It gives me great pleasure to present the Q3 2017 Society Update to you. Compared with Q2, Q3 was generally a slower quarter because of the summer holidays. However, our Society still held several programs and engagements that I will like to share with you.
I will like to start by complimenting the excellent job that our University Relations Committee is doing. As you all know, university outreach is an important part of our mission and this year, our Society is participating in the CFA Institute Research Challenge for the first time. We have eight universities participating in this maiden edition of the Research Challenge. The participating universities include Ahmadu Bello University, Babcock University, Covenant University, Lagos Business School, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Abuja, University of Ibadan and the University of Lagos. The teams are required to conduct a detailed investment research on a subject company and will be presenting their research reports to a high-level panel of investment professionals who will serve as judges. The winner of the 2017/2018 CFA Institute Research Challenge in Nigeria will emerge at a national final scheduled for February 2018 at the Civic Centre, Lagos. The national champion from Nigeria will join 35 other national champions at the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Regional Competition in Dublin, Ireland in April 2018 to compete for a slot in the four-team global final that will hold in Seoul, South Korea in the same month.
In the month of August, we hosted the eight participating universities to a networking dinner with the CEOs of Citibank Nigeria and Africa Finance Corporation as part of their company visit to Flour Mills (the subject company for the Research Challenge) in Lagos. The dinner provided a great platform for mentoring, sharing of ideas and networking for the students. I am also very excited to announce to you that in September, our Society secured a multi-year sponsorship from Zenith Bank Plc for the Research Challenge. The partnership with Zenith Bank will go a very long way in helping us develop the next generation of investment professionals. We are very excited and sincerely thank Zenith Bank for the partnership and support. From next year, we hope to increase the number of participating universities in the Research Challenge from the current eight. We will be delighted to hear your suggestions on the additional universities to consider.
The Society will also be running the second edition of the Universities Ethics Challenge between 9th and 10th November 2017. You will recall that we ran the first edition of the competition last year between two universities and the competition was won by the University of Lagos. We will have eight universities competing this time around and the participating universities will be invited to attend our Charter Award Dinner planned for 10th November. The winners will also be recognized during the dinner. We are working to secure sponsorship for this event and would appreciate if any of your firms can partner with us to run this event.
As we broaden our university outreach efforts, we really need your support to connect us with key contacts in various Nigerian universities. The universities stand to benefit a lot from our programs and the various scholarships offered by the CFA Institute. If you will like to connect us with any university, please reach out to me or Razaq Ahmed, the Chairman of the University Relations Committee (universityrelationschair@nigeria.cfasociety.org).
Around Society governance, the Board and Committee Chairs met in August at an expanded BOG meeting. It was very encouraging to see that our Committees are all doing their best to push our agenda. The Board of Trustees also held its meeting via a conference call in September. This was a unique opportunity for us to share ideas on how to move the Society forward. The Board also took a decision in August to expand the Code of Conduct to all Society Leaders, Volunteers and Staff members. I am happy to report that the people representing our Society have attested to complying with the Code of Conduct. Our Society is also going through an external audit of our financial statements and we will be sending our audited financial statements to members before the end of the year. I will also like to inform you that the Board is working on updating the Constitution and Bylaws of our Society. Given the rapid growth that we have witnessed in the last four years and the plans that we have for the future, we will like to update the document to reflect current realities. In this regard, in the coming weeks, we will be sending out the proposed constitution amendments to members by email and will ask for an electronic voting on the changes before they are adopted. The major changes relate to us creating new membership categories for Candidates and Charter-Pending members.
Still on Society governance, I am pleased to inform you that the Society has secured a befitting office space in Lekki Phase 1, Lagos. The address is Plot 17, Block 122 Adewale Kolawole Cresenct, Lekki, Lagos. The office building will cater for all our stakeholders as it will have a 25-seat library for candidates, a breakout room for candidates to hold discussions in study groups, office spaces for society staff members, workspace for Society members that may want to visit the office to do some personal work, a boardroom for us to host internal and external meetings and a roof-top terrace for members to relax. The office was secured on a three-year lease and we hope to have it ready for use by the end of October. I will like to sincerely thank the CFA Institute for providing us with project funding to make the office project a reality. This is a clear demonstration of the close collaboration between our Society and the CFA Institute towards increasing Member Value. I will encourage you to please stop by at the new office and use the facilities once it is ready for use.
