ACCA holds successful Student Conference for fourth year

Carrying forward from last year’s success, the ACCA Students Committee proudly presented its fourth Annual Student Conference on 13 October 2012 at King’s Court, Cinnamon Lakeside.

The conference, which is one of the flagship events in the ACCA Students’ Committee’s event calendar, is customarily based on a specific theme. The chosen theme for this year was ‘The Power within You’ and it addressed the strengths and attributes that each individual possesses, which needs to be brought out, focused and built on, developed, nurtured and utilised in order for them to accelerate their chances of success in the corporate or entrepreneurial scene.

In line with the previous ACCA conferences, this year’s conference also included an influential and inspirational group of speakers who have themselves attained success and credibility in their respective fields.

The event commenced with addresses by the President of the Students Committee Khalra Deen and the President of ACCA Sri Lanka Rajive Casie Chetty, who stated that the chosen theme was an important area to focus on in today’s world and encouraged the participants to learn from the experts’ views, which would be brought out at the conference and to use it for their own advantage to “learn from the best in the business and enhance the talent you possess”.

The speakers consisted of Dian Gomes – Group Director, MAS Holdings, who was the Keynote Speaker for the event. In keeping with the theme of the conference ‘The Power within You,’ Gomes outlined that one of the key differentiators required to succeed was leadership and people skills.

He explained to the audience some key leadership skills that would make one attain success such as inspiring a shared vision amongst your staff, challenging yourself and the process, motivating and enabling others to act and achieve and of following up on promises made to both staff and your clients.

The next speaker, Rajendra Theagarajah – MD/CEO, Hatton National Bank, touched on the subject ‘Your Key to the Corporate Boardroom’ and pointed out the ingredients one must possess to be chosen in getting to the boardroom and remaining there.

He affirmed the importance of developing one’s soft skills and the “art of positioning yourself positively” and said that some of the key attributes one must acquire must include the ability to inspire others, have personal credibility and integrity and be adaptable to changing situations.  This was followed by Niranjan De Silva – Director, Metropolitan Group of Companies who spoke on ‘Inspiring Creativity’ and stated that “only ideas matter” and explained how small improvements made everyday can lead one to eventually achieve big things in life.

He said that creativity in one can be inspired through harnessing in oneself, ideas that are unique that have a focused and realistic purpose, the right people to carry out the task as well as have an achievable deadline for all projects.

Another eminent speaker to address the audience was Reeza Zarook – CEO of Anything.lk, who availed the participants on the subject of ‘Courage to Change’. He stated: “Courage may be the single most important characteristic for changing your life and making a change requires risk and risk is scary because when you risk, you may fail whilst of course, the other side of the coin is that only by taking risks can we truly succeed.”

He added: “Courage enables you to reject your old inertia, chart a new course of your life, emboldens you to embrace the values that are important to you now and allows you to act in ways that strengthen rather than undermine your abilities and self-esteem.”

Tahe last speaker on the list Dananjaya Hettiarachchi – award winning speaker, HRD specialist, and trainer (ranked amongst the top 100 speakers in the world), delivered an inspiring speech on ‘The Lies We Tell: There is Only One Way to Build Character’

He addressed traits and habits we can integrate into our personality which can boost our chances of success by sharing his moving personal experiences.

A panel discussion followed which consisted of several eminent personalities of the likes of Vipula Gunatilleka – CCO, Aitken Spence, Balraj Arunasalam – International Director, Toastmasters, Manohari Abeyesekara – Director, Hayleys Group Services, and Shanaaz Preena – Director Human Resource, MAS Holdings. The session was moderated by Dilshad Jiffry – Financial Analyst, Browns Group of Companies.

This year’s ACCA Student Conference had an infusion of new thinking and embodied their recognition of the need to purposefully address organisational change and embrace professionalism and emulated the commitment to provide students opportunities to building bridges of connection to grow and thrive, whilst valuing their strengths and differences.