Around 800 of Malta’s business leaders will receive a red ‘baton’ by hand delivery at their offices over the next few days bearing the words ‘One Second Ahead’.
Participants are there to talk business but also to do business
Inside is an invitation to the third Business Leaders Malta event, one of the most vibrant, inspiring highlights of Malta’s annual networking calendar.
Scheduled for February 24 at the Radisson Blu Resort, St Julian’s, the event’s underlying theme this year is ‘competitive competence’.
With the Olympics set for July in London, this year’s Business Leaders morning event draws inspiration from the sporting principles that apply to business, such as planning and preparation, the ability to change and respond to different situations, and leadership and managerial ability.
Event organiser Business Leaders Malta is a network set up by Jugs@Malta, the events management company, Konnekt, the recruiter, and Mdina Partnership, the training and development firm.
Competitive competence is not necessarily about being first or beating everyone else, Mdina Partnership directors Steve Tarr and Alex Galea told The Sunday Times. For some people, it could be about achieving goals, irrespective of what the competition was doing.
To personify the concept, the event programme features Inspire chief executive officer Nathan Farrugia, who will reveal what went on before and behind the scenes of his gruelling challenge to run 27 marathons in 27 days in all 27 EU member states a few weeks ago.
Mdina Partnership UK’s Mark Jacobs will share his advice on winning attitudes and how the right perception of critical events and positive action make all the difference to reach the desired goals.
Medserv plc chairman Anthony Diacono, who last year joined a panel debate on change management, this year chairs a panel discussing managing, leading and coaching teams. Panel members will include Gasan Group chairman Joe Gasan, St Martin Institute of IT’s Charles Theuma, Island Hotels’ Winston Zahra, Jubilee Group’s Alex Scicluna and Baxter’s Julian Dimech.
A guest speaker will explore winning strategies and their application at local and international levels in operations involved in complex, fast-moving markets.
As is now customary, Jugs@Malta co-founder Gianni Zammit will round off the conference with an interactive, fun activity before participants make their way to lunch.
The organisers hope that by the end of the morning, the participants – a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Malta’s key business figures – will have been enriched in some way.
“Take Nathan Farrugia as an example – the event will focus on his planning methods and his Plan Bs,” Konnekt director Josef Said explained
“We would like business people to take something meaningful away with them when they leave the conference, ideas that can help them in their day to day.
“People do business differently but they are open to new approaches.
“The conference is designed to be a networking event and there is a great deal of value in that. Two hours of networking is allocated between breakfast, coffee break and lunch, in such a way as to truly encourage introduction and conversation, the exchange of experiences, successes and failures.”
‘One Second Ahead’ is strictly by invitation. It is sponsored by Melita, File Flatners Ltd and Debono Group.
In 2009, the Business Leaders Malta team set out to create an event that would bring together foremost personalities in the local business community in one place for a few hours.
After setting themselves the tall order, a small pool of people from the three companies made more than 400 phone calls to invite their personal business contacts to the conference.
Held at the Hilton Malta in 2010, the first Business Leaders conference was themed ‘From Selection to Perfection’ and focused on human capital and capacity.
The event, they promised guests, would be an opportunity for them to spend some time with their peers in a thought-provoking setting that would lead them to consider new ideas.
“The concept behind Business Leaders Malta was never to promote any of our companies,” Jugs@Malta director Josef Gafà explained.
“There is no branding or hard sell. Business Leaders Malta, after all, is not a company, it is a network.
“All three companies, and our partners BRND WGN and Island Hotels Group, believe they are measured not by how they appear but by what they deliver.
“We set out to deliver an enriching event and the growing attendance every year leads us to believe that we are meeting the objective.”
Around 150 attended that first event; more than 250 people attended last year’s ‘Change Your Frequency’ conference at the Radisson Golden Sands Resort.
This year, the organisers are expecting attendance to swell even further, confident that the event’s formula has struck a chord with entrepreneurs and business officers.
“Business Leaders promises a very particular experience,” Mr Gafà added. “It’s a bit like going to a concert. It’s all carefully planned, but at the end of the day, we have no idea what our guests will say or share, as the exchanges are spurred by the many different arguments people will make. The ample networking time also leads to opportunities – participants are there to talk business but also to do business.”
Competitive competence is not necessarily about being first or beating everyone else
Planning for the 2013 event will begin almost immediately after the post-mortem of this event, with a careful analysis of the feedback submitted by the participants, which has been considerable every year so far.
Mr Galea said the Business Leaders team had more up its sleeve for next year besides the annual conference.
“There are new ideas,” he would only say. “Some good ones.”