The EMEA Society Leaders Conference held in Jordan in the last week of September. Unfortunately, our Society was unable to attend but I understand the meetings went very well and the feedback is that CFA Institute will like to achieve more through the local societies. I expect that there will be more demand on us to do more to impact our investment industry positively in the future.
Around advocacy, I am glad that we continue to be the industry think-tank. On 29th of September, we signed an MOU with the Securities and Exchange Commission to, amongst other things, promote capacity development, ethics, investment knowledge, corporate governance and adoption of global standards such as GIPS and Asset Manager Code of Conduct in Nigeria. We will be calling on Society members to help us deliver on the commitments in the MOU. During Q3, we also had several engagements with institutions such as Zenith Bank, Access Bank, ARM, Ministry of Finance, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. It is pleasing to see that all the institutions that we met are very keen to collaborate and to promote the CFA designation.
We held our last Breakfast Knowledge Sharing Session in August where we hosted the CEO of the newly created Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Company Limited (“InfraCredit”). The session was very well attended and insightful and we hope to bring more of such events to you next year. From next year, we will be assigning CE credits to our events so that members that are participating in the CFA Institute CE program can claims such credits.
The Board recently approved for the Society to design a new website. We have engaged a vendor for this project and we expect the new website to be functional by the end of October. We believe that the new website will enhance the value of our brand and we are happy to receive inputs and feedback from members. The Board also approved for our Society to adopt MemberNation. MemberNation is being promoted by CFA Institute and will allow member societies to manage events, communications, promotions, member and candidate data. I am hoping that we will go live on MemberNation before the end of October and will thereafter use the platform to manage the registration for our upcoming Charter Award Ceremony in November.
Upcoming Events
You would have recently received a “Save-the-Date” email from the Society for our upcoming events but I will like to make some emphasis on them. On Saturday, 21 October, we will be collaborating with the Fund Managers Association of Nigeria (FMAN) to organize a 5KM Run/Walk. The objective is to draw attention to financial literacy and gender diversity in the investment industry. We will also be raising money for charity at the event. I will like to appeal that you turn up in large numbers for this event. It promises to be fun.
The biggest event for the year will be the 2017 Charter Award Ceremony. At this event, we will be launching the CFA Institute Women in Investment Management (WIM) Initiative in Nigeria. We have secured two great female leaders to speak at the dinner. Mrs Kemi Adeosun, the Honourable Minister of Finance of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Mrs Bola Adesola, the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria will be the speakers. We will be having several industry executives, regulators, university professors and students in attendance. I am not forgetting our new charterholders that we will be honouring at the dinner. The dinner will be a very high-profile event and the dress code will be strictly black-tie formal wear. Women will need a touch of pink to their dinner wears. The event will hold at the Grand Banquet Hall, Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos on Friday, 10 November 2017. It will be strictly by invitation and members will be required to register for the event. We expect to host about 400 – 500 people at this event. Please do not miss it!
After the WIM/Charter Award event, we may have one more surprise for you in December as we sign out of 2017 so stay tuned……
Welcome to our new Charterholders and Congrats to Aishah Ahmad, CFA
I will like to end this update by saying a big welcome to our new charterholders. I can imagine the excitement you feel and we look forward to formally welcoming you to the CFA Society Nigeria family at the Charter Award Dinner. All our bills for the dinner will be on you….!
Lastly, I will like to say a big congratulation to our own Aishah Ahmad, CFA who has been nominated by the President to be a Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Aisha’s nomination is very timely as it coincides with a period that we are promoting the Women in Investment Management initiative. It is always very pleasing to see our members flying the flag very high and we wish Aishah all the best with Senate confirmation process. We are very confident that she will do a great job at the CBN. CFA Society Nigeria is always available to offer support when Aishah needs us and Aisha goes with our very best wishes.
I will be providing you another update in early 2018 and till then I wish all of you a wonderful Q4. I look forward to seeing you all at our upcoming events.
Yours sincerely,
Banji Fehintola, CFA
President