The most awaited COO event of the year - 10th Annual OPEX 2014 kicked off today at the Habtoor Grand Beach Resort & Spa Hotel, Dubai, U.A.E. OPEX is the longest running financial COO event in the Middle East. Celebrating its 10th Anniversary, in the presence of more than 100 attendees, the conference commenced with opening remarks from the conference chairman - Hisham Hammoud, Chief Operating Officer, Ajman Bank.

Soon after the opening speech, the Annual COO panel discussion commenced. The Annual COO panel discussion is the highlight of the Opex conference. This year's COO panel comprised of Sandeep Chouhan, Group Chief Operating Officer, Commercial Bank Group; Hisham Hammoud, Chief Operating Officer, Ajman Bank; Aref Qambar, Chief Operating Officer, Eskan Bank; Umair Chaudhary, Chief Operating Officer, International Banking Group National Bank of Kuwait and Guy Noble, Chief Operating Officer, Network International. The COO panel discussed the 'Changing responsibilities of COO in devising state of art strategies for achieving operational excellence in the New Normal'

A COO plays versatile roles in an organization. He/she plays the role of a Marketer, an Arbitrator, a Facilitator, a Communicator and a Coach. Umair Chaudhary, Chief Operating Officer, International Banking Group National Bank of Kuwait higlighted these points in his presentation titled, 'Multifaceted roles of a COO.' Throughout his career, spanning 22 years, he has successfully delivered major change management initiatives, transforming operating models, improving customer service, strengthening controls and building operational efficiencies using process improvement frameworks and technology enablement.

Day 1 saw presentations on 'Creating a change ready financial institution' by Somnath Menon, Executive Vice President- Operations and Technology, Mashreq Bank ; 'Process Re-engineering for providing prompt customer service and widening the products range' by Ghada Bahous, Head of Operations, Arab Bank PLC; 'Role of CFO in organizational excellence' by Harish Krishnaswamy, Chief Financial Officer, Dubai First PJSC amongst others.

The day concluded with a panel discussion on 'How to tackle fast changing customer preferences' addressed by Raju Ramesh, Chief Executive Officer - Finesse ; Özkan Erener, Chief Executive Officer - VeriPark; K Nizardeen, Head of Trade Finance and Corporate Operations - Emirates Islamic Bank; Sonam Sahai, Head of Operations - Rakbank, Ghada Bahous, Head of Operations - Arab Bank PLC; Joseph George, Head of IT Development - Commercial Bank of Dubai.

This conference is sponsored by Veripark (Silver Sponsor), Loxon, Newgen, Network International (Associate Sponsors) and Finesse (Supporting Sponsor)