives in London right now and I live and work in Sri Lanka. There is something in the air that tells me my love for him might shape my destiny once more. Stay tuned to find out more.
Thanks for reading.