Launch of Ghana’s Most Respected Company and CEO Awards at the Banquet Hall, State House on Saturday 20 October 2012

Press Release

Launch of Ghana’s Most Respected Company and CEO Awards at the Banquet Hall, State House on Saturday 20 October 2012

This year’s edition of Ghana’s Most Respected Company and CEO Awards has been slated for Saturday October 20 2012 in Accra.

The awards programme which is being held under the theme “Growing the leadership and talent pipeline” is being jointly organized by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Business and Financial Times to reward excellence in corporate Ghana.

The Ghana’s Most Respected Company and CEO Awards is a biennial opinion survey conducted amongst CEOs of various organizations in Ghana.  The objective of this year’s awards is to crystallise how industry has grown leadership and talent over the years. Aswe set the stage to become the leading middle income economy in West Africa, it is our hope that the survey will help identify what current business leaders are doing to identify, nurture and grow leadership talent to sustain our economic and social transformation.

In the Survey, CEOs were requested to choose the companies and CEOs they most respected and assign reasons for their choices. The highest nominee for each of these two categories was presented with the Most Respected Company and Most Respected CEO awards and respectively.

The overall objective of the survey is to seek the opinions of CEOs on which companies they respect most and identify those business leaders whose reputation gives them a competitive advantage based on a set of criteria.

Previous editions of the awards were held in 2007 and 2009. Past winners of the Ghana’s Most Respected CEO category were Capt (rtd) Prince Kofi Amoabeng, Group CEO, UT Holdings; Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, former Executive Chairman, Databank Group; Mr. Kwasi Twum, CEO, Multimedia Broadcasting Company; Mr. Tony Oteng-Gyasi, CEO, Tropical Cable and Conductor Limited; Alhaji Asuma Banda, CEO, Antrak Group; and Mr. Philip Sowah, CEO, Zain (Airtel Ghana). Others are Dr. Joyce Aryee, former CEO, Ghana Chamber of Mines; Mr. Albert Ocran, CEO, Combert Impressions;  Dr. Patrick Awuah, President, Ashesi University College; Mr. Martin Mensah, CEO, Kasapreko Company Limited; Mr. Ernest Bediako, CEO, Ernest Chemists; and Mr. David Venn, former CEO of Vodafone Ghana.

In the Most Respected Company category, the winners were UT Financial Services (now UT Bank), Scancom Ghana Limited (MTN), Unilever Ghana Ltd,  Databank Group, Guinness Ghana Breweries Group, Multimedia Broadcasting Limited, Nestlé Ghana Limited, The Coco-Cola Bottling Company of Ghana Limited, Zain (now Airtel) and Ecobank Ghana.

In setting the agenda for the 2012 edition, Felix Addo, Country Senior Partner, PwC Ghana intimated that “when three-quarters or more of CEOs are very confident of growth, as we found in our most recent thought leadership survey in Ghana, there’s a sense that strategy can help capitalise on certain strengths or opportunities in the market. The fundamentals are in place, as we see in Ghana. It’s a matter of making the most of them”.

He added that “strategies like improving organisational efficiency can have a real impact, as 88% of CEOs in Ghana attest. Spending more time with customers helps CEOs to evaluate new product or service development. Growing the leadership and talent pipeline and other value-adding activities like technology investments all support growth”.

“In Ghana, there’s a sense that the market has enough capacity and potential to accommodate the various players. So we don’t see competitive threats influencing CEO strategy very much in our survey. Innovation is largely focused on existing products, services and business models-there’s so much potential, and so much optimism, that companies are less concerned with innovation than they are with meeting demand. The true test will be whether the strategies that CEOs are deploying now will have the intended impact down the road. In large part, I think they will” he emphasised.

According to Mrs. Edith Dankwa, the Executive Director of Business & Financial Times, “at a time when the limelight  is turning  on Ghana as an emerging  economic power house  in Africa, the upcoming Ghana’s Most Respected CEOs & Company Awards  will be a roll call of CEOs  and companies which have embraced  the challenges and opportunities  presented  by Ghana’s continuing  economic transformation  especially in an era  characterized  by the increasing  entry of  major  international players” into the local economy. “Companies and CEOs continue to demonstrate their resolve to attain the highest international standards as a new wave of globalization sweeps across Ghana’s corporate frontiers. Today, CEOs and companies need to go the extra mile to earn the respect of their peers and corporate Ghana at large. That is what makes this edition of the awards more interesting” she added.

The awards scheme is organized to motivate companies and CEOs to move towards value creation, build public trust and promote good corporate governance practices. Over 300 CEOs of medium to large organizations are expected to be surveyed on their perception of their peers’ vision and innovation, high ethical standards, promotion of human capital development, good corporate governance and harmonious industrial relations, unique and excellent leadership style, strong brands, excellent business culture and high stakeholders’ value, ethics and code of conduct amongst others.  Winners of the awards will be presented at a high profile Gala Dinner event to be held at the Banquet Hall, State House on 20 October.

Note:

1. PwC Ghana provides industry-focused assurance, tax and advisory services to enhance value for their clients. We’re a network of firms in 158 countries with close to 169,000 people who are committed to delivering quality services.  Visit us at www.pwc.com/gh

© [2012] PwC. All rights reserved.
PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity.