This, the institute said, was to enable the nation to achieve economic growth and sustainable development. President and Chairman of Governing Council, ICSAN, Taiwo Owokalade, gave the charge during the institute’s induction, held recently.
He referred to those conferred with the cadre of an associate as chartered secretaries and professionals, whose opinion would be sought in the field of corporate secretarial practice and governance, while those on the graduate cadre, were urged to be relevant and functionally effective in the socioeconomic realities of the 21st century.
According to him, professionals in any socioeconomic formation are the catalyst of development in that they produce services to nurture economic progress, growth and national prosperity through the effective use of their expertise.
He said it was incumbent on the professionals to channel their energies into building strong, thriving public and private sector institutions to enable the nation realise economic growth and sustainable development.
Delivering the induction lecture on ‘The Pursuit of Excellence as a Goal for Chartered Secretaries and Administrators’, Chief Executive Officer of the International Packaging Industry Plc, Ifeyinwa Essien-Akpan, said what every organisation needed are transformative leaders, who know how to navigate the changes and challenges ahead.
She noted that implementing good governance across boards as governance professionals was paramount.
Emphasising how to achieve excellence as chartered secretaries, she said: “Our antenna should be raised at all times around issues of accountability, transparency, responsibility and fairness. If we are to help our boards and organisations succeed, we must not only have a thorough knowledge of what the role of the board entails: regulatory compliance, financial resilience, maximisation of shareholder value, risk management and leadership.
“We must also have a thorough knowledge of the operating environment in their various locale. For example, you cannot advise on the risks of insecurity, artificial intelligence, or the currency’s recall, redesign, and revaluation if your understanding of these is limited.
“In pursuit of excellence, we must constantly revise our knowledge being not satisfied with what we know at time. We know that rapid changes are the hallmark of a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous, Disruptive and Diverse
(VUCADD) environment; often new changes arise before we have even gotten a grasp of the old.
“We must improve our competency by paying attention to detail, with a focus on our continuous self-development. We should take greater responsibility and interest in the performance of the organizations we serve as practitioners,” she said.
