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 implemented the International Table Tennis Federation’s Women’s Development Programme, which later won a Sport Accord Award and also initiated a Women and Sport Management seminar, held in Lausanne. A professional in international relations, Lilamani spoke at the International Olympic Committee world conference 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 English, French, Sinhalese and Russian fluently, and has studied Italian, Mandarin and Japanese. She is currently at the Tsukuba International Academy for Sport Studies in Japan working on research connected to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.