Dubai Financial Market, DFM, is collaborating with Hawkamah Institute for Corporate Governance (Hawkamah), in designing and offering a board secretary accreditation programme to enable board secretaries to do their jobs in the best possible way.

The programme is mandatory for all DFM listed companies, yet strongly recommended for non-listed companies. The third workshop for the third group concluded successfully, bringing the total number of attendees to 76, while 49 were accredited.

Essa Kazim, Chairman of Dubai Financial Market, commented, "Good corporate governance promotes market confidence, helps attract long-term capital and fosters market discipline through appropriate disclosure and transparency. We believe board secretaries have a significant role to play in upholding a company’s governance practices and we seek to support and empower them in this regard."

Hamad Buamim, Chairman of Hawkamah, added, "Board secretaries are important drivers of creating governance cultures within their organizations. As such, this role requires more than just the technical competencies. They also need the emotional intelligence, skills and experience to ensure that they know how corporate governance can be effectively implemented in their organizations. We hope that those workshops have provided participants with practical insights on how to overcome such challenges."

The other initiative between the DFM and Hawkamah, the board briefings, is also going as planned, with more DFM listed companies using Hawkamah service to keep their boards updated with the latest governance trends and regulations that aim at enhancing board effectiveness.

The DFM and Hawkamah are currently discussing more initiatives that will bring value to companies and their boards.