I JUST returned from the summer meeting of the board of governors (on which I am a long-standing member) and the board of trustees of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Makati, Manila.
It celebrated its 45th anniversary – first set-up in 1968 with assistance from the Harvard Business School (HBS), which provided a tenured HBS professor as its inaugural president, and financial support from the Philippines’ business elite, including the likes of the Ayalas, Lopezs and Del Rosarios, under the leadership of SGV’s venerable Washington Z. Sycip, 93. To mark the occasion, AIM held its second Asian Business Conference against the backdrop of an emerging Asean Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. It was well attended by a wide cross-section of Asian businesses, research institutes and universities, under the banner: “2015 Approaching: Priming for Asean Integration.”