Christos Papadopoulos, Standard Chartered regional chief executive for
Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan; Peter Beynon, regional director,
ICAEW Middle East; and Hassam Amin Jarrar, Standard Chartered
Bahrain CEO.
Learning from peers is key to fulfilling the chief financial officer’s increasingly demanding role, according to ICAEW, a world leader in the accountancy and finance profession.
Recently, it gathered selected CFOs to its first ever CFO Club event in Bahrain to discuss corporate governance challenges and encourage networking.
Peter Beynon, regional director, ICAEW Middle East, commented, “The role of the chief financial officer is changing quite radically – both in MENA and globally. It’s becoming more complex and CFOs are now expected to take on a much more strategic role. They are increasingly seen as co-pilots to the CEO, requiring a much broader skill set than before”.
He added, “The global financial crisis has resulted in corporate governance becoming a much-debated topic. It is an area in constant evolution, requiring finance professionals to keep updating their knowledge.”
Hassan Amin Jarrar, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank in Bahrain, said, “It is essential that financial experts talk to each other and keep the dialogue line open amongst themselves because survival of businesses depends on that.”
The CFO Club in Bahrain is the third club established by ICAEW, following on from the launches of CFO Clubs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi earlier in 2012.