A two-day technical dedicated event to achieve corporate governance excellence
25 - 26 November, 2019
| Taj Hotel,Dubai
Conference Day One: Wednesday, 27 November 2019
8:00 am - 8:55 am
REGISTRATION, REFRESHMENTS AND NETWORKING
8:55 am - 9:00 am
CHAIRMAN’S WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS
DRIVING THE WINDS OF CHANGE IN THE ARAB WORLD (HAWKAMAT ASH-SHARIKAT): GOVERNMENT, JUDGEMENT AND WISDOM
With the upgrade of the UAE and Saudi markets markets in S&P Dow Jones indices, foreign investors have revealed the interest of shareholders to understanding corporate governance practices in the Middle East and its global alignment. The region is prioritising corporate governance to make this cultural impact in public sector units like the government, energy companies, financial markets as well as power and utility sectors in order to achieve futuristic diversification visions with the ease of doing business.
9:00 am - 9:30 am
VISIONARY KEYNOTE PANEL DISCUSSION: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE 2030: WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
Murad Mohammed -
Senior Corporate Strategy Consultant,
Department of Culture and Tourism UAE
Abdulaziz Abalkhail - Director General of Audit, Ministry of Defence Saudi Arabia
With the recent MENA-OECD working group firmly established in early 2019 to standardise processes in the Middle East especially the UAE, Chief Governing Officers (CGOs) have predicted a significant governing impact across organisations in four main areas in the Middle East: Diversity, disclosure, data and data integration framework (DIFs). The organisation driving this change is the Hawkamah Institute in the UAE across government, energy and financial sectors.
What do Chief Governing Officers do next?
- Corporate governance assessments, framework validation and capacity building
- Board of Directors development programme to build transparency and disclosure
- Impact across state-owned enterprises based on OECD recommendations
- Corporate leadership and the essentials of aligning organisational structure and framework with key objectives
9:30 am - 10:00 am
SPONSORED CASE STUDY: THE ROLE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS (BODs) IN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Dr. Adel Alzaabi -
Director Organisation Development,
UAE Government
The role of the Board in creating an environment where a corporation can succeed is the key to future success of the business. The Board to work to ensure that it builds a united, cohesive and coordinated team working towards the main goal of attaining desired corporate performance. A series of corporate failures due to misgovernance and subsequent regulatory changes have brought the role of board of directors in corporate governance back into limelight.
What are the key roles of board of directors?
- Establishing vision, mission and values
- Setting strategy and structure
- Delegating authority to management
- Exercising accountability to shareholders
Reserved:
Dr. Adel Alzaabi
Director Organisation DevelopmentUAE Government
10:00 am - 10:30 am
KEYNOTE SPEECH: BALANCING CORPORATE GOVERNANCE WITH RIGHT COMPOSITION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS (BODs)
Misgovernance can cost firms tremendous brand image damages and overall failures. This was evident with the 2 recent case studies of major companies which the region for 2 major caused global investors to back out and questioned the existing governance frameworks. Appointing the right people, develop right practices and governance culture for a long-term effective strategy is the absolute need of the hour in the region to avoid a spillover effect. It also means having the right scrutiny and transparency at the top and balancing it with right composition of BODs.
How can such mishaps be avoided?
- Boosting board diversity to increase board independence and effectiveness
- Knowing the importance of establishing board committees to channelise their functions
- Understanding how regulatory changes can affect the board of directors
- Empowering the BOD with the right tools to check insider threats and governance gaps
DEVELOPING A CULTURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY USING CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, RISK AND COMPLIANCE
Social media alerts, tighter budgets and dynamic enterprise risks have and continue to impact governance strategies and frameworks across organisations. There is an absolute requirement of maintaining unprecedented transparency and scrutiny. At this time, the organisations that develop a culture of accountability will be the ones who sustain for the future.
10:30 am - 11:00 am
KEYNOTE SPEECH: CHRONIC CULTURE: HOW CAN THE REGION AVOID LACK OF TRANSPARENCY?
Murad Mohammed -
Senior Corporate Strategy Consultant,
Department of Culture and Tourism UAE
Over 80% of companies in the Middle East now publish a CSR report, following the internationally - recognised standards of the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative). However, only a small percentage of the reports fully comply with the GRI requirements. What’s alarming is that, only 19 % of this contained external assurance.
How can corporate governance, compliance, audit and assurance teams be aligned?
- How can regulatory pressure be leveraged across organisational hierarchy?
- Shifting focus from developing sustainability policies to executing sustainable strategies
- Red flagging loss of internal control, damaging remuneration systems, risk appetite and cultural direction
- Defining responsibilities for corporate governance, compliance, audit and assurance teams
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
SPEED NETWORKING SESSION & NETWORKING COFFEE BREAK
12:00 pm - 12:30 pm
VISIONARY PANEL DISCUSSION: SEPARATION OF OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL: HOW CAN WE DEFINE THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND MANAGEMENT?
The MENA region has a versatility of businesses – public, private, family-owned, free zones and listed companies. Some of the largest conflicts happen due to incorrectly defining roles and responsibilities of management and board of directors. Key questions that define the MENA region are,
When does the board of directors stop? And when does the Management begin?
- The board of directors versus Management: How can key objectives be achieved while balancing people management?
- Conflict resolution: Keep your own house in order or third party intervention?
- Focusing on core drivers to avoid conflict: Business objectives, execution accountability and transparency
- How can corporate governance act as a catalyst for compliance and audit?
- The board of directors to management to KPIs: Would AI bridge this gap?
12:30 pm - 1:00 pm
SPONSORED CASE STUDY: RISK GOVERNANCE — AUDITING CULTURE
Failures in culture have been at the core of the sweeping loss of trust in business. Regulators are recommending an audit of organisational trust and culture.
- How do you audit an amorphous concept such as trust?
- How can internal audits be leveraged to understand and maintain culture?
- Enablers and challenges for auditing culture
- Combining metrics, systems and processes for audit with instinct
Reserved:
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
NETWORKING LUNCH BREAK
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
MASTER-CLASS WORKSHOPS
Attend these workshops to be a better at managing governance, compliance, auditing and risks in your organisation and develop leadership skills.
THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION IN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
The business world digital disruption has triggered serious lapses across corporate governance. Every single operational entity is trying to embrace digitalisation without fully understanding the governing principles behind the same. C-level executives need to have a steep learning curve and stay ahead of this change primarily to maintain market confidence, develop corporate credibility with the highest levels of business integrity.
3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Board of Directors Increasing Regulatory Obligations & Liability: Best Practices in Ensuring Transparency and Integrity within Corporate Governance Structures”
Tomell deSilva Ceasar -
Head of Compliance,
Careem
With organisations embracing technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, internet of things, cloud computing and machine learning, it’s putting serious pressure on Chief Governance Officers to mitigate risks and gaps in governance arising due to this digital disruption.
Can the same technologies be used to become smarter at governance?
- How can direct communication be enabled between the shareholders and the company?
- Transmitting information through the chain of intermediaries
- Is your Chief Legal Officer encouraging use of digital tools in corporate governance?
- Can smart digitalisation of the relationships between the shareholders and the companies eliminate friction
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm
SPONSORED CASE STUDY: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION IMPACT: THE SILENT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WITHIN THE WALLS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The financial crisis of 2008 left shareholders and stakeholders with a desire to better understand financial reports, improve decision-making and pick-up red flags to avoid failures. Similar volatile economic conditions have been felt across the world in 2019 due to the trade wars, BREXIT, US Fed rate impact, job losses across wealth management firms and most importantly uncertainty over 5G deployment. Improving business communication was the biggest learning as per most BODs and CEOs from 2008.
- How can the board of directors be empowered to improve business communication in 2019?
- Automated systems and data collection to boost accuracy and simplify decision-making
- Electronic board portals to increase agility, flexibility and efficiency of the board
- Blockchain and cyber security software to ensure accuracy and data protection
4:00 pm - 4:30 pm
CASE STUDY WORKSHOP: DEVELOPING DIGITAL DASHBOARDS AND PORTALS FOR BOARD OF DIRECTORS TO DEVELOP AN INTEGRATED GOVERNANCE, RISK AND COMPLIANCE (GRC) CULTURE
Deploying GRC software is to automate documentation of board activities associated with corporate governance, risk management and regulatory compliance.
This also ensures that board of directors have an upper hand in terms of compliance management functions such as workflow, controls, risk mitigation, employee surveys, self-assessments and integrated reporting with the highest levels of confidentiality.
Can the board of directors simply look at a dashboard and assess governance of the management?
- Integrating GRC software with other electronic business tools
- Empowering the board of director to adapt to measure cyber risks, economic fluctuations, operational and environment factors
- Governance cloud: Integrating GRC to make management more accountable
