ICICI Bank in association with Cyber Media announced its first SME CEO's Knowledge Series today, at the ITC, Mughal, Agra. The series aims to empower the SME CEOs by providing a platform for knowledge sharing and joint learning amongst the entrepreneurs. Similar forums will be held subsequently in 26 cities across the country.

The Agra chapter of ICICI Bank SME CEO's Knowledge series held today, provided an opportunity to small and medium entrepreneurs from Agra leather industry to interact with the experts, who had come from various parts of the country, from leading institutions such as IIM Kolkata, Deloitte and ICICI Bank. The two folds of the event comprised of the mentoring session followed by a panel discussion. The entrepreneurs got deeply benifited by the meeting with the experts on one to one basis during mentoring sessions and also later hearing them during the panel discussion. They listened to the successful entrepreneurs and learned from their success stories. Mentoring opportunities particularly the finance clinic , marketing , taxation & online marketing were a big hit amongst entrepreneurs who had registered for the same many days in advance. The participation of SME entrepreneurs from Leather cluster of Agra was in full attendance. 

The platform thus achieved its objective of empowering, enlightening and educating SME CEOs of Agra leather industry to encash the emerging opportunities as well as gear up to face the emanating threat from Chinese invasion.

Dr.Chanderpal, Secretary, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Govt. of India, while delivering the key note address said, “Globalization and fast booming Indian economy has opened many opportunities for small and medium entrepreneurs as well as brought competition at their doorsteps. To be able to grow in this changing scenario , entrepreneurs need to enhance and upgrade their skills and knowledge, continuously. Marketing, taxation, HR, Finance are the most important elements of enterprise growth and it is a pleasure that country’s leading bank has taken the initiative to further catalyze the growth of SMEs through the knowledge series across the country.” 

Mr.Vijay Chandok, Sr.General Manager & Head SME said"We are committed to developing a conducive ecosystem for the growth of SMEs. As part of our 'SME Connect' platform, we have initiated various programs like the SME Expo and SME Workshop, among others, which help SMEs to interact and transact among themselves as also with large corporates. The SMEs gain from interactions with industry experts and successful entrepreneurs. The SME CEO Knowledge series is another step to create a conducive ecosystem for SMEs. Under this program, we aim to provide an industry specific knowledge platform which enables SMEs to appreciate and understand key growth issues like Marketing, HR, Finance and Taxation." 

Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Cyber Media Group added, “Knowledge is vital part of entrepreneurial growth. It is satisfying to see that knowledge partners such as IIM Calcutta, Deolitte, ICICI Bank and others have come on board to share their knowledge with small and medium entrepreneurs. The response to the mentoring sessions is a testimony that our entrepreneurs have a great appetite to grow and they also understand the need for the appropriate direction to help them grow at faster pace. Cyber Media is proud to be associated with this SME CEO Knowledge Series.” 

The series is supported by Google , HP , Deloitte ,IIM Calcutta , Solo , PC Quest , Dare , CIOL , Big 92.7FM , CNBC 18 ,CNBC Awaaz and Dainik Jagran. 

ICICI Bank SME CEO Knowledge Series is an effort towards promoting the entrepreneurial society across the country by providing a platform where issues like Taxation, Marketing, HR, Finance and other relevant issues and problems faced by the SMEs will be discussed, analyzed and the solutions shall be thus found out collectively. Thereby benefitting the entire SME community with the valuable outcomes. This comes as yet another initiative by ICICI Bank in its effort to provide a complete eco-system to the SMEs to help them scale up to the next leveland be able to compete with the larger corporates. 

About ICICI Bank: ICICI Bank (NYSE:IBN) is India's second largest bank and largest private sector bank with over 50 years presence in financial services and with assets of Rs. 3649.44 billion as on September 30, 2007. The Bank offers a wide range of banking products and financial services to corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and through its specialised subsidiaries in the areas of investment banking, life and non-life insurance, private equity and asset management. ICICI Bank is a leading player in the retail banking market and services its large customer base through a network of over 950 branches and extension counters, 3,610 ATMs, call centres and internet banking (www.icicibank.com) to ensure that customers have access to its services at all times.

Except for the historical information contained herein, statements in this release, which contain words or phrases such as 'will', 'would', etc., and similar expressions or variations of such expressions may constitute 'forward-looking statements'. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to our ability to obtain statutory and regulatory approvals and to successfully implement our strategy, future levels of non-performing loans, our growth and expansion in business, the adequacy of our allowance for credit losses, technological implementation and changes, the actual growth in demand for banking products and services, investment income, cash flow projections, our exposure to market risks as well as other risks detailed in the reports filed by us with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. ICICI Bank undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date thereof.

For press queries, please contact: 

Deepika Singh
deepikas@cybermedia.co.in 
deepika.sing@gmail.com
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