The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) appointed Ms. Teresa Folkes as the CIM representative to the Board of CIM Sri Lanka on the 09 October 2017.  She takes over the role previously performed by Mr. Chris Daly who has stepped down from the Board of CIM Sri Lanka and continues as Chief Executive of CIM.

Teresa has been on the Senior Management Team of CIM for over two years and reports directly into the Chief Executive. She is responsible for CIM’s Professional Development programmes, Knowledge Services and International Strategy. Most recently, Teresa has been working with the Board to develop the CIM Strategy plan and improve our monitoring and performance management processes.

Discussing the announcement Teresa said: “I am very much looking forward to taking on the role. Sri Lanka is a key region for the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and for over 12 years we have worked together to support marketers in the region. The country is still the largest international region for CIM, serving over 2,145 members. By working together, I am confident we can help drive Sri Lanka’s business landscape by empowering members to harness marketing knowledge and demonstrate world class competencies.”

Prior to working at CIM, Teresa held Executive Director roles at a Prince of Wales Charity (PRIME); leading on strategic business planning and budgeting, service delivery and ensuring assessment standards were achieved for their Membership, Personnel and Training certification and Education portfolios.  Before that, Teresa was at the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI), where her role involved leading and facilitating the international delivery network, which included an office in Japan and international channel partners in Asia and the Americas.

For more than 100 years, CIM has supported, represented and developed marketers, teams, leaders and the profession as a whole. There are 130 CIM study centres in 36 countries and exam centres in 132 countries worldwide. In the last year, over 7,500 people registered at over 230 UK CIM events. As the world’s leading professional marketing body, CIM’s mission is to create marketing advantage for the benefit of professionals, business and society with a focus on export, data and skills. It believes marketing is the critical factor in driving long term organisational performance.

CIM Sri Lanka is the first international branch of CIM comprising the largest number of members, both professional and students of CIM outside the UK. The regional institute has always campaigned for greater recognition and excellence in the marketing profession in Sri Lanka, through education, training and professional development.

The CIM Future Marketers’ Conference 2017 concluded with the most exceptional and the most gracious success that was anticipated. The Conference was organized by the CIM Sri Lanka Student Committee and it was revolved around one of the hottest topics in the local context, “New Ventures”. The timely topic was selected through extensive and effective research and it was evident that the topic was covered in the most relevant varieties by the facilitators at the event.

The founder of Laugfs Holdings, Mr W.K.H Wegapitiya was the opening speaker for the conference. He began the conversation by talking about the importance of owning an idea, prior to execution. The importance of strategic thinking and mastering the doctrine seems to be one of the greatest life hacks he has mastered.

Talking about the favourable ways of managing your stakeholders, and converting your opposers to your supporters, the legendary Mr Tony Weerasinghe brought in a line of stories to showcase how he has overcome some of the greatest challenges in establishing his ventures and how he had his eyes on the ultimate goal and made his venture one of the most competent establishments in the world, by having all hands on deck.

Mr Jeevan Gnanam gracing the conference explained how well he had managed his legacy by expanding it to the most prominent horizons of the industries he operates in. And Jeevan who shared his insights along with his knowledge brought the shade of Capital to the context of Marketing.

All the facilitators made this conference a personal forum. They were able to connect to the audience with many of the participants questioning and inquiring to resolve their doubts. Mrs Varuni Amunugama Fernando, the Founder of Triad shared her part of the story in becoming effective tracers to trail KPIs. She spoke about how Derana became one of the most authentic TV Channels in the country by relating to the audience and how their success was measured by the influence they made as an entity. And she ended with a strong notion to say, Success is not always measured, it sometimes is felt, her story captivated many people to go beyond the money and to support a cause.

It was the last session that brought the added charm to the conference. When Mr Tharindu Amarasekere, who is the founder of TAC Consultants, brought in an entire pallet of glow  to the forum and decorated the whole crowd with enthusiasm and energy. He spoke about one of the most sacred practices of Marketing. How a marketers’ network becomes their net worth. With a lot of interactivity, he made participants jump out of their seats and dance as if it was a feast of celebration. He brought some case studies to enhance the creativity while giving the ultimate message of synergizing to expand.

Success is one of the most subjective terms that one can find in any context. When one person defines it by the number of awards won another would define it by the number of people that were influenced by a certain brand. The modern context of success is highly consumed to benchmark the next achievement of any activity. From the amount of revenue to the capacity that one can retain its stakeholders, Success is merely subjective to you and any multi-billion dollar company.

At the commencement of organizing the Future Marketers’ Conference 2017, the CIM Student Committee endeavoured to remain loyal to their values, the value of knowledge and the correct use of it, along with all the stakeholders, they found ways to exploit the limits to unearth the most sacred learnings of the spectrum of Enterprise and its functions. Hence, the committee convened an esteemed set of successors of their own legacies to deconstruct their learnings to teach the young marketers of Sri Lanka, how the big guns function in the worlds’ stage of business.

CIM Sri Lanka is the first International branch of CIM UK and is proud to claim the largest membership outside the UK. CIM Sri Lanka has always campaigned for high professional standards, greater recognition for the Profession and Marketing excellence in Sri Lanka through education, training and development.

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