Good corporate governance is important for businesses of all sizes, but resources for implementing best practices have largely been focused on corporate businesses. Small and medium enterprises and especially family-owned business have distinct challenges that require specific tools and frameworks for their sustainable development. Utilizing resources from the newly published SME Governance Guidebook, this webinar will highlight some of the “growth pains” SMEs face and best practice approaches to overcome these challenges. According to the report, good governance improves business performance and increases the chances of a company’s long-term survival, which makes SMEs with strong governance potentially better clients and lower lending risks. The presenters will share how analyzing SME governance can help better evaluate lending risk exposure. Further, participants will learn how to share this tool directly with their SME clients to assist them in strengthening their own internal governance and, hence, mitigate growth risks. 

Speakers

Vladislava (Slava) Ryabota is the Regional Corporate Governance Lead, South Asia, IFC and a key member of IFC’s Corporate Governance Leadership Team and the center point of contact for investment services for IFC in South Asia. Ms. Ryabota joined IFC in 1997 and worked in a number of corporate governance advisory projects and was covering investment operations in Europe and Central Asia. Ms. Ryabota specializes in assessment of corporate governance practices of banks, board evaluation, family business governance, governance of funds and SMEs, and has been regularly providing trainings for directors and corporate secretaries. Ms. Slava graduated from the Law Faculty of Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University in 1993. She continued her education at Essex University, UK. She holds a PhD degree and is a mediator accredited by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution in UK. She is a professional trainer and the author of a number of books and articles on corporate governance, commercial law and mediation. 
 

Karen Lumakis is the Chief Risk Officer at Business Partners Ltd in South Africa. Karen is a Chartered Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor and has a Bachelor of Honours degree in Accounting from the University of Cape Town. 
Business Partners Ltd specialises in providing business finance to SMEs for the last 38 years. In a year, Business Partners approves approximately 400 equity and quasi-equity deals and invests approximately $100 million.
Business Partners has approximately 2000 active investments. The Business Partners philosophy is to understand and assess the Entrepreneur, the industry in which the Entrepreneur operates and the Entrepreneur’s business; thereby fully understanding the Entrepreneur’s potential. The added-value services provided by Business Partners assist in creating an integrated solution for the Entrepreneur, including consulting and mentorship services. 

Business Partners International was established in 2004 as a subsidiary to apply the investment model refined in South Africa to other African countries which have some of the fastest growing economies in the world. The company has been established in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia. Business Partners Ltd was recently awarded Gold in the category SME BANK OF THE YEAR – AFRICA at the Global SME Finance Awards in 2019. 
 

The webinar presentations are available for members only on the member portal here. Recording will be posted soon. 

Read a summary here. 

Contact: Jessica Alfaro