Professional development: our core mission
Our 26th Annual Corporate and Regulatory Update (ACRU), held on 6 June 2025 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC), recorded another year of strong engagement, with over 2,300 participants joining in person and online. While a full review of the day’s discussions follows in the pages ahead, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect more broadly on how ACRU – alongside recent innovations in our CPD offerings – aligns with the Institute’s wider strategy to support our members in facilitating best-in-class training for their directors.
Recent regulatory developments, including updates to the Corporate Governance Code issued by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, have placed growing emphasis on the need for directors to enhance their professionalism through structured and ongoing training. This includes training in specific areas identified as crucial for discharging their roles and responsibilities effectively.
As the responsibility for arranging director training often falls to our members, the Institute has prioritised the development of CPD programmes that support them in fulfilling this important role. Many of our CPD offerings are directly relevant to director responsibilities and have long been valued by directors themselves. The mandatory training requirements under the Listing Rules, effective 1 July 2025, only reinforce the importance of accessible and high-quality training.
In advance of these regulatory changes, the Institute launched its Director Training Package in January 2025. This month’s CGj features an interview with Institute Chief Executive Ellie Pang FCG HKFCG(PE), who shares her insights into the design and rationale behind the package. As Ellie explains, the package directly addresses the five specified training topics required under the revised Listing Rules. Equally important, however, is how accessible the training is – the package offers trilingual, on-demand content that directors can complete at their own pace, all at highly competitive rates.
Finally, an often overlooked aspect of successful CPD is the need for progress tracking and verifiable records of attendance. Our package includes a centralised management system – designed with company secretaries in mind – to streamline administration. Moreover, participants will receive a certificate on completion of the training to evidence their compliance with the new mandatory training requirements under the Listing Rules.
Our Institute has built its CPD expertise on the back of many decades of close liaison with our members on how to structure our training services. We have also built up an extensive network of governance stakeholders to draw on when sourcing speakers for our CPD events, which include leading regulators, senior professional practitioners, industry-leading experts and, of course, experienced governance professionals. I believe our new Director Training Package – along with our ESG Reporting Certification Course launched in February 2023, as well as our Sustainability Governance Academy launched in July 2024 – demonstrates that our Institute is delivering on its goal of becoming the best-in-class governance educator in the Hong Kong market.
