I'm Shanika Amarasoma — twenty years architecting the systems that turn data into decisions, from telecom-scale big-data platforms and production AI factories to active research at the edge of computational genomics.
At EY GDS, I serve as Associate Director for AI & Advanced Analytics and as a location leader in Sri Lanka — owning the technical-architecture portfolio, shaping annual roadmaps, and converting the firm's value proposition in front of clients. My job is to make ambitious AI both deliverable and defensible.
Before EY, I spent nearly nine years at Axiata growing from Principal Architect to Senior Principal Architect for Data Science & Engineering — standing up an end-to-end AI Factory: the model lifecycle, MLOps automation, deployment platform, and an ethical-AI practice that answered to auditors, regulators, and governance teams alike.
My foundation is two decades inside telecom — real-time charging, converged CRM, and big-data platforms operating at national scale. Alongside it runs a research thread I never set down: computational genomics and bioinformatics, from pangenome graphs to containerized workflow tooling. Few AI leaders ship production platforms and publish peer-reviewed science. I do both, and each sharpens the other.
From boardroom strategy down to the retraining pipeline — and out to the lab bench.
Identify high-impact AI & data initiatives, build the annual roadmap, and align every model to a business outcome — plus the client-facing advisory and pre-sales that fund it.
End-to-end ML lifecycle as a system: inception, build, deploy, and automated retraining — plus designing agentic AI systems where orchestrated, tool-using agents act on top of that platform.
Blueprint platforms for large organizations: real-time event processing, data acquisition and modelling across operating companies, built to perform under telecom-scale load.
Governance that holds up to scrutiny — strategy, explainability, and ongoing engagement with auditors, regulators, and partner AI-governance teams.
Active research in bioinformatics — pangenome graphs, containerized tool integration, and high-performance computing for genomic analysis at the frontier of the field.
Hiring and mentoring data scientists, engineers, and translators into world-class teams — and leading the technology agenda for a delivery location.
Own the technical-architecture portfolio across data management and big data, build a next-gen cloud & AI engineering team, and drive client conversations that carry EY's value proposition into client organizations.
Defined the AI roadmap, stood up the AI Factory and MLOps automation, chose the technology stack for model build/test/deploy, and built the ethical-AI practice — hiring and mentoring the team behind it.
R&D across the big-data stack, custom algorithms for incomplete datasets, real-time event processing, and high-/low-level designs mapping functionality to infrastructure.
From the Axiata big-data blueprint and Centre-of-Excellence solutions to converged charging, CRM, and the analytics platforms behind them — the operational backbone where my data career was forged.
Where the systems thinking started.
Eight peer-reviewed publications spanning genomic graph theory, deep learning, environmental ML, and enterprise data architecture.
Five awards from Dialog Axiata PLC for leadership in big data, microservices, and analytics.
Silver · Project Leader
Gold · Leading Team Member
Silver · Team Leader
Service Excellence
Gold · Team Leader
The same restless curiosity I bring to systems shows up in how I spend my own time.
Chasing new countries, cultures, and perspectives — every trip resets how I see a problem back home.
A daily practice of drawing in good thoughts and letting the dark ones go — owing nothing to anyone, clearing every past debt, and radiating positive energy and loving-kindness.
Fascinated by flight and the forensic discipline of accident investigation — root-cause thinking at 38,000 feet.
Whether it's an AI roadmap, a big-data platform, or a research collaboration — I'd like to hear about it.