Best-selling author and renowned business executive Stephen M R Covey will visit Jamaica for the 37th Annual Conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of the Caribbean (ICAC). The two-day conference begins on June 20 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, under the theme, ‘Navigating Global Disruption…Creating Opportunities’.

“Our range of topics and world-class speakers have been carefully chosen as they’re relevant to the issues every business person, professional or student, not just accountants, face every day,” asserted Gail Moore, chair of the ICAC Marketing Committee. “The opening keynote speaker, Stephen Covey, will address trust as a key leadership competency.”

Covey is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller The SPEED of Trust, and is the son of famed author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr Stephen Covey.

Covey holds an MBA from Harvard University and led the Covey Leadership Centre as president and CEO, where he grew the value and brand of the company from US$2.4 million to US$160 million after three years through a series of strategic expansions and a merger with Franklin Quest.

Covey will explore three key areas with conference participants — how economic and business performances are directly related to trust, that trust is the number one competency for effective leadership, and that trust is a learnable skill.

He joins other world-class presenters including former prime minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding; CEO of Corporate Strategies Ltd and the prime minister’s Economic Growth Council, Senator Aubyn Hill; and global strategy leader of the Oracle Business Group, Kimberly Ellison-Taylor.

Immediate past president of the ACCA, Leo Lee; CEO of Edufocal, Gordon Swaby; and CEO of Algas Organics, Johnanan Dujon will also lead a series of workshops during the two-day conference.

Over 600 of the region’s accounting and business professionals are expected to attend the conference, which is being hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Jamaica (ICAJ). The attendees stand to gain insight from a number of technical presentations ranging from information technology, education and business best practices to climate change, trade and health.

“We also hope to increase awareness of the dramatic changes that are happening globally — whether it is technological change, political change, climate change —and we are aiming to highlight the opportunities that these changes present for the Caribbean and energise attendees to grasp these opportunities and embrace change, not be scared by it.” Moore stated.