Bangladesh Brand Forum organized its flagship initiative, Leadership Summit, for the sixth time on November 5, 2022. Powered by United Group and in association with Team Group, The Daily Star and Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dhaka (MCCI), the gala night was held at Hotel Le Méridien Dhaka on November 5.
According to a press release, this year the theme for the summit was “Transformative Humane Leadership During Extraordinary Times.”
The day-long summit gathered leaders and experts from various industries from home and abroad who shared their experiences and knowledge through distinguished panel discussions and keynote sessions.
Having the vision at the core, the speakers branched out, discussing the challenges and complexities of leadership, sustainable business growth, corporate governance and organization culture with the aspiring audiences.
Opening the summit, The Founder and Managing Director of Bangladesh Brand Forum, Shariful Islam, said: ” As a nation, we have performed extremely well to reach middle-income status while celebrating our 50 years of independence. We have also taken an ambitious target of becoming a developed nation by 2041. We at Bangladesh Brand Forum, driven by its vision – ‘Inspiring the nation’- feel the urgency to focus on developing senior corporate leaders so that we can pursue and achieve the nation’s goal.”
The sixth Leadership Summit was comprised of four-panel discussions, four keynote sessions and one insight session.
The discussions began with the only insight session of the day. Conducted by Prof Dr Syed Ferhat Anwar, professor, Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka; President, Asia Marketing Federation, the session on ‘Outlook of Bangladesh’ showcased the role of leadership for a sustainable and growth-driven future of the country.
Later, the panel discussions and keynote sessions were held at consecutive intervals with each other. The discussions created scope for the audiences to the subject matters.
Vivienne Read, director of Leadership Trainer Complexability Pty Ltd, Australia, conducted the first keynote session on ‘Uncertainty and Complexity: Leadership Opportunities’.
The key message of her keynote session was that leadership should be simple but not simplistic. She introduced the complexity framework, Cynefin, used to understand leadership.
Three other keynote sessions were conducted by Tausif Ishtiaque, Partner, Boston Consulting Group, Malaysia, on ‘Creating Business Leaders of the Future;’ R Gopalakrishnan, CEO, The Mindworks; Former Director, Tata Sons Ltd.; Author, and Corporate Advisor, on ‘the Soft Aspects Of Business Transformation’ and Prof. Roger Levermore, Dean & Associate Professor, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.
The four panel discussions featured pertinent topics like ‘Future of Bangladesh’; ‘Leaders’ Role in Creating Organization Culture’; ‘Driving Creativity and Originality within Future Employees;’ and ‘Why Corporate Governance is Key for Sustained Business Growth.
Russell T Ahmed, in the initial panel discussion, stated that: “Bangladesh is doing better in terms of semi-conductors compared to India. Bangladesh has vast IT potential. However, the drawback is the connectivity with the international market. With the world investing more in IT, it is high time for Bangladesh to do the same on a bigger scale.”
In the second panel discussion, speaker Kazi Inam Ahmed emphasized perseverance for leadership. He said: “It is a factor which needs to be promoted in organizations because perseverance drove many first-generation leaders to their success.
The sixth Leadership Summit was followed by the first-ever Bangladesh C-Suite Awards initiated by Bangladesh Brand Forum.
(DT)