The 36th National Conference of Chartered Accountants was inaugurated on Wednesday, 04th November 2015 at the BMICH, Colombo by His Excellency Y. K. Sinha, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, in the presence of the country’s high-profile corporate glitterati including top business leaders, government officials, diplomats, renowned accounting and finance professionals and foreign panelists.
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| Organized by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka), the conference inauguration was further boosted with a keynote speech delivered by Prof. Rajendra Srivastava, LKCSB Chair in Marketing Strategy and International Business at Singapore Management University and Dean – Designate of the Indian School of Business (Hyderabad & Mohali). | |
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This year’s conference which will revolve around the theme ‘Collaborate to Compete’ also broke new ground as it set an all-time high record having registered over 1500 delegates for the conference, which will conclude on 06th November 2015, following two days of technical sessions.
The technical sessions which will be held on 05th and 06th November 2015, will feature top corporate leaders and well-known foreign experts who will educate participants including business leaders on opening up their organisations to a world of opportunities by building collaborative business models that integrates the resources, knowledge and ideas across companies to produce greater synergic results.
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Over the years, the conference has attracted an unprecedented number of participants, making it among the largest corporate events in the country, while the live webcast feed of the conference proceedings has also attracted over 120 registrations from chartered accountants both in Sri Lanka and overseas.
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CA Sri Lanka introduced the concept of the national conference to Sri Lanka in 1979. The conference, over the last three and a half decades has built a reputation, as a business summit that provokes thoughts and spurs insights into broad economic and business issues; apart from its core emphasis on finance related topics.
Well-known local and foreign experts will steer the technical sessions over two days, focusing on how some companies are enjoying a definite edge over the rest by adapting unique and superior business models by collaborating with both complementary and competing entities to bridge gaps and reap benefits that are mutual in nature.
The first session of the conference on 'Economic Collaboration’ will feature Dr. Howard Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Economics from Erasmus University of Rotterdam, Netherlands who will be the speaker at the session, while Dr. Anila Dias Bandaranaike, Former Assistant Governor of Central Bank and Dr. Dushni Weerakoon, Deputy Director and Head of Macroeconomic Policy Research of the Institute of the Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) will be the panelists at the first session.
The second session on 'Public and Private Sector Collaboration' will feature Mr. John Davie, Chairman of Altra Capital Limited of United Kingdom who will be the speaker, while the panelists at the session will be Mr. Ranjit Fernando, Chairman, Urban Development Authority and Dr. Saman Kelegama, Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS).
Mr. F. R. Singhvi, Joint Managing Director of Sansera Engineering Private Limited, India will be the speaker at the third session on ‘Collaborative Supply Chain,’ while Mr. Rizvi Zaheed, Director of Hayleys PLC & Managing Director of Hayleys Agriculture Holdings Ltd, and Mr. Koenraad Pringiers, Chief Executive Officer of Camso, Loadstar Pvt Ltd, will serve as the panelists at the third session.
The fourth session on ‘Collaborate to Innovate’ will be led by Mr. Nathan Sivagananathan, Chief Growth Officer of MAS Holdings who will be the speaker at the session while Mr. Harin De Silva Wijeyeratne, Chief Executive Officer of Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC) and Ms. Linda Speldewinde, Entrepreneur/ Founder, Academy of Design (AOD) will serve as panelists.
Mr. Unmesh Pawar, Global Managing Director - Talent Acquisition of Accenture PLC (Mumbai) India, will speak at the fifth session on ‘Collaboration in Human Resources’, while Mr. Samitha Perera, Chief Executive Officer of CBL Foods International (Pvt) Ltd, and Ms. Aroshi Perera, Chief Executive Officer of Global Consulting Company will serve as panelists.
The sixth session will focus on the ‘Collaborative Role of a CFO/Finance Professional’, where a group of resource persons comprising of Mr. Ronnie Peiris, Group Finance Director of John Keells Holdings PLC, Mr. Samantha Rajapaksa, Group Managing Director of Associated Motorways, Mr. Rushdi Azeez, Head of Finance - Group Finance of Goodhope Asia Holdings Ltd, Mr. Hasith Prematillake, Country Director of Ansell Lanka, and Mr. Thalib Caffoor, Finance Director of Unilever Sri Lanka, will share their thoughts and insights on the skills, habits, mindsets, tools and techniques that finance professionals need to develop and how accounting bodies can support the finance professionals’ transition towards value creation. Mr. Suren Rajakarier, Partner of KPMG will moderate this session.
