Thishani Rodrigo has been recognized with a 2025 Global Recognition Award for building an integrated system that connects higher education, ethical international recruitment, and sustainable development across South Asia and beyond. Rodrigo serves as Chief of Global Strategic Partnerships, Assistant to the President, University Secretary, and Board Member at KIU University in Sri Lanka. She also leads EIPER International (Private) Limited as the Managing Director of the licensed recruitment agency. She oversees environmental initiatives through Green Cross Sri Lanka as the Director, demonstrating a capacity to manage multiple high-impact organizations while maintaining rigorous standards across all domains. Her work spans ten countries, addressing critical gaps in professional mobility, educational access, and community infrastructure through carefully designed frameworks that prioritize immediate results and long-term sustainability. Shortlisted applicants for the Global Recognition Awards are evaluated using the Rasch model, which creates a linear measurement scale for each category, allowing for precise comparisons between candidates who excel in different areas.

KIU University has established formal collaborations with institutions and employers in Japan, Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, New Zealand, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and China under Rodrigo’s direction, creating a network that functions as an educational resource and an employment pipeline. These partnerships offer structured pathways for students and professionals to access international opportunities, ensuring academic and regulatory compliance that meets the standards of both sending and receiving countries. Thousands of Sri Lankan nurses and caregivers have secured overseas placements through these channels, which combine language training, professional certification, and post-arrival support that extends well beyond the initial placement period. Rodrigo designed the governance frameworks that allow KIU to scale these programs without compromising standards or exploiting participants, ensuring that every stage of the process reflects ethical principles and measurable quality benchmarks. The university’s reputation has grown substantially under her leadership, positioning it as one of Sri Lanka’s most dynamic non-state institutions while creating pathways that alter individual careers and strengthen the country’s position in global labor markets.

Ethical Migration and Professional Mobility Systems

EIPER International operates under Rodrigo’s management as a recruitment agency that connects academic credentials to international employment opportunities, maintaining transparency and regulatory compliance throughout the entire migration process. The organization has launched migration pathways to Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Germany, with active development of routes to Canada, the UK, and New Zealand that will expand access to additional labor markets. Each pathway includes transparent contracting, predeparture orientation, and ongoing support after placement that addresses professional integration and personal adaptation to new cultural environments.

Rodrigo’s model eliminates many of the predatory practices that have historically plagued international labor migration from South Asia, including hidden fees, contract substitution, and inadequate preparation for the destination-country work environment, which often leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation. The system integrates directly with KIU’s academic programs, allowing students to complete nursing or caregiving credentials while preparing for overseas licensure exams and language proficiency tests that match the requirements of their intended destinations. Rodrigo structured these programs to meet Sri Lankan regulatory standards and the requirements of destination countries, creating a seamless transition that reduces barriers and increases success rates for participants.

Sustainable Development Through Community Water Infrastructure

Rodrigo expanded the Smart Water Project across multiple districts in Sri Lanka through her role as project director and overseer for Green Cross Sri Lanka, bringing clean drinking water systems to schools and communities that lack reliable access to safe water and face persistent health challenges as a result. Partnerships with Green Cross Japan, the Embassy of Japan, Giorgio Armani’s Acqua for Life, and Green Cross Switzerland provide technical expertise and funding. Local teams handle installation, maintenance, training, and sanitation education, ensuring that communities can sustain these systems independently. The project has reached thousands of students and families in underserved regions, reducing waterborne illness and improving school attendance rates while creating measurable improvements in community health outcomes.

The Smart Water Project aligns with multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals, including those related to health, education, clean water, and global partnerships, demonstrating how targeted infrastructure interventions can address various development challenges simultaneously. Rodrigo’s management ensures that installations are maintained by trained community members rather than external contractors, creating local employment and long-term sustainability that extends beyond the initial implementation phase. The project demonstrates how international collaboration can address infrastructure gaps in low-income areas without creating dependency on foreign aid, building a model that other organizations have begun to study for replication in similar contexts.

Final Words

Thishani Rodrigo has built systems that connect education, employment, and environmental health in ways that produce measurable outcomes for thousands of people while setting new standards for ethical practice in international education and migration. Her work at KIU University has positioned the institution as a leader in global partnerships and professional training, serving individual advancement and broader economic development goals. Her management of EIPER International has created ethical pathways for labor migration that protect workers and meet destination-country standards. Her oversight of the Smart Water Project has delivered critical infrastructure to communities that governments and markets have failed to reach.

These achievements reflect a career dedicated to solving problems that require coordination across sectors, countries, and institutional cultures while maintaining a steadfast commitment to ethical principles and measurable impact. Rodrigo’s approach combines strategic vision with operational discipline, allowing her to execute complex initiatives that others might abandon as impractical or too challenging to implement at scale. “Thishani Rodrigo has demonstrated an exceptional ability to translate vision into functioning systems that serve real needs across multiple domains,” said Alex Sterling, spokesperson for the Global Recognition Awards, noting that her contributions cover education, migration, sustainability, and international development in ways that few leaders manage to achieve within a single career.