Staff Reporter Dhaka : Dhaka, Bangladesh): Bangladesh Brand Forum organised its flagship initiative, Leadership Summit, for the 6th time on November 5, 2022. Powered by United Group and in association with Team Group, The Daily Star & Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Dhaka (MCCI), the gala night was held at Hotel Le Méridien Dhaka on November 5, 2022. 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 6th Leadership Summit was comprised of 4 Panel Discussions, 4 Keynote Sessions and 1 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, 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 extensive and illustrated sessions were a self-learning

experience for the leaders and the future generation in the rows. All the keynote speakers were gifted with artworks of prolific Visual Artist Nazia Andaleeb Preema, who is also the president of Women in Leadership (WIL).

The Four Panel Discussions featured around pertinent topics like ‘Future of Bangladesh’; ‘Leaders Role in Creating Organization Culture’; ‘Driving Creativity & Originality within Future Employees’; ‘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 a vast IT potential. However, the drawback is the connectivity with 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 emphasised on 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.

Other respected speakers in the event were: Moutushi Kabir, Senior Director, People, Culture and Communications, BRAC; Beth Macdonald, Chief People Officer, Biocellion SPC; Leadership Trainer, Manila, Phillippines, Director, Future Considerations; Anis A. Khan, Director, Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI); Chairman, Valor of Bangladesh; Md. Saiful Islam, President, Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Dhaka, (MCCI); Miran Ali, Vice President, BGMEA; Managing Director, Misami Garments Ltd.; Russell T. Ahmed, President, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS); Yasir Azman, Chief Executive Officer, Grameenphone Ltd.; Nazia Andaleeb Preema, Visual Artist; President, Women in Leadership (WIL); Director, Bangladesh Brand Forum; Founder, Bangladesh Creative Forum (BCF); Founder, Preema’s Atelier; Deepal Abeywickrema, Managing Director, Nestlé Bangladesh Ltd.; Shehzad Munim, Managing Director, British American Tobacco Bangladesh; Barrister Nihad Kabir, Chairperson, BUILD & Former President, Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Dhaka (MCCI).

The 6th Leadership Summit was followed by the first-ever Bangladesh C-Suite Awards initiated by Bangladesh Brand Forum. This accolade is created to recognise and celebrate the achievements of exceptional Bangladeshi business leaders. Bangladesh Brand Forum launched their new bimonthly publication, ‘CEO Review,’ and a training initiative ‘leadership academy’ to provide inspiration & insight to high potential & future leaders.

An initiative of Bangladesh Brand forum, this year’s Leadership Summit was powered by United Group; in association with Team Group, The Daily Star & Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Dhaka (MCCI). The event is supported by Beximco Pharma. The Strategic Partner for the event- Mind Mapper Bangladesh, Knowledge partner– Marketing Society of Bangladesh (MSB), Learning & Development Partner – Bangladesh Organization for Learning & Development (BOLD), Technology Partner – Aamra Technologies Limited, PR Partner – Backpage PR, Academia Partner – Leadership Academy.