of the payment system. it was felt and agreed between the government and the state bank of pakistan that major deep rooted reforms had to be undertaken as cosmetic changes have not achieved anything tangible. as a regulator and supervisor as well as adviser to the government, the sbp carried out diagnostic studies, prioritized the constraints facing the banking sector, designed the reform strategy and action plan, sought the assistance of the government of pakistan and international financial institutions, monitored the progress and made policy, regulatory and institutional changes to facilitate the process. where does the government come in the picture and what did it do? the musharraf government made some critical policy decisions, i. e. they will not keep the banks under government ownership and control but privatize them. politically tough problems such as reducing the labour force and closing down redundant and unprofitable branches were dealt with boldly. the government injected rs. 30. 7 billion to offset the losses incurred by these nationalized commercial banks and recapitalize them. professional bankers were appointed as chief executives and persons from private sector enjoying reputation of competence and integrity on the board of directors. i must say that the nawaz sharif government in 1997 had initiated some of the reform measures by appointing chief executives, boards of directors on non political, nonpartisan basis for the first time. that government had also injected fresh equity to strengthen the capital base of the nationalized commercial banks. both sartaj aziz sahib and ishaq dar sahib were very much committed to put these banks on sound footing. they did away with the undue interference of labour unions in decision making process of the banks, abolished the pakistan banking council and gave autonomy to the state bank of pakistan. the point i would like to highlight in this context is that continuity of reforms and sound policies that transcend political partisanship and survive political regime changes are good for the country and also for these political parties. what were the major reforms that had been implemented during the last seven years? i would not go into the details of each one of them, but summarize some of the salient features : ( i ) privatization of ncbs : all the nationalized commercial banks, except one, have been privatized. as a consequence their domination of the banking sector has been reduced from almost 100 percent in 1991 to about 20 percent by june 2004. even in the case of national bank of pakistan 23. 5 percent shares have been floated through stock market mainly aimed at small retail investors

connected. to facilitate networking opportunities, a special section has been created on iclif ’ s website to cater for the activities of the alumni association. this would include the facility to disseminate information among its membership, including the publication of an alumni directory, highlights of important events and latest developments that may be of interest to its members. the centre will serve as the secretariat to support all activities undertaken by the alumni association. as we advance forward, the reputation, image and stature of the centre will depend on the performance of its participants and their contributions to the environment and the organisations they represent. iclif regards its alumni members as important and looks forward to your continuous support to building iclif into a regional centre of excellence for leadership development in financial services. while iclif has put in great efforts in working with leading international consultants and the best schools in the design and delivery of its leadership development programmes, we see this as an evolving process. in this context, we see alumni members as an important sounding board in providing feedback to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of iclif ’ s programmes. as beneficiaries of iclif ’ s programmes, the alumni members are the best intermediaries in making iclif better known to the industry. ladies and gentlemen, iclif leadership competency model one of the first initiatives by iclif upon its inception is to develop a unique leadership competency model that will analyse and enhance the understanding of what makes for great corporate leaders in the regional context. the competency model was developed through a participatory process involving strategic insights by industry leaders in the country and the region. this was achieved through behavioural - event interviews as well as benchmarking exercises based on literature research and the database of leadership competency models of world class companies. the preliminary model was further refined in a validation seminar attended by visionary and prominent leaders with proven track record of business performance excellence from both the private and public sectors. the model forms the foundation to guide the philosophy and drive the design and delivery of iclif ’ s leadership development programmes. i wish to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to the industry luminaries who have given so much of their time in participating in the validation seminar for the iclif leadership competency model. let me share with you some of the interesting findings of the consultants in assessing our leaders based on the competencies identified in the model. among the positive findings of the exercise was the observation by