CIMA Business Leaders Summit tomorrow

CIMA’s flagship event, the Business Leaders Summit, which will be held on the theme ‘Joining the dots’, will focus on how business leaders can take into account value drivers and turn risk into opportunity in an era where the business environment is characterised by its complexity and rapid change, brought about by geopolitical upheaval, digital media, the growth of emerging economies and changing customer loyalty.  

The summit will be inaugurated on 23 August, with Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama and Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy addressing the audience in their roles as the event’s Chief Guest and Keynote Speaker respectively.  

The Intellectual connect on 24 August will begin with Education, CIMA Executive Director Dr. Noel Tagoe leading a discussion titled ‘Integrated thinking: a new lens for thinking about your business’, which will focus on how embedding integrated thinking into mainstream business practice, facilitated by integrated reporting and global management accounting principles, delivers a holistic picture for the growth of better businesses and societies.  

Investing in people is key to sustainable business success and a presentation by Prof. Mahendra K. Chouhan - Member Global Council, International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), UK; Vice Chairman, Global Advisory Board, Asian Centre for Corporate Governance and Sustainability; Chairman, Mahendra and Young Knowledge Foundation - will provide a framework to enable employers to invest more strategically in their talent, investors to recognise human capital as a fundamental element of business strategy and employees to benefit from better opportunities and greater fulfilment at work.

These two presentations will be followed by a panel discussion titled ‘Breaking down silos for value creation’, led by Venkkat Ramanan - Acting Regional Director and Head of Strategic Business, Asia Pacific, CIMA; Vajira Kulatilaka - Chairman, CSE; Vajira Wijegunawardane - Director General, SEC; Reyaz Mihular - Managing Partner, KPMG; Tishan Subasinghe - Partner, BDO Consulting; and Chulendra de Silva – Head of Sustainability, Risk Management and Sourcing, MTD Walkers Plc.

Disruptive innovation and learning to adapt to its challenges will be discussed during the second half of the Intellectual connect, with a case study presented by Rasika Karunatilake - Vice President and General Manager, CakeLabs. Titled ‘Disrupt or be disrupted’, Karunatilake will place the spotlight on CakeLabs - a company that is customer-focused, innovated boldly and adapted rapidly to deliver more for less and exploit market opportunities. This discussion aims to provide participants with insights on how to invest in and operate a digitally thriving business model. 

The second panel discussion, which follows this presentation, is titled ‘Managing the value of your talent – the return on people’ and will be led by Sutheash Balasubramaniam - Sri Lanka Representative, UN Global Compact Network; Manil Jayesinghe - Partner, Ernst & Young; Samitha Perera - CEO, Ceylon Biscuits Limited (Foods) International; Aroshi Nanayakkara - CEO, Global Consulting Company and Chiranthi Cooray - CHRO, HNB.

The event will conclude with a presentation which shares insights on how organisations can keep innovating and growing in the current business environment.