Raja Gomez is a citizen of Sri Lanka and of the United Kingdom. He studied Chemistry for his first degree at the University of Colombo and was awarded a Smith-Mundt Fellowship for further work in the United States but instead opted to join the Sri Lanka Administrative Service. He then turned to management studies and obtained a Master’s degree with distinction from Imperial College, London.

After rising to the post of head of the civil service college in Sri Lanka, Raja joined the Commonwealth Secretariat as Assistant Director of the Management Development Division where he later became Director. Moving to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association where he served as Director of Development and Planning, he initiated a wide range of projects for parliamentarians and parliamentary staff. He has worked with governments and legislatures in all the member countries of the Commonwealth and several outside it, and has organized training activities or lectured at institutions of higher learning on every continent. He has written widely and edited publications in his areas of interest.

He now works as a consultant in Commonwealth and parliamentary affairs with such institutions as the World Bank Institute and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Part of his work in the voluntary sector is with Emmaus, a major charity for the homeless, where he is the UK national treasurer. He is a member of MENSA as well as of several professional organizations in his fields of study.