Opening Remarks

Ms Mariam Riza, Conference Chair; Vice President, Intergenerational Consulting, Wattleshire

Welcome Address

Mr Leo Lee, Immediate Past President, ACCA

Keynote Address
The Case for Business Agility: What It Means for Finance and Accounting Leaders

Mr John Williams, CEO, Agile Business Consortium

In this world of exponential change where new disruptive technologies are being introduced every day, many organisations and professions around the world face the fear of being irrelevant and replaced by cognitive capabilities. While we need to embrace digitalisation to stay ahead, we also need to critically look at new business models, business agility and how individual's roles such as C-suites and accountants are all evolving.

This session will cover what business agility is, what it means for the finance and accounting leaders; and some of the global trends on how agility is being integrated into organisational structure, culture, processes and strategic planning.

Winning in a Post-digital World

Ms Sonia Gupta, Managing Director, Accenture Strategy

As every business does indeed become a digital business … what is next?

Persistent change, challenged assumptions, and disruption are now the norm, rather than the exception, in business and society. And these indicators will only accelerate and multiply as we progress into the future. The lightning-speed of change, driven by technology, is taking us from the digital age toward a new reality, one we call the post-digital world. The post-digital era offers tremendous opportunities and value for business if enterprises proceed responsibly and strengthen trust. The power of cloud and artificial intelligence will continue to advance. When combined with technologies such as distributed ledger, extended reality, and quantum computing, they will reshape not only the business sphere, but also the relationships with individuals.

This session will cover the trends we are seeing, how we can prepare and maximise the potential of the post digital era where mindsets and culture play a critical role; and why the new reality requires agility, more than ever, to cope and thrive amidst the rising rate of change.

Fireside Chat with Mr John Williams and Ms Sonia Gupta

Faciliator: Mr Joseph Alfred FCCA, Head of Policy, Singapore, ACCA 

Guest-of-Honour's Address

Ms Indranee Rajah, Minister, Prime Minister's Office, Second Minister for Finance and Education

The Power of Digital in Enabling Agility

Mr Jamie Lyon, Interim Director, Professional Insights, ACCA

With an external environment that is changing so rapidly and unpredictably, agility and flexibility are required to allow businesses to constantly adapt and advance to address challenges and tap on potential opportunities. The role of finance needs to be evolved as company leaders expect real-time insights on the state of their businesses to help them make better and timely business decisions. In this session, Jamie will address the following questions:

- How should the finance function enhance agility to lead organisational transformation and improve finance practices?
- What is the role of digital in enabling agility?
- How can agile mind-sets and work practices be facilitated by using the correct competency framework?
- How to cultivate a culture that will embrace agility?

It will provide highlights of ACCA’s professional insights, including the influential global report on the future competencies that will facilitate agility, Professional Accountants – The Future; and the latest report on Culture and the Future Finance Function, which will discuss future trends in Finance.

Panel Discussion
Challenges and Successes of Agility

With an external environment that is changing so quickly and difficult to predict, agility and flexibility enable businesses to constantly adapt and advance to address challenges and tap on potential opportunities.

SMEs are known to be more nimble and adaptable than their larger counterparts. Therefore, they should take advantage of their agility to quickly leverage on new technologies and innovation opportunities to scale up. However, insufficient manpower, lack of talents with future-ready skills, no dedicated departments and infrastructure can be potential barriers to agility. On the other hand, larger companies and even the public sectors may have deep-rooted cultures or practices that are hard to break away.

At this session, a panel of business leaders from various sectors will share their views on why they adopted agility, the challenges they faced and how they overcame them.

Moderator: Mr Jamie Lyon, Interim Director, Professional Insights, ACCA

Panellists:
Mr Paul Cobban, Chief Data and Transformation Officer, DBS
Ms Paula Kensington, Council Member, ACCA; Former CFO, Bulletproof Group 
Ltd
Mr Steven Koh, Director (Agile Consulting and Engineering), Government Digital Services, Government Technology Agency of Singapore
Mr Patrick Tay, Assistant Secretary-General of NTUC and Director of NTUC's Strategy Group and Legal Services Department

Networking Lunch

Leadership Capability
1A. Agile Leadership: Organisational Transformation of DBS Bank into the World's Best Bank
Prof Neo Kok Beng, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Marketing, NUS Business School

DBS Bank achieves the World's Best Bank in 2018 after it started its transformation journey in 2010.
- What challenges did DBS faced in the digital world?
- How does the leadership execute its vision and strategies?
This case study explores the importance of agile leadership in an era of industry disruptions.

Professional Capability
1B. Design Thinking for the Finance Industry 
Graham Kennedy, Product Management Instructor, General Assembly

This session will discuss and help you understand:
-The basic principles behind the increasingly popular design thinking
- How you can benefit from design thinking in finance industry?
- Real business applications for design thinking in finance

Technical Capability
1C. Beyond Budgeting - Enabling Business Agility
Rickard Olsson, Managing Director, Beyond Budgeting Institute

This workshop will in an interactive way discuss:
- Is the traditional budget a blocker for companies to achieve business agility?
- How can we make our management processes more innovative?
- Do we need to change our leadership and corporate culture to achieve business agility?
- How does Beyond Budgeting relate to Agile?

Leadership Capability
2A. Leading Agile Transformation in a Finance Team
MK Choong, Regional Manager – ASEAN & Japan, APMG International
Greg Collocott, Founder, Fast Agile Coaching Training FACT
Stefan Granitzer, Assentire

Successful transformation requires not only knowledge of processes that support business agility, but also an environment that encourages collaboration. Many organisations are now using a range of agile approaches to drive the transformational changes that are needed to maintain their customer base and ongoing viability. This session provides an insight into what is meant by agile transformation by a finance team, who needs to be involved, what has to be done, and an introduction on effective collaboration skill that is needed for leading agile transformation in a finance team.

Professional Capability
2B. Agile Frameworks for Professional Accountants of the Future
Manik Bhandari,Vice President, Business Analytics Chapter, Singapore Computer Society; Partner, EY ASEAN Data & Analytics Lead

In this very interactive session, Brendan will:
- Introduce you to the Agile Framework and explain how it applies to the Finance function
- Help you understand the skillsets that Professional Accountants need to be successful in the Agile Finance Organisation of the future
- Provide you with practical examples of Agile techniques that you can implement immediately in your organisation to help drive massive improvements in the performance of your Finance Team

Technical Capability
2C. Applied Intelligence Enabled Smart Finance for Industry 4.0
Manik Bhandari,Vice President, Business Analytics Chapter, Singapore Computer Society; Partner, EY ASEAN Data & Analytics Lead

By 2020, there will be 50 billion internet connected “things” powered by IoT and fuelled by data. In order for businesses to make sense of the immense amount of data coming from an inter-connected world of humans and machines, there is a strong need for finance professionals to leverage on analytics and AI. The strategic use of data and AI can help finance professions make their businesses be ready for the 4^th Industrial Revolution. Come join us at this session to understand more about how AI can assist organisations to better unlock the potential from the IoT and the 4^th Industrial Revolution

Closing Keynote
Scaling Your Agility Capabilities

Mr Fredrik Haren, Author and Keynote Speaker

Agility comes in different forms; from enterprise level to personal level. As an individual, how can you further your agility capabilities with the different frameworks and enablers to prepare yourselves for the Future of Finance?

At this closing session, we will do a recap of the conference theme and highlight the key agility skills for successful business and finance practices.