CIMA Business Leaders Summit: Are you ready for change and transformation?

Friday, 17 June 2011 00:55 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Bill Gates is quoted as saying once that the changes that have happened in the last 10 years are greater than what has happened in the previous century – a sentiment that CIMA believes to be true.

This is why the organisation chose the theme ‘Changing Challenge – Challenging Change,’ for the CIMA Business Leaders Summit 2011 scheduled for 21 and 22 June at the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo.

The two-day flagship event in the CIMA calendar is expected to attract over 500 diverse groups of corporates, business leaders and professionals and the theme coined to draw focus what the business leaders are up against today.

Sampath Bank Managing Director Harris Premaratne and Browns Group Deputy Chairman, Seylan Bank Director and Taprobane Group CEO Ajith Devasurendra take the stage on June 22 with topics on transformation and the choice of response.

Premaratne, who has been Executive Director of Sampath Bank since November 2008, is a qualified banker and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers London. He was appointed as CEO (Designate) in October 2008 and CEO in January 2009.

Harris’s career is a long and distinguished one that counts 39 years at Commercial Bank of Ceylon Ltd., where he held many positions and retired as the Senior Deputy General Manager, Corporate Banking. He has extensive experience in the fields of trade services, trade finance, corporate banking and management consultancy spanning the private sector. His topic on transformation discusses change as a rule, human interoperability and facilitating adaptability.

Devasurendra is a veteran in the financial services industry in Sri Lanka and counts over 25 years work experience both in Sri Lanka and overseas. He pioneered in money broking and government securities markets and was able to bring new dimensions to the Sri Lankan money market industry. He is the former group CEO of First Capital Group. He has acted as a consultant to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bombay, India on a USAID project. Devasurendra’s presentation complements Premaratne’s one on transformation as it explores the context “challenging change,” which refers to the “response” individuals or groups make in life. His topic looks at challenging changes at every corner, more importantly, challenging one’s self to go beyond the basic, beyond the ‘box’ and not only think aloud but initiate action to complement that thinking.

In a statement, Devasurendra is quoted as saying, “What we did yesterday might not work today and with almost a certainty will not work for tomorrow. In the era of information overload, one might get confused the path to choose with many options. This process could result in uncertainty and delayed response. The more important matter would be to have that entrepreneurial mind set to make a swift decision with available information much ahead of the others. The winning people take the call before others thus to ‘challenge change’ the ability to respond to change swiftly or the time period to respond becomes the core.”

This process will be discussed with particular emphasis to time, accuracy of data mind set, entrepreneurial ability and dreaming.