Kaushala Ratnayake

Kaushala Ratnayake describes herself as the poster child for a “squiggly” career path. 

She has transitioned through four entirely different types of work, spanning biotech, start-up innovation, management consulting and media, across three different cities and various teams. 

And having achieved all this by the age of 29, Kaushala has now landed firmly on her feet as the head of strategy at Bauer Media London, where she is responsible for setting the direction for growth for the UK publishing business. 

“The diversity of my experience has given me confidence in a world where things are changing so fast,” Kaushala says of the role, which she was appointed to at age 27.

“Bauer has fascinating strategic transformational opportunities. A big focus for me is setting up the company to become a media leader in sustainability.”

A traditional career path does not exist for a head of strategy, but they do need an unusually diverse set of skills, from project management and finance through to leadership and the ability to predict market trends and engage people in a vision.  

Kaushala’s eclectic resume set her up perfectly for the role, as well as her previous position at the BBC, where she advised leadership on how the company’s products and services should evolve.  

She is extremely proud to be part of the decision-making team for such globally iconic companies. 

But breaking into London’s media industry was tough, Kaushala says. 

“Media is a sector I was really interested in, but building a career bottom-up in a new city wasn’t easy,” she says.

“My husband and I love to explore other cities and cultures. I was always visiting my family in Sri Lanka and stopping off in Asia, so exploring and travelling was always going to be part of my future.

“So when I finally got a strategy role at the BBC everything started falling into place.” 

Looking back, Kaushala says her time in the Master of Bioscience Enterprise degree and the student organisation Chiasma was invaluable, as well as the mentorship she has received, particularly from other women.

“I have been so lucky to have amazing women role models in my life. My masters industry supervisor Kimberlee Jordan, Leissa Wheatley and Lauren Foster during my time at Deloitte, and more recently Nicky Holt at Bauer Media.

"My time at Deloitte is probably the role I credit most to the way I operate and deliver work now. It was challenging and I discovered many areas I didn’t know I had potential in,” she says.

“And Chiasma really opened my eyes to whole new career paths, helping me to redefine my goals and what I thought I could achieve.”

As well as making our 40 Under 40 list, Kaushala was recently named as a standout 30 Under 30 by the UK Publishing Association and the International News Media Association.

But there is one thing Kaushala says is still missing from her resumé. 

“I’ve focused on my career for a long time so this year I’m taking a few months out to do charity work in Sri Lanka with a grassroots foundation setting up rural schools and teaching underprivileged children.

“I feel like this is only the beginning. At 19 if you told me this was what was ahead of me I probably wouldn’t have signed up and wanted something more consistent but now at 29 I couldn’t ask for anything better.”