Lalith Fonseka elected CIMA President

by Sarath Malalasekera

Lalith Fonseka, Joint Managing Director of Mackwoods Ltd and a Director of several companies of the Mackwoods Group, was unanimously elected as the President of the CIMA Sri Lanka Division at the Annual General Meeting held on June 22, 2005.

Fonseka has served as the Deputy President, Vice President and Chairman of several committees during the last eight years when he actively served as a Council Member of CIMA, Sri Lanka Division.

He told the media yesterday that during his year as President, activities will focus on the key stakeholders, namely the members, students and employers.

With regard to members, he plans to focus on members' professional development in both technical and soft skills and provide them with value added services.

"Our focus being on technical excellence, we have planned a series of technical programs ranging from short seminars, CIMA Master Courses to long term courses, as well as publications including technical updates and research papers that will give our members exposure to the latest technical developments.

The Information Resource Centre will be reorganized to support technical, business information and reference needs of our members. A major new initiative planned for the year is the Technical Conference, aimed specifically at members that will add value to their role as accountants in business by updating their knowledge on cutting edge technical developments and key challenges in the business world. The technical conference would have a strong practical bias with case study and research-based presentations," he said.

The new President feels that CIMA's present status in Sri Lanka as the international qualification of choice, for accountants in business, could not have been achieved, if not for high profile, high visibility events that CIMA organises. The CIMA programme calendar for the year will continue to give a key place to the Annual Conference, the CIMA-Janashakthi Pinnacle awards, Bi-Annual convocations, the CEOs and CFO programmes, and the Community Leaders Awards which are much looked forward to events not only by members and students but indeed by the entire business community.

The year will also feature the Annual Members' dinner dance and a series of Business Club events aimed at promoting better networking among the CIMA members.