“The national conference is a significant conference from the perspective of the commercial world and our members, and this year’s theme revolves around ’Rethink to Revive’, which means the time has come to rethink the existing models and conventional wisdom in order to tackle the paradigm shift. The infrastructure rollout in the country has been unprecedented, and very significant,” he noted.
Mr. Herath noted that in order to make use of this infrastructure rollout, Sri Lanka needs to accelerate its momentum, thereby taking businesses to the next level. “Given the significant role played in society, Chartered Accountants can play a catalyst role, in ensuring the further enhancement of this momentum which will help the long term progression,” he noted.
He also noted that Sri Lanka also needs to reach the next level to foster innovation and creativity, while investing on research and development, which can drive economic prosperity further.
“The theme of the conference is to create new business models, which will help Sri Lanka go to the next level of development in this country, and the conference will widely deliberate these aspects,” Mr. Herath added.
Chairman of the National Conference Committee 2014, Mr. Heshana Kuruppu noted that there is an increasing demand on finance leadership to play a more integrated role in business locally as well as internationally.
“In addition to being a guardian of business, finance leadership is now expected to play a key role in strategic and operational decision making. In other words finance professionals are expected to be business partners through finance leadership. This is in addition to fulfilling their traditional responsibilities such as being guardian of assets, risk management, controls, corporate governance, reporting etc. In order to meet these diverse expectations, finance professionals are required to acquire more commercial insight, business knowledge and skill,” he said.
He noted that the conference has gone beyond the accounting domain and will provide more business insights to Chartered Accountants and other corporate leaders who intend to participate.
Chairman of the National Conference Technical Committee 2014, Mr. Nandika Buddhipala elaborating on the concept of the theme this year said, the demand for natural resources will be very high in the future, and with increasingly new emerging markets, where middle income earners are going to be significantly amplified, there is an important need to be able to cater to the growing demands. “Thus, with this objective in mind CA Sri Lanka decided to organize this year’s conference on ‘Rethink to Revive’,” Mr. Buddhipala noted.
He pointed out that the technical sessions will deliberate on the new emerging economic trends in the global space and the evolving developments in technology catering to such economic demands, and how entrepreneurial creativity and pertinent leadership will be vital to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the economy.
“The conference will also educate participants on the necessity to embrace and adopt accounting for sustainability which will ensure better decision-making, while the success stories of experts who have pushed boundaries of the accountancy profession will be a focal point during the technical sessions,” he added.
The 35th National Conference of Chartered Accountants will be held from 23rd to 25th October 2014 at the Waters Edge, Battaramulla and is expected to see a participation of over 1200 Chartered Accountants and business leaders.