Elite Leaders Gathered at North Asia Management Accounting Leaders’ Summit 2017 Turning Challenges into Opportunities in New Era

The highly anticipated North Asia Management Accounting Leaders’ Summit 2017 was successfully concluded yesterday in Cheng Yu Tung Building at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). More than 20 opinion leaders representing the fields of enterprises, academic and research institutes from the North Asian countries and regions such as Hong Kong, mainland China, Macau, Taiwan and Japan delivered impressive speeches and collectively discussed the development and future of North Asia Management Accounting at the summit, sharing their insights from a wide range of perspectives and promoting professional excellence in management accounting.

North Asia Management Accounting Leaders’ Summit 2017 was co-organised by Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and CUHK Business School. Following the achievements of last year’s summit, this year more than 200 financial leaders were attracted to attend.

Featuring various dialogues, keynote speeches and panel discussions, the summit uncovered insights from a wide range of topics including application practice and experience sharing of management accounting in public fields and business circles, analysis to industrial standards and popularisation of newest academic achievements. On behalf of the organiser, Mr. Andrew Harding, Chief Executive of Management Accounting of Association of International Certified Professional Accounts delivered an inaugural opening address. He said, “Management Accounting plays a critical role in all of these areas – in helping organisations look over the horizon, join the dots and unlock decision relevant information that drives sustainable success in the short and long-term.” Ms. Vicky Li, Regional Vice President, North Asia, the Association of International Certified Professional Accounts also attended the summit.

The inaugural opening address was followed by the welcome speech on behalf of another organiser, addressed by Prof. Kalok Chan, Dean of the CUHK Business School and Wei Lun Professor of Finance of CUHK. He said, “The North Asia Management Accounting Leaders’ Summit is a platform established for key opinion leaders in the region from supervision authorities, academic circles, business circles and professional organisations to share best practices in management accounting. CUHK Business School is very excited to have partnered with CIMA in organising this year’s summit and we look forward to working alongside the organisation to make an impact in moving forward the region’s management accounting arena.”

Mr. Charles Tilley, Executive Chairman of CGMA Research Foundation addressed the keynote speech on the topic of “Rethinking the Business Model”. He said, “Accountants of the future will need depth and breadth. They need to understand their organisations in terms of what value is created and how. Both these needs are reflected in the themes of today’s Summit and it is great to see the finance profession engaging with such a diverse range of issues.”

Then, Prof. Wang Liyan, Professor of Accounting Department of Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, shared his insights into the “Keys to Business Success in China”, especially in the aspect of using tools for management accounting information during his keynote speech. He said that, an effective management accounting tool would enable management accountants to improve performance and facilitate decision-making, and therefore help building successful organisations. It could be a framework, model, technique or process.

Next came the dialogue concerning the issue of developing the next generation of management accountants addressed by Ms. Shirley Liu, Vice President and Chief Finance Officer of Coca-Cola Greater China & Korea and Chairman of CIMA Mainland China Advisory Board and Prof. Dingbo Xu, Professor of Accounting, Associate Dean and Member of the Management Committee of China Europe International Business School. Ms. Shirley Liu pointed out that “We talked about management accounting; We talked about developing the next generation today. One simple word for everyone to remember is value creation. We should have a “value mindset” as a financial officer, to create values instead of creating activities.” and Prof. Dingbo Xu pointed out that analytical and communication skills were essential skills for management accountants, which could help debating on management accounting and influence others. He said “Management accounting has been changing fast, it is important to learn the complete set of skills. Students should also study economics class as a foundation.”

The summit also discussed many hot topics in current management accounting field including management accounting and change management, empowerment through technology with the presentation of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), leadership and sustainability. Renowned speakers from financial services enterprises, such as ANS Capital Limited, Ascent Partners Advisory Service Limited, Barclays, DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Limited, Ernst & Young Advisory Services Limited, internet enterprise Tencent, and innovative pioneers of diverse industries such as Airport Authority Hong Kong, Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited, Hui Lau Shan Group, South China Group, Hong Kong Electric, US Gibson Group, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority shared their penetrating views and best practices with our guest. Serving as a valuable platform for academic circles and business circles to share views on management accounting achievements, the summit also brought together prominent academics from the CEIBS, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, National Chengchi University, Waseda University, Macau University of Science and Technology to make incisive academic comments on the aforesaid topics.

At last, Dr. William Chen, Chairman of CIMA Hong Kong concluded the summit with closing remarks. He showed his gratitude to all guests and participants for exploring issues, sharing insights, debating on best practices and highlighting various cases of management accounting.

The summit was sponsored by Ernst & Young Advisory Services Limited and supported by Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Meetings & Exhibitions Hong Kong.

About Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)

Established in 1919, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) is the world’s largest professional body of chartered global management accountants with more than 230,000 members and trainees in 179 countries. The members and trainees from CIMA work in major industrial and commercial enterprises, public organisations and non-profit-making institutions, some are even the core members of enterprises. To ensure the qualification of financially trained business leaders, CIMA closely contacts with employers, sponsor forward-looking studies, regularly update their professional qualifications, enhance career experience requirement and continually promote career development.

About Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA)

Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA), jointly launched by CIMA and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in 2012, is the world’s most widely held management accounting designation. More than 150,000 accounting and finance professionals hold the CGMA worldwide. Under the strong cooperation between two associations in 2017, they have jointly established the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. The new association serves 650,000 members and trainees in the field of public and management accounting. It strongly raises the reputation, employability and quality of the Association of International Accountant, Global Chartered Accountants and Financial Professionals by virtue of rigorous and rich resources of the association.

(From left) Prof. Zhaoyang Gu, Director of the School of Accountancy, CUHK Business School; Dr William Chen, Group CFO of Hui Lau Shan Group; Mr. Stephen Law, Managing Director of ANS Capital Ltd; Prof. Takashi Shimizu, Dean and Professor of Graduate School of Accountancy, Waseda University, Japan; Mr. Charles Tilley, Executive Chairman of CGMA Research Foundation