This year’s A.K. Kaderkutty memorial oration jointly organised by the Kannur University Department of Management Studies (DMS) and the Western India Plywoods Ltd. (WIP) will be delivered here on February 29 by Jose Dominic, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the CGH Earth (formerly Casino Group of Hotels) and chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industries.
Announcing this at a press conference here on Tuesday, DMS head and Professor T. Ashokan and WIP General Manager K.P. Kamaluddin said that the oration programme would be held at the Sadhoo Kallyana Mandapam here at 3-30 p.m. on Wednesday. Mr. Dominic would speak on ‘Sustainability – the key ingredient for business success”. Kannur University Vice-Chancellor P.K. Michael Tharakan would preside over the function, they informed.
They said that the annual memorial oration started nine years ago to coincide with the WIP Founder’s Day celebration under the joint aegis of the DMS and the WIP was conceived as an industry-institute interface. Among those who had delivered the oration included jurist V.R. Krishna Iyer, industrialists A.C. Muthiah and Kochouseph Chittilappilly and George Paul and historian Ramachandra Guha.
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Dr. Ashokan and Mr. Kamalkutty said that late Kaderkutty had been a conglomeration of the characteristics of a business magnate, industrialist, agriculturist, planter and educationist. After completing his professional education, he had entered his family business in the timber industry and started the WIP in 1945. The company is today one of the biggest wood-based companies in the country and also in South Asia. The doyen of the wood-working industry in the country, he had built up a wood-based panel product empire in the district. He had advocated the practice of cent per cent utilisation of wood by proving that the residues and wastes could be transformed into useful products and value-added items.
Mr. Dominic, they said, is one of the pioneering forces behind tourism development in the State. They said that long before sustainable development and environmental friendliness became catchwords of tourism industry, Mr. Dominic started practising those ideas. He had served in several national and State advisory panels on tourism, they added.