IoD urges business leaders to embrace innovative changes

Ije Jidenma, president of the Institute of Directors (IoD) Nigeria, has urged directors and other business leaders to embrace innovative transformations driven by new technology.

“Today’s leaders must possess visions for a technology-driven future and be prepared to purposefully lead these complex and innovative transformations. Business leaders must disrupt now before they themselves are disrupted,” Jidenma said at a press conference in Lagos, Monday, ahead of the 2022 annual directors’ conference of the institute.

She stated that the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution which is essentially driven by information technology and the challenges thrust on the world by the COVID-19 pandemic have combined to alter the skills, expertise and knowledge needed by leaders to guide their organisations through the trying.

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“One of our major platforms of advocacy and engagement is the annual directors’ conference (ADC). This flagship event is at the heart of the institute’s public engagement series where stakeholders from the private, public and not-for-profit sectors converge and align to discuss salient and contemporary issues on leadership, ethics, economy, and business, amongst others,” Jidenma said.

According to her, the IoD has been deliberate and consistent in engaging with all stakeholders through its advocacy platforms in pursuit of the institute’s mandate of deepening the practice of good corporate governance and in playing its role as the champion of good leadership ethos and sound ethics in Nigeria.

Lamis Dikko, chairman, national organising committee (NOC) of the IoD annual directors’ conference, said the event would be split into four plenary sessions over the two-day period. According to him, each of the sessions will address sub-themes around ‘The fourth industrial revolution: disruptive technology and board readiness; Unlocking millennial directors’ potentials: building corporate governance ethos in a digital economy; directors’ mastery of environmental and social governance: indicators that impact material risks and growth opportunities, and entrenching transformation and sustainability in a digital economy: the director’s role’.