ICMA (Australia) Graduation held at the BMICH
The annual graduation ceremony of the Institute of Certified Management Accountants (ICMA) Australia was held at the BMICH recently amongst a group of distinguished guests and invitees. Gracing the occasion on this year`s graduation were the Chief Guest Mr. Ajith Nivard Cabraal - the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Guest of Honour Professor Janek Ratnatunga - Chair Education Committee of ICMA Australia and Mr. Murali Prakash - President ICMA Sri Lanka Branch.
A large number of Certified Management Accountants (CMAs), Associate Management Accountants (AMAs) and Graduate Management Accountants (GMAs) graduated at the ceremony making it one of the highest attended graduation ceremonies. The graduands included leading entrepreneurs, CEO’s, Managing Directors, Directors, General Managers, Consultants and Senior Executives from the public & private sector organizations and multinationals. Most candidates have joined the ICMA Graduate Conversion Programme with their professional, bachelors or masters level qualifications in Banking, Marketing, Engineering, Law and Human Resources. The others have directly joined ICMA Qualifying Workshop with their professional Accountancy qualifications.
The Chief Guest at the event Mr Nivard Cabraal highlighted the fact that the country’s economy is now on a high growth mode targeting a USD 100 billion economy with USD 4,000 per capita income. “The country requires knowledgeable, competent and innovative professionals with the skills required for the 21st century knowledge economy to speahead the vision of being the Miracle of Asia”. He further emphasized the importance for professionals to keep abreast of the changes happening globally and continuously acquire new knowledge. “If not they will be out of touch and outdated” he continued. ICMA (Australia) is one qualification which helps professionals and graduates to move forward in this direction expanding their knowledge horizons by acquiring a high level of financial literacy and improving lateral thinking. Mr Nivard Cabraal congratulated the graduates on their achievement and thanked ICMA (Australia) for offering the programme in Sri Lanka.
Prof Janek Ratnatunga mentioned about ‘connecting the dots’. He continued “This can only be done backwards, and gave an example of how Apple’s Steve Jobs realised that ahe went to years before at college was so influential the design he brought to Apple” .
Professor Ratnatunga connected his own dots, and said that upon entering KPMG as an ‘article clerk’ to do chartered, a major dot was Mr Nivard Cabraal, the Governor of the Central Bank. Mr Cabraal had won all the prizes, and Prof Ratnatunga wanted to beat him. “I never could, but the discipline, that the chase gave me, served me well for my very successful academic career later”.
He emphasized that the CMA program will no doubt be an important dot in the professional careers of all the graduates.
Mr Kapila Dodamgoda, CEO of ICMA (Australia) – Sri Lanka Branch announced the Gold Medalists with excellent performance. ICMA Australia is the fastest growing post graduate level accounting qualification in Australia with an increasing membership in Australia, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Lebanon, UAE and Sri Lanka.
Certified Management Accountant (Australia) is an internationally acclaimed professional qualification that offers competitive advantage to non financial professionals in an ever-changing business environment today.