A two-day technical dedicated event to achieve corporate governance excellence
25 - 26 November, 2019
| Taj Hotel,Dubai
Conference Day Two: Thursday, 28 November 2019
8:00 am - 8:45 am
REGISTRATION, REFRESHMENTS AND NETWORKING
8:45 am - 9:00 am
CHAIRMAN’S WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS
AUDIT AND COMPLIANCE COMMITTEES
Recommendations from audit committees are many a times better accepted than the boards.
Is this a sign for BODs to make serious changes in the overall governance structure?
9:00 am - 9:30 am
VISIONARY SESSION: PROPOSITION VERSUS DECISION OR PROPOSITION FOR A DECISION?
Abdulaziz Abalkhail -
Director General of Audit,
Ministry of Defence Saudi Arabia
Audit committees are empowered with authority in organisations to make suggestions in the overall governance strategy. Compliance compromise may happen with decision making, remuneration, audits, nominations, rewards and recognition in the organisation. It’s the responsibility of the audit compliance committee to propose and highlight any deviations. However, it’s the board of director who has to finally take a decision to integrate changes for a sustained governance strategy.
How can the BOD be empowered for a sustained governance strategy using audit compliance findings?
- Board within a board concept: Empowering the audit compliance team to act as a titular BOD during the audit process
- Addressing concerns of BOD about any compliance committee items on the agenda before the actual audit
- Using third party auditors to audit internal compliance committee findings
9:30 am - 10:00 am
SPONSORED CASE STUDY: THE FUTURE OF REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
Financial institutions are already facing steep regulatory compliance costs and a complex technical environment have immediate opportunities to invest in new, non-traditional solutions. This session will look at how to embrace innovations geared to functions such as audit and risk management by providing a roadmap to dedicate the appropriate resources and programme structure that RegTech requires.
MENA CASE STUDIES
The region is facing some of the most dynamic challenges considering its geographical location
and has also made significant strides in the overall corporate governance strategies.
10:00 am - 10:30 am
CASE STUDY: DUBAI AS A ROLE MODEL OF SMART CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: THE ROADMAP TO BECOME THE HAPPIEST CITY OF THE FUTURE
Drawing the path towards Dubai 2050 starts from achieving excellent corporate governance using a 360-degree integration of smart police stations, robots, blockchain and AI technologies.
How is Dubai achieving this?
- Enterprise governance management solution: Digitalising over 62 government entities to facilitate governance for the citizens
- How can the government receive instant data from its citizens to assist them with smart governance techniques?
- Paperless city by 2021: Saving US$1.5 billion per year and enhancing corporate efficiency using smarter governance models
- The Dubai Blockchain strategy: Boosting government efficiency while creating a permanent, reliable and secure public record
10:30 am - 11:00 am
CASE STUDY: LEARNING FROM A MAJOR ELECTRICITY REGULATOR IN THE UAE TO IMPLEMENT THE BRITISH STANDARD CODE FOR PRACTICE (BS135002013 CODE)
The key objectives of the UAE Vision2021, and the Dubai Plan 2021, aims for the Government of Dubai to be pioneering corporate excellence and be more transparent, reliable, sustainable and innovative in the management of its resources. This is being done by having an integrated corporate governance framework based on trust, accountability, transparency and fair practices. Following OECD guidelines and getting audited and certified as per the BS135002013 code is a step towards achieving this corporate governance excellence.
What can the rest of the region learn from Dubai’s achievement in this space?
- Developing a strong governance model and promoting interaction and inclusion from all stakeholders
- Reducing losses by over 50% by developing a sustainable corporate governance culture
- Lessons learnt: How did the organisation contribute to making the UAE ranked first globally in WB’s Ease of Doing business report 2018?
11:00 am - 11:30 am
NETWORKING COFFEE BREAK
11:30 am - 12:00 pm
CASE STUDY: PREPARING FOR EXPO 2020: THE NEED FOR DUBAI GOVERNMENT TO ALIGN ITS PLANS WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DRIVE
All the entities in the government have to align their strategic plans with Dubai 2021 to ensure consistency and synergy
What has the government done at the CG level to ensure success?
- Introduced three main well-structured strategies that are stakeholders oriented: Smart Dubai, Autonomous Mobility and Clean Energy 2050
- Simplify the corporate culture to increase agility
- Promote corporate governance transparency to ensure economic growth and inactivate foreign investments
12:00 pm - 12:30 pm
CASE STUDY: STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES: HOW CAN OIL AND GAS COMPANIES DEVELOP A SUSTAINABLE CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY USING ENVIRONMENT, SOCIAL AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE (ESG) PRACTICES?
With a shift in source of revenue from the traditional exploration and production to more of diversified petroleum products, state-owned and international oil and gas companies have had to make serious changes in their corporate governance strategies since a sharp fall in oil prices from December 2014. To add to this, integration across major countries in the oil and gas industry like the UAE, Kuwait, Oman have certainly prioritised the way corporate governance functions. Organisations are still trying to make this paradigm shift across their workforce.
What are the top challenges companies still continue to face while transitioning?
- Governance framework and internal controls
- Accountability of contractors and third party vendors
- Balancing diversity and nationalisation
Reserved:
12:30 pm - 1:00 pm
CASE STUDY: DISCUSSING THE LATEST CORPORATE GOVERNANCE REGULATIONS FROM SAUDI ARABIA
With Saudi Arabia diversifying its economy like never before, it means there is an additional responsibility on the regulators to raise awareness in respect to the concept of professional conduct and encouraging foreign investors to adapt to the new market. It also means engaging international and regional stakeholders and providing effective and balanced tools to deal with conflicts of interest. The Capital Market Authority from Saudi Arabia has adopted an amended edition of its Corporate Governance Regulations in May 2019, aimed at establishing an effective legal framework to govern the Company.
What are the key objectives?
- Discussing rights of stakeholders
- Rules regarding the composition of board of directors, their rights, responsibilities and duties
- Compliance by the executive management
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
NETWORKING LUNCH BREAK
2:00 pm - 2:30 pm
THE ROADMAP FROM A CHIEF GOVERNING OFFICER (CGO) TO CHIEF PEOPLE’S OFFICER
If the board of directors and management wish to bring about a change, it has to be driven by the people and key stakeholders. Capabilities of people may vary depending upon the sector and agility of the workforce, however, the strength of a CGO is always to drive this by the people and for the people or in corporate terms, the employees and stakeholders.
What tools can empower a chief governing officer to bring a cultural change?
- Performance management: Does the CGO have the right CRM tools to measure performance?
- Succession planning: Does the CGO have accountability while assisting the board of directors for succession planning
- Executive compensation: Does the CGO have the right cost analysis software to manage remunerations, rewards and recognition?
- Conflict resolution using corporate governance leadership
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm
FAMILY BUSINESSES: DEVELOPING A CULTURE OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
As per a recent report by the Pearl Initiative of the UAE, family-owned businesses generate an estimated 80% of non-oil GDP in the Arabian Gulf. Close to 70% of these are now being managed by the second generation. As per estimates, over $1 trillion will be handed over in legacy to the third generation and this means that developing corporate governance strategies and frameworks are extremely necessary to manage such large wealth with and sustain it.
What should be the third generation be empowered with?
- Data visualisation dashboards to see business at-a-glance on a real-time basis
- Corporate governance, compliance and audit committees to ensure business continuity
- AI, blockchain, IOT, machine learning technologies: Can these be leveraged by businesses to create solid corporate governance framework?
Reserved for:
