Financial Times

JKH to double size, unveils new board and designations
The John Keells Group has announced ambitious plans to double its size in the next three years and a new board and designation structure to keep pace with the fast changing nature of its business portfolio and business environment.
The firm has announced a new structure under which only directors of the holding company will retain that designation and directors of subsidiaries will have different designations.

“The Group expects to double its current size in the next three years with the need to harness international opportunities increasing in urgency,” a company statement said. JKH has said the Boards of Group companies will be reconstituted and designations across the Group standardized.

“The decision was spurred by the need to invite non executive directors to Boards in order to maintain impartiality and transparency in decision making,” the statement said.

“The new designation structure was also necessitated as the current practice of recognition and advancement through board appointments was not sustainable because of the limited number of board vacancies available.”

With effect from July 1, 2005 directors of the JKH Group, other than the board members of John Keells Holdings, will carry, in addition to their functional designations such as Sector Head, designations denoting levels such as President, Executive Vice President, Senior Vice President, Vice President and Assistant Vice President.They will not refer to themselves as ‘directors’ in their designations. A significant majority of the current directors will step down as "directors" in the Group to make way to adopt this new structure.

The current employees of the Group who are at a director level will now have a two-tier designation structure which will indicate the individual's level in the Group and also describe the individual's functional role.

According to the company, the new designations envisage migration of the current status on an “as is" basis without attempting a role differentiation.
A Group wide rationalization of designations will take place in conjunction with the role based designation change, so as to ensure that there is no overlap in the designations at director and manager/assistant manager levels.

The company said a ‘Banding’ exercise, which is a best practice, is due to be undertaken in the near future in order to further clarify an individual's level in the organization.

Banding involves clarifying, using certain well established tools, as to how jobs are positioned vis-a-vis each other and it is a building block for role clarity, performance review and career development.

It emphasizes that promotions are based on significant change in responsibility (which is associated with competence and potential) and recognizes the importance of moving horizontally and gaining experience in various cross functions, as compared to vertical progression.

Earlier this year JKH announced a new operating structure in response to the need for flexibility to manoeuvre through the decentralization of decision making.

The new structure encompassed an expanded Group Executive Committee and Group Operating Committee, with their decision rights and roles being redefined.

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