The Institute of Directors Malta Branch (IoD) will have IoD global chair Charlotte Valeur in Malta for a conference at the Phoenicia on May 16 to celebrate 60 years of the IoD in Malta. This is the first time that IoD’s international chair will visit Malta.

Charlotte Valeur is global chair of the IoD and a former director at BNP Paribas and Société Générale. Her non-executive experience includes positions with 3i Infrastructure; the JPMorgan Global Convertibles Income Fund; and Laing O’Rourke, the UK’s largest privately owned construction company. Apart from the IoD, she has chaired numerous firms, including Blackstone/GSO Loan Financing and is an honorary teaching fellow at Lancaster University as well as a member of the Primary Markets Group at the London Stock Exchange.

The conference is entitled ‘Reshaping Malta’s boards’ and will include three plenary sessions, two working groups, a drinks reception and gala dinner. The first plenary session will feature a keynote by world renowned corporate governance expert Roger Barker and a panel discussing developing a new Malta Corporate Governance Code over the next year or so based on extensive stakeholder engagement. 

Plenary 2 will focus on director certification, a topic IoD Malta is working closely on with the Malta Financial Services Authority in a bid to improve director education in Malta, as well as providing a standard by which directors being appointed to various kinds of entities can be validated.

Plenary 3 features a keynote from ecoDa secretary general Béatrice Richez Baum and tackles the responsibilities and liabilities of directors. 

Speakers also include IoD Malta chairman Edwin Ward, FinanceMalta chairman Kenneth Farrugia, HSBC Bank Malta chairman Sonny Portelli, APS Bank chairman Frederick Mifsud Bonnici, Mapfre MiddleSea chairman Martin Galea, EY Partner Geraint Davies, EVBB board member Anton Theuma, chartered director Christian Vassallo and former HSBC Malta CEO Mark Watkinson. 

Mr Ward said: “We affirm once again the importance of a balanced approach to governance issues and our institute takes the responsibility to keep the model of Malta’s Corporate Governance Code in line with social expectations, to retain the principles that all social partners and institutions think valuable and develop them further. In the next iteration of the Malta Code we will in fact adopt this approach, to lead the evolution of corporate practices towards more sustainable growth, and through the conference we will have already accomplished a first relevant step in this direction.”