Arif Al Islam elected as Global Council Member of ACCA

Md Arif Al Islam, managing director and CEO of Summit Communications, has recently been elected as a Global Council Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), making him the first Bangladeshi to hold the position in the top global body for professional accountants, reads a press release.

ACCA is the largest and fastest-growing accountancy body in the world based in the UK with 241,000 qualified members and 542,000 students worldwide. 

Arif became a qualified ACCA in 1999 and since then has been playing an ACCA brand ambassadorship role. He was the founding chair of the Members Advisory Committee in Bangladesh and continues to contribute to the development of the ACCA community in Bangladesh.

On this occasion, Arif said, "Bangladesh is on the roadmap of becoming a middle-income country and we need to represent ourselves in the global arena on different platforms. In the corporate field, ACCAs are very well placed and they hold the commitment and capability to contribute to the development of businesses in all sectors."

Arif co-founded Summit Communications 12 years ago. His leadership and entrepreneurial acumen in partnership with Summit group helped the company to become the first integrated telecom infrastructure operator in Bangladesh with fibre network, tower and internet gateway.

Prior to the entrepreneurial initiative, he was Deputy CEO and CFO of the market leader mobile operator Grameenphone Ltd a subsidiary of Telenor. Over a decade-long career in Grameenphone Ltd. holding key leadership positions, he played an instrumental role in the growth, technology adaptation and strategy formulation of the operator.

He started his career 28 years ago in public practice in the UK and later became a senior manager at KPMG prior to joining Grameenphone Ltd.