Award_Winner_Speech

Award Winner's Speech

Chairman of the Association, Honourable Judges and distinguish guests,

I would like to thank the Hong Kong Credit & Collection Management Association for accepting my nomination and honoured me with the annual award. I also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Frank Lukas and Mr. Stephen Lo for giving me the opportunities to get deeply involved in a number of Credit Management projects at Bayer MaterialScience, without that my nomination to the award would be quite meaningless.

Last but not least I would like to give a special thank to Mr. Andrew Kwok. Not only because he is my nominator but for his encouragement and ultimate persuasion. This is not an easy task given the fact that my supervisor is the Chairman of the Award Committee.

Time flies and I have been in Credit Management for over 8 years now. Looking back, I have been through a lot of changes over the period. First of all, Credit Management in Hong Kong now gets more regional instead of just Greater China. That is, we need to have sufficient knowledge on the specific markets as well as the trade practices. This is a challenge I enjoy very much because we need to look at the same issue from a different angle when it involves two or more markets. India , for example, has always been blamed for their peculiar way of handling thing. However, if you appreciate the fact that they have over 40 official languages and a lot of regional restrictions, you would understand why they have so many uncommon practices.

Award Winner: Ms. Kit Ping So

One of the biggest challenges over the last couple of years was Internal Control System that is in compliance with the Sarbanne Oxley Act. This has presented a lot of restriction to day to day credit operations. We need to balance operations efficiency and operational risk management. So all of a sudden, some simple processes such as credit override become a very tedious operation. I have the privilege to participate in the ICS compliance project and found that by revisiting the various juncture of the credit operation, I have gained a lot of new insights.

Credit Management is an interesting career and I found it very enjoyable. One can be assured that there will be surprises everyday and that is how we improve the system and process.

Over the last couple of years, I see there is a growing demand for credit personnel in China as business and trade really takes off dramatically. I consider myself being fortunate to be able to involve in Credit Management. For those who are not currently engaged in Credit Management, I can assure you that there are great opportunities in this career.

The Hong Kong Credit and Collection Management Association play a very important role to bring Credit and Collection Management to a professional level. As credit facilitate business, with proper credit awareness and training we would expect the opportunity for Credit personnel to grow even further.

Finally, I want say again that I am honoured to be named the Credit Practitioner of the year for 2005-6. This is a highlight of my career and I will endeavor to give my fullest personal support to the credit industry to enhance the profession.