-     The two days conference focused on the emergence of new markets, new ways of managing business, experienced economic slowdown and bounced back with a new vigour the key challenge for organizations in to maintain the growth momentum and also look for pitfalls.

-     The conference also laid a platform to discuss on the backdrop of uncertainty & accelerating pace of growth & globalization requires innovative way of thinking and acting when it comes to managing assets and raising capital and preserving financial flexibility is essential.

-     The Conference had close to 200 participants from various sector and top CFO’s and consultants from various industries who felt that the conference served as a platform providing the latest information on the Financial Sector.

-     The dinner session of the conference was enlightened by the presence of an Author, Public Intellectual and Management Guru Mr Gurcharan Das , who is also the author of International Bestseller of ”India Unbound”

-     The two day conference had witnessed few of the Indian leaders in the financial sector, making their presence as a speaker to the conference sharing their thoughts and insights on various burning issues of the financial sector such as means of funding for growth.

The recent economy has placed unprecedented pressure on businesses. Throughout these difficult times and beyond, CFOs have been under increased pressure to evaluate the performance of their Finance function. Finance playing a key role in resolving many of the issues, the function itself has been expected to lead by example and ensure that they are as efficient, effective and as value creating as every other part of the business.

As the global economy shows signs of recovery, businesses are turning their attention once again to pursuing new market opportunities in order to reestablish growth, & focus on Growth. CFOs have to understand businesses and also need to look at individual elements of Finance & develop a finance function that creates value and manages business performance, while taking a holistic view of the entire Finance operating model and its overall processes and structure to create a balanced approach and reach the ultimate competitive position by improving all of them.

Amidst this interesting backdrop and innovations taking place in the finance function, CII Southern Region organized the 5th Edition of The India Finance Forum on 20th & 21st April 2011, Chennai.

The theme of the 5th Edition of The India Finance Forum is “Transformation for Dynamic Growth” and it is intended to cover deliberations/discussions on 6 important areas.

These are

• Funding for Growth – Innovative Financing - As the markets are getting more global with the increased focus on the rapid growth markets, we look at PE & Innovative financing for operating in emerging markets

• Governance for Value Creation – Focused on the current scenario of Corporate Governance and also to understand from the corporate perspective, way forward what would be the key for better corporate governance and value creation

• Financial Reporting – Convergence to IFRS - We look at Indian Accounting Standard and IFRS, and also have those organizations share their experience in preparing their financial statements IFRS compliant

• Systems & Technology – Adapting to the Future – As external evolution becomes more varied and volatile, the challenge increases, as we see the emergence of Cloud computing and Mobile-Commerce technology. These technologies promise to shake the foundations of how technology is delivered to all organizations and reshape the structure of the knowledge economy.

• Leadership & Enterprise Risk Management - The evolving role of the CFO, becoming more of business partners to CEOs in a company. In today’s scenario the role of economic corporate stewards is to be daring and dissent when necessary, and serve the CEO’s, in a strategist role, with effective insights on the affairs of the company and its businesses. Analyze the important aspect /elements of Risk Management across the enterprise

• Mergers & Acquisitions – To analyze the critical success factors of M&A and also to understand the legal and Investment banker perspective

CFO’s, financial consultants, Charted Accountants and various people from various financial sectors attended the event. The conference had close to 200 participants.