‘Rising from the Pandemic’: SLID to host an experience sharing webinar

Ceylon Biscuits and CBL Exports Director and CEO Nalin Karunaratne

Expolanka Holdings Group CEO Hanif Yusoof

MAS Holdings CEO Suren Fernando

Metro Retail Stores Group Chief Strategy and Governance Officer Jonathan Moreno

Sri Lanka Institute of Directors Chairman A.R. Rasiah

It has been more than a year since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Amidst the upheavals of severe disruptions, some companies have clearly emerged resilient during the pandemic. What did they do differently? 

The Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) in collaboration with EY will host a webinar on 29 June and bring together insights from some top company executives based on their own real experiences during the pandemic and how their companies had coped with the challenges they faced, made timely responses and the learnings arising from the crisis. The webinar is titled ‘Rising from the Pandemic: Challenges, Responses and Learnings’.

A survey done by EY across the Globe, has identified Enterprise Resilience as one of the key priorities for Boards to consider on their agenda. In the short term, companies have been challenged by ongoing supply chain disruption, threats to financial stability, pressure on business models, cybersecurity threats to critical infrastructure, and issues relating to workforce wellbeing. 

In the long term, the economic and financial repercussions of the crisis are likely to persist for some time, making the recovery period a potentially precarious time for businesses. Additional long-term challenges to enterprise resilience include changing consumer behaviours and expectations, the accelerated digitalisation of the global economy, and the mounting threat of climate change.

So how should boards and the C-suite steer companies to become resilient and rise from the pandemic?

The board must ensure that business continuity plans, succession plans and crisis management processes are updated to reflect the organisation’s learnings from the pandemic and reviewed on an annual basis thereafter. 

This webinar will discuss pertinent questions about how some global and local companies have addressed and responded to challenges from the pandemic. These companies will share experiences of how they have re-strategised to stay afloat, with insights on how their business processes were re-engineered, how they adapted to WFH, and how they will continue in the long run. 

Metro Retail Stores Group Inc. in Philippines Chief Strategy and Governance Officer Jonathan Moreno will be the keynote speaker and will share his real-life experiences on how his organisation stabilised the business, responded to the situation and positioned for growth. 

He will also share his insights on how the organisation leveraged on technology, and how they looked at sustainable growth in the long run. An interesting aspect he will also cover in the session would be how the organisation also revisited their Key Performance Indicators (KPI) as the pre-pandemic KPIs were made redundant under the new strategy.

He will be joined by an eminent panel of local company CEOs; Expolanka Holdings PLC Group CEO Hanif Yusoof, MAS Holdings CEO Suren Fernando, and Ceylon Biscuits Ltd. and CBL Exports Ltd. Director/CEO Nalin Karunaratne will be in conversation with Sri Lanka Institute of Directors Chairman A.R. Rasiah, sharing their own company settings, experiences and learnings and most importantly on how they continue to monitor the environment and plan ahead into the future. 

To participate, email the SLID Secretariat on [email protected]. Participation is free.