The Hong Kong Institute of Directors has stepped up its efforts to encourage wider adoption of good corporate governance practices in the wake of the global financial crisis.
'In times of recession, people typically look for programmes that can offer them potential solutions to their problems and help to better position themselves,' says the institute's CEO Carlye Tsui Wai-ling.
The institute has a range of strategic courses focusing on how best to cope with the fallout of the downturn, addressing issues such as rebranding in difficult times, understanding the subprime crisis, the state of the market and executive compensation and incentives.
As the city's leading body representing the interests of directors, the institute focuses on offering a wealth of training initiatives that culminate in a professional diploma or certificate, and are open to members and non-members.
Courses leading to a qualification include corporate governance and directorship, enterprise directorship, company direction, essentials for listed-company directors, risk management and finance for directors.
More than ever, the challenges of the downturn have highlighted the need to broaden directors' understanding of the company and adopt a helicopter perspective of as many issues as possible so as to fuel debate and discussion.
'Assuming there is, at the management level, already a strong battery of expertise in finance, legal and accounting, it is important for the board to feature a mix of board members who share different perspectives,' says the institute's chairman Kelvin Wong.