Thursday, 20 June 2013 00:00
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The Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) conducted its first Annual Membership Meeting as a legal entity, which also happened to be the 13th Annual Meeting of SLID, last Thursday at the Ivy Room of the Cinnamon Grand Colombo.
Pravir Samarasinghe was unanimously elected Chairman of SLID for the year 2013/2014 with Shiromal Cooray as Senior Vice Chairman and Preethi Jayawardena as Vice Chairman. The Council of Members unanimously elected comprises A.R. Rasiah, Rajendra Theagarajah, Faizal Salieh, Nilanthi Sivapragasam, Kavan Ratnayake, Aroshi Perera and Dilani Alagaratnam.
SLID, which has been in existence for 13 years, is principally an institute of directors for directors and focuses on promoting and enriching the practices of good corporate governance. SLID has over 550 members who are senior directors in both the private and public sector.
Outgoing Chairman Ronnie Peiris in his address stated that the main thrust over the past years had been to ensure that SLID remained sustainable in its ability to support itself, sustainable in its ability to serve the members with the services they needed and demanded and to sustain itself in taking a prominent place in promulgating laws, regulations and guidelines in relation to corporate governance. This was a benchmark set for the institute where SLID automatically became the desired institute to participate in drafting legislation of a governance nature.
Peiris further added that SLID had already advanced and enhanced its operating capability and had achieved the objectives set at the beginning of the year with an efficient secretariat and a willing council.
SLID has over the last year become a legal entity, gone out of Colombo to the provinces to serve the people who were unaware of the governance codes of ethics and is now producing a very high quality quarterly publication, the Power Pages, which has been very well accepted.
There were many more value adding services delivered to the members, he continued. Four director training modules have been developed, with the support of the IFC. These modules have been customised to the local context and are ready to be launched in August. He mentioned that the plan was to get the support of the SEC to ensure that the new directors appointed would be better informed.
He reported that the regular income from the membership subscriptions helped to support the institute, but there was still a long way to go. The ends were many and the means were limited, he lamented. He thanked the membership and the various committees who worked behind the scenes for their support.
Samarasinghe delivering his message as the new Chairman thanked the membership for the confidence placed in him and promised to achieve SLID’s objectives and deliver to them their expectations. “Promoting good corporate practices whilst enriching and delivering value to our members and other stakeholders in private and public organisations was foremost on the agenda,” he said.
He revealed that he intended to focus primarily on four core areas. The first being director education, where he planned a number of seminars, workshops and panel discussions on topical issues relevant to directors.
“A suite of four director training modules has been developed and will be launched soon with supporting certification to promote high standards of excellence in boardroom practices. This will be a key thrust area next year and the whole council is very committed to this endeavour.”
Secondly, the focus would be on building the profile and brand of SLID by continually enriching the image and eventually owning the domain and being recognised as the authoritative source for both good governance and stewardship. The regional outreach program would also continue and the next two provinces mapped out to venture into were Gampaha and Jaffna, he stated.
The membership drive was the third focus area, where SLID would spread its message to a wider spectrum of stakeholders. To build a financially stable and sustainable business model it was important to attract, develop and retain the membership numbers in the various categories.
The fourth area was the dissemination of timely and relevant information to the members and stakeholders through the quarterly Power Pages, email alerts, the SLID website, technical advisory services and other mediums and the focus would be on improving the quality and the relevance of such delivery.
“To achieve the institution’s goals whilst raising the bar each year, we need to build our institutional capacity and our financial and people resources. SLID has now gradually evolved in to an independent and self reliant institute with a capable secretariat.”
He concluded his address by thanking the outgoing Chairman Peiris for his leadership, guidance and commitment in time and all other resources over the last two years, and the Secretariat for having worked with passion and a sense of belonging to take SLID forward on its journey.
Chief Guest Rosy Senanayake delivered a very interesting key note address on ‘Leadership Challenges’. She spoke on the global challenges in moving from a commodity exporter and developing into a smart Sri Lanka with examples of Asian success stories and on her personal experiences as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in Malaysia.
She reminded the eminent members from the private sector the importance of building responsible corporates that embrace environmental and social accountabilities in addition to profit motives and to shape a sustainable future for our organisations and our country.
Her presentation was very revealing and was well received by the well-attended gathering of the SLID membership consisting totally of directors of Sri Lanka’s top corporate sector.
The evening was concluded with cocktails and fellowship, affording the membership ample opportunity for networking.
