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Yet another landmark venture, the Company Directors’ Course spearheaded by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) ended on a successful note with the two day non-residential programme drawing bouquets of praise for the broad spectrum of topics covered in the unique course.
The well received course held on February 10 and 11, 2011 at the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo saw a highly esteemed audience of 48 participants who were given a detailed peak into the aspects of a director’s role including the topics of governance, compliance, finances, strategy risk and the general legal environment.
The participants who included senior corporate leaders in the country were full of praise of the comprehensive course which covered six modules. The interactive programme was infused with the participation of a very well respected resource group comprising President’s Counsel - Dr. Harsha Cabraal, Ranjith Fernando (Independent Consultant), Suren Rajakarier - (Partner, KPMG Ford Rhodes Thornton & Co.), Former Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce - Chandra Jayaratne and Retired Territory Senior Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers and former Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Deshamanya Deva Rodrigo.
Director of Asia Capital PLC, Ranjith Pereira, who participated in the course, was particularly impressed by the training session led by Dr. Cabraal.
“This was a really good training session and so was the session on the Strategic Role of Directors. Usually, you don’t get this kind of informative training locally and one has to go abroad to listen to such high-end presentations,” Pereira said.
He emphasised that the course was so gripping and of such high standards that he did not even want to get up from his seat for a break during any of the sessions.
Dilani Yatawaka, Finance Director - Associated Motorways (Pvt) Ltd., was particularly impressed in the manner the resource personnel unfolded their corporate experiences.
“It was very interesting listening to real life experiences of very senior corporate directors. Normally, I walk out half way through training programmes, but here, I was very interested and yearned to know more,” she said.
Yatawaka also found the interactions with the resource personnel particularly helpful as it made the course so much more attractive rather than just only listening to presentations sans any discussions.
“I also particularly enjoyed the SLID evening panel discussion on Contemporary Views on Corporate Governance. Listening to presenters who were very senior directors made the session worthwhile unlike often being limited to a mere PowerPoint presentation,” she added.
Chairman of Epic Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, Nayana Dehigama termed the course as ‘Fantastic’.
“The sessions were full of information and were able to reach smaller companies such as ours. This has indeed been a very useful training for us,” he said.
According to Azmeth Caffoor – Director, Richardsons Project (Pvt) Ltd, the course was well worth its investment. “It was a course packed with so much information from the Companies Act, a director’s responsibilities, and business ethics among a series of other useful topics. We have obtained the full value for our investment,” he added.
The six modules covered in the course included (a) the Role of the Directors and Board, (b) introduction to Board Meetings, Governance and Improving Board Effectiveness, (c) Assessing Company Performance for Directors, (d) Introduction to the Strategic Role of the Director, (e) Business Ethics for Directors and (f) Organisational Risk - Issues for Directors