Taslim Ahmed is the Chief Executive Officer of Unitrend Limited. During the 90s he started his career in advertising and marketing communications. He spent around half a decade with Unitrend Ltd. – McCann Erickson Worldwide in late 90’s and early 2000. He worked in the capacity of a Brand Custodian for Global Brands from Nestle, Berger, Holderbank, Telecom Malaysia and so on. He has experienced the launch of many different global brands in Bangladesh. Taslim is also the Brand Consultant to Institute of Chartered Accountants Bangladesh (ICAB) and also involved as the Judge & Execution-in-Charge of the Youth Leadership Programs of Channel I, The Future Leaders Program and The Youth Leaders Program.
Can you tell us a little bit about Future Biz?
Future Biz is a joint brand partