Shemara Wikramanayake

Shemara Wikramanayake (born 1962) is an Australian businesswoman. She embarked on a career as a lawyer and then as a banker. In 2018, she became the Managing Director and CEO of Macquarie Group Ltd. She is also well known for her efforts in implementing creative strategies and methodologies to finance low carbon emissions and has also made collaborations with powerful forces to achieve the goal of low carbon emissions. She has often advocated to increase renewable energy production and has also called on the governments to quadruple renewable energy production by 2030 with the intention to minimize the global effects of climate change. Wikramanayake received a total of $A23.7 million in compensation in 2022, making her the highest paid CEO in Australia for the second year in a row. Career Wikramanayake worked as a corporate lawyer at Blake Dawson Waldron before joining Macquarie Group Ltd in 1987. She headed Macquarie's corporate advisory office in New Zealand and she was also instrumental in setting up corporate advisory offices in Hong Kong and Malaysia. She worked with Macquarie Capital for nearly 20 years and was appointed as the head of the Macquarie Asset Management in 2008 and headed the asset management arm of the company for more than a decade. In December 2018, she replaced Nicholas Moore as Managing Director/CEO of Macquarie Group. Prior to this, Wikramanayake was the group head of Macquarie Asset Management. She also went onto become the first female CEO of Macquarie Group and also turned out to be the sixth CEO of Macquarie Group.