CA Strategy summit kicks off

By Shehana Dain

The biggest ever business strategy conference in the country, the Strategy Summit organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) began yesterday. 

IFAC Chief Financial Officer Russel Guthrie attended the summit as a special guest.

CA Sri Lanka Arjuna Herath, speaking at the conference, highlighted that entrepreneurship and innovation would play a key role in the development of the country and the execution of strategy made by business leaders in a country would definitely affect the volume and quality of investment that would flow into Sri Lanka.

Making a special speech at the summit, IFAC CFO Russel Guthrie highlighted three key areas in policy and strategy affecting Sri Lanka in his speech stressing that accountants played a much larger role in organisations’ strategy than what society perceives. 

“We are trained in deep financial knowledge, various policies, we understand business and many companies rely on our knowledge immensely,” Guthrie said.  

The second point he noted was finding the best talent which would enable companies to strive for success. He also highlighted how globally accountants had a major responsibility to report with transparency and accountability, stressing how it could have a major impact on a country’s sustainability. The two-day event attracted over 300 high-profile business leaders, including international participants. The major highlight of the event was the attendance of seven internationally-renowned speakers, namely David Avrin, who gave a fresh outlook on rebranding a company’s business strategies, Greg Bernarda, Jeroen De Flander, who delivered a more methodical way of strategy execution, Vusi Thembekwayo, a widely-renowned speaker, addressed the business leaders on how to outsmart competitors, while Andrew Grant, Amith Kapoor and Ravi Fernando will be the speakers for the second leg of the conference which will be held tomorrow.

Pic by Upul Abayasekara