A high profile forum focusing on Public Diplomacy was hosted by the prestigious Royal University for Women in the Kingdom of Bahrain under the title "International Business: Successful Managers and CEOs of Global Corportates", this week. The forum on Public Diplomacy on International Business conducted by the Royal University for Women invited the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the Kingdom of Bahrain, Dr. A. Saj U. Mendis, as the lead speaker, Dr. Joseph Kirikian, Vice President of Muntalakat Holdings Company and Ms. Lama Moosa, Principal/Specialist of Schlumberger Limited respectively. The forum was moderated by Dr. Vivien Exartier and Dean Professor Hala Elias of College of Business of Royal University for Women (RUW). The forum was attended by a larger number of graduates and MBA students, faculty members, corporate executives and invitees, among others. The RUW conducts the aforementioned forum on an annual basis and selects personalities with extensive experience and exposure in the realm of international business and global dynamics and developments.
The moderator and the speakers enunciated the criticality for corporates and companies to go global in order to expand and to advance their corporates, thus mutually benefitting the respective economies of the countries. Ambassador Dr. Mendis, in his address, stated that the Government of Sri Lanka is extending extensive degree of importance to the SME sector since the SMEs could evolve to mid-size companies to large corporates to national players to regional players respectively. In this context, Dr. Mendis stated that the country needs to nurture and foster highly competent and internationally exposed corporate executives, managers and CEOs who would be able to transcend the respective companies to regional and global environment. He further added that in the highly competitive global environment, developing of soft skills is vital as well as to have a global perspective for corporate executives and senior managers. Dr. Mendis did accentuate a number of examples from global landscape of how smaller SMEs such as Micro-SMEs (MSMEs) have evolved as global corporates in developing countries as well as in developed countries within a space of few years. He further added that most of these founders of these corporates were successful and were tenacious in translating their visions into reality.
Dr. Kirikian of Mumtalakat, who has earlier worked as a senior Vice President of a major Wall Street Investment Bank, stated that top executives and CEOs would analyze and dissect even the minutest details of a company or a country before committing investments. In this context, he stated that political stability is of utmost significance and importance for his company to consider committing investments. He also added that economic stability and prosperity cannot be achieved in a political vacuum and vice-a-versa. Ms. Moosa of Schlumberger stated that as an international corporate executive, she is compelled to be very well conversant with geo-political, geo-economic and geo-strategic developments and dynamics in the world. She further added that as a Specialist at Schlumberger, the top management of this global company constantly forecasts and speculates, particularly, the future prices of oil & gas premised on national, regional and global developments. This would enable the top management, including Ms. Moosa, to calibrate corporate strategy as well as the master plan of the company.
