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The following is issued on behalf of the Advisory Committee on Human Resources Development in the Financial Services Sector:
High-achieving university students with aspirations to joining the financial services industry will have an opportunity to experience the real-life business operations through the Business Students Shadowing Attachment Programme.
The programme, co-organised by the Advisory Committee on Human Resources Development in the Financial Services Sector (FinMan Committee) and Lingnan University, aims to provide university students with opportunities for insights into real-life business operations, skills requirements, cultures, and decision making within the industry. Participating students will be attached to executives of major corporations in the financial services industry for one working day.
Officiating at the programme's opening ceremony today (April 12), the Chairman of the FinMan Committee, Mr Chan Tze-ching said the continued success of Hong Kong as an international financial centre relied heavily on the availability of financial talent. "The Attachment Programme allows students to better understand the actual operation of a financial organisation and the qualities required of a senior executive. With a widened horizon, students can better prepare for the challenges in their future career in the financial services sector,” he said.
Noting that today's opening ceremony would not mark the end of efforts in identifying placements from more companies, Mr Chan said he was glad that up to now, more than 20 financial services organisations had signed up to the programme offering more than 70 attachment places.
"Their active participation demonstrates the industry's commitment to nurturing our talent of tomorrow," Mr Chan said.
Participating organisations include financial regulators, and both local and international firms engaging in a diverse range of business in commercial and investment banking, as well as insurance.
"Many young people aspire to enter the financial services industry. But not all of them have sufficient knowledge about the market. I encourage students to seize this opportunity to observe the duties of executives in the industry,” Mr Chan said.
Also Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Associate Vice-President (Administration and Planning) of Lingnan University, Professor Chan Tsang-sing said that Lingnan University believed in the co-ordinated effort between academia and industry in building a better future for students. He added that the p-rogramme was an academically motivating activity designed to give students the unique opportunity of an up-close look at the world of financial services, by which they could see firsthand how the skills learned in university relate to the workplace.
The Director of Business Programmes of Lingnan University, Professor Robin Snell said he was delighted that the programme had received generous support from a number of major financial corporations in Hong Kong.
Selected participating students will be invited to share their experience and comments about the programme at a sharing session on May 4 at Lingnan University.
The attachment programme is the fourth event of the FinMan Committee's Industry/Academia Collaboration on Nurturing Financial Talent Series. The objective of the Series is to forge a closer tie between the industry and the academia in nurturing the pool of talent for Hong Kong's financial services sector.
The first three events of this series held last year in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University were well-received by both the industry and students.
Ends/Thursday, April 12, 2007
Issued at HKT 17:59
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