Business leaders to converge at Festival of Ideas Thursday

Business leaders and executives in Ghana will on Thursday, August 16 converge at the newly opened Accra Marriot Hotel, Airport City, for the 12th edition of the Festival of Ideas, Ghana’s pre-eminent leadership development conference.

Festival of Ideas is organised by Legacy & Legacy, an Accra-based human capital development consultancy firm.

This year’s edition of the conference is on the theme: “Leveraging Strategy, Technology and Best Practices.”

According to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Legacy & Legacy, Mrs Comfort Ocran, “The theme was chosen to reflect the need for leaders to accelerate the growth of their own enterprises by proactively studying the experiences and trajectories of other businesses, to account for the growing role of innovation and automation in the corporate landscape and to strategically integrate the best practices and innovations that emerge from this introspection into their long-term planning.”

The conference will give participants the opportunity to learn from industry captains including the Director of Budgeting, Ministry of Finance, Ms Eva Mends; the CEO, Ghana Chamber of Telecoms, Mr Kenneth Ashigbey and the President of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Ghana, Mr Ebo Hammond.

Thursday morning’s session will focus on mid-level managers and aspiring CEOs.

The event will kick off with a networking breakfast to give the cohort of leaders a chance to interact with and grow their professional networks.

The subsequent plenary session will feature the Enterprise Architect of the Oracle Corporation, Mr Franklin Asare, outlining the pillars of the digital economy, the second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mrs Elsie Awadzi, expanding on compliance and best practices, and the Lead Consultant for Legacy & Legacy, Mr Albert Ocran, providing insights into the future of jobs.

The morning session will culminate in a set of small-group executive coaching sessions focused on addressing functional areas such as finance, marketing, information technology and logistics management, among others.

These breakout sessions will be led by the speakers from the plenary sessions and other high-level professionals. Aspiring corporate leaders will be given the opportunity to engage with experts in their specific functional areas in groups of less than 20, affording them the time needed to ask specific questions unique to the job functions they specialise in. Furthermore, the small groups will break each functional area down into:

• TRENDS: Notable trends in management practice and major changes that have occurred within the last decade.

• TECHNOLOGY: How technology is enabling or disrupting businesses by aggregating various components of the production chain, and how it can be utilised to produce results faster, cheaper and more effectively.

• COMMON MISTAKES: Some of the common errors people make in the field, how to avoid them and how to bounce back from career mistakes.

• PROGRESS: Skill sets and competencies aspiring top executives should acquire for personal development and corporate gains.

Breaking down each functional area into these four components will give participants a deeper understanding of the market pressures affecting each role, the manner in which specialised functional areas are evolving, what pitfalls to be wary of and most importantly, what it takes to be successful in the global context of one’s functional area.

The evening session, dubbed a “Night with Great Minds”, will cater to CEOs and C-Suite executives. The evening will kick off with a networking dinner accompanied by live music, leading into presentations from the Managing Director (MD), Tullow Ghana, Mr Kweku Awotwi; and the CEO, Vodafone, Ms Yolanda Cuba, on the evolution of management strategy and the game-changing power of technology respectively.

Mr Ocran will moderate a colloquium to allow participants to engage with the concepts shared, as well as share their experiences and perspectives. The night will conclude with a keynote address from Dr Mensa Otabil.

Addressing the futuristic focus of this year’s festival, Mr Ocran, said: “We are incredibly excited about this year's Festival of Ideas because it reflects months of research into the critical functional areas of major industries.

“In focusing on what tomorrow’s jobs will look like, we have identified 10 key change attributes that leaders of the future must have to compete on a global scale. This year’s festival, particularly the small group executive coaching sessions, is a must-attend for leaders being groomed to the executive level.”