National Conference of Chartered Accountants

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka will host the 27th National Conference of Chartered Accountants on December 1 and 2.

The inauguration will take place on November 30 at the Cinnamon Grand. Dr. Sarath Amunugama, Minister of Planning and Implementation and Home Affairs will be the Chief Guest and Chris Atkinson, President, South East Asia, Microsoft the guest of honour. Over 500 members will participate.

The conference committee which is primarily responsible for organising the event is chaired by Preethi Jayawardena. The Conference Technical Committee is headed by Suren Rajakarier.

Jayawardena said, "This theme is apt and timely for Sri Lanka and we expect our members will be able to rise to the level of driving the required growth for Sri Lanka".

Dr. Howard Nicholas who was the Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Sri Lanka (1986-91) will speak on "The lessons of China and other East Asian countries in Sri Lanka's quest for double digit economic growth". Hilmy Cader, the CEO and Senior International Consultant of MTI Consulting Author of internationally acclaimed MTI's 85 model of strategy planning and MTI's RSRS model, which have been used by MTI clients in over 20 countries will speak on "Strategising and Marketing a country - Learnings for Sri Lanka".

Prof. Biju Varkkey with a masters degree in Human Resource Management from the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala and Fellowship in Management from NIBM, Pune will speak on "Winning habits for Managing People".

Dr. Anush Amarasinghe, an Executive Director and the Chief Operating Officer of Millennium Information Technologies with a Doctorate in Electronics Engineering and over twenty years of experience in the fields of Engineering, Marketing, Investment Banking, Finance and Information Technology will talk on "Can Sri Lanka leverage the advances in technology for Economic Growth?"

John Petty, Australia's representative on the IFAC Professional Accountants in Business Committee, Principal Consultant with Pitcher Partners, Sydney and has won the NSW Small Businessman of the year Award in 1988/89 for his own small business operation will speak on "Visioning Tomorrow Today-Towards a World Class Finance Team".

The discussion forum on iPower will be moderated by Reyaz Mihular, Partner KPMG in Sri Lanka and Regional Executive for the Middle East and South Asia for KPMG and comprise shakta Amaratunga, President BAT Pacific Corporation and Finance Director BAT Japan Group, Ranjan De Silva, Managing Director, Sensei Lanka, Ms. C. Rajaratnam, Creative Director, JWT and Suresh Shah, CEO, Lion Brewery.

Commenting on the conference the technical committee chairman, Suren Rajakarier said "We expect the iPower session to attract a lot of interest, as personal branding has become a fad and people like to at least know what it entails and the other sessions would enlighten Sri Lankans on the global trends".