The University of the West Indies’ Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) is fine-tuning arrangements for its inaugural international conference on Business and Management to be held January 7-9, 2015 at the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The Conference is being held under the theme, “Breaking the Barriers: Enterprise, Competitiveness, Growth and Development”.
 
Minister of Industry, Commerce and Investment, the Hon. Anthony Hylton will open the conference, while David Storey, OBE, Professor at the Department of Business Management and Economics at the University of Sussex, UK will present a keynote address on January 9. Professor Storey is one of the most cited authors on small business and is the highest ranked non-US scholar in Entrepreneurship, Between 2001 and 2005 he was appointed by the UK Secretary of State for Trade and Industry as a Member of the Small Business Council which advised the government on small business policy-making. He has also undertaken work for many overseas governments and organisations.
 
Professor Storey’s presentation will focus on key strategies for making Jamaica more entrepreneurial. As he notes, “I will draw upon my experience in advising governments throughout the world on effective policy measures to stimulate enterprise in all sections of society".
 
Other prominent speakers will include Minister Arnaldo Brown, Grace Kennedy CEO, William Mahfood, President of the PSOJ, Marlene Street-Forrest, Professor Densil Williams, Executive Director of the MSBM, General Manager of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, Grantley Stephenson, Chairman and CEO of Kingston Wharves Limited, Indera Sagewan-Alli of the Trinidad-based Centre for Competiveness, Megan Deane CEO of Creditinfo Jamaica Limited, Kadamawe Knife of the Office of Entrepreneurship, Parris Lyew-Ayee, Mona GeoInformatics and other noted international and local academics and practitioners.
 
According to Executive Director of MSBM, Professor Densil Williams, “The aim of the conference is to attract national, regional and international scholars who are writing and researching on issues in the discipline and its sub-disciplines as well as the practitioners who are grappling with these issues on a daily basis. This is the first of a series that will frame scholars and practitioners as partners in the task of rigorously interrogating business and management theory and practice in the light of Caribbean reality.”Dr. Indianna Minto-Coy, Conference Co-Chair and Panel Convenor, noted that, “researchers, business practitioners and public sector representatives from over seventeen countries are expected to be at the event, providing a vibrant space for knowledge exchange across these key sectors.”
 
The Conference promises to provide a platform for engaging business and academia on some of the ongoing, new and emerging themes in the field of business and management, interrogating these through the lens of small states. Among the key panels will be presentations on financing MSMEs, export-led growth, Diasporic Entrepreneurship and investment, Entrepreneurship, Competitiveness and Economic Development and Leadership.
 
Major sponsors include, The Gleaner Company Limited, Caribbean Producers Jamaica Limited, Kingston Wharves Limited, The Shipping Association of Jamaica, Jamaica Tours and Jampro.