Lessons in governance

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), will host its popular annual three-day programme on corporate governance next month. The programme is aimed at corporate leaders.

With an increasing number of companies getting listed and making a foray into the global market, IIM-B realised the pressing need to train and equip independent directors in large numbers. There are not many educational institutes that have the expertise to offer such a training programme. IIM-B is the only such institute that offers a programme for corporate governance targeted at company directors.

In its sixth successful year, this programme is one of the institute's very popular ones. So much so that the institute actually screens The invitees before permitting participation.

"With the changing role of corporate governance, the top level management, specially the board of directors have a bigger role to play in terms of accountability and strategy building as they are being exposed to many liabilities and legalities,'' contends N Balasubramanian, chairman, Centre for Corporate Governance and Citizenship, IIM-B.

According to him, the entire programme is structured to offer board level perspectives on various issues of corporate governance with international best practices. "In an era of rapid technological advances and global integration, the role of the directors on board of companies has fast changed in the last couple of years. Our programme exposes the directors and CFOs to a number of issues relating to corporate governance. The feedback has been excellent. In fact, we have been forced to restrict the number of participants to 30," he stated.

To qualify as a participant, one has to be either a chairman, director, MD, chief mentor or CFO, of a company. "The programme will enhance the effectiveness of participants in the respective positions they hold," Balasubramanian points out.