Dr. Sivagananathan to deliberate on finance function transformation at CIMA Technical Symposium

Dr. Arul Sivagananathan is currently the Senior Vice President of Finance & Accounting Operations for WNS Global Services across India and Sri Lanka.

He is a versatile and multifaceted professional who commenced his career as a civil engineer – leading the World Trade Centre project in Sri Lanka as the project engineer, and who then moved on to become an investment banker in the UK and Europe before returning to Sri Lanka as the resident manager for HSBC. He was a pioneer in setting end-to-end F&A outsourcing in Sri Lanka, and building a centre of excellence for F&A functions both in India and Sri Lanka.

As the programme director he has spearheaded many large-scale transition and transformation projects within WNS, and he also heads the business consulting division of WNS Sri Lanka. He is an accomplished writer and presenter, and is presently a member of the editorial advisory panel of CIMA’s prestigious international business journal Excellence in Leadership, and has been the keynote speaker at several CIMA forums.

The role of finance is fast transforming from traditional scorekeeper to an active partner in business decision-making. The future of finance professionals will depend on the approach they take with their business units and having a global understanding of the business’s supply chain.

The need for businesses to transform themselves in order to meet external change is no longer a mere option but a necessity for both survival and growth. The finance department and indeed the finance professionals need to transform themselves to focus on value creation rather than mere cost efficiency.

In addition to technical expertise, finance professionals need to be capable of working cross-functionally and with people at different levels of the organisation. The question facing the finance professionals is not ‘if’, but how fast they transform themselves into ‘business partners’.

Technical Symposium is the flagship event in the CIMA technical calendar, and will feature an eminent array of local and foreign theoreticians and practitioners who have excelled in their chosen fields. It will intellectually connect business leaders and executives who continuously strive to revive their technical knowledge to be ahead of the changing business dynamics.

‘Transformation: The Compulsory Choice’ is the topical theme of this year’s symposium and will focus on critical business related topics such as the impact of globalisation and technology on management accounting, ethics and sustainability, innovative decision-making, business and supply chain agility, finance transformation and leading a knowledge workforce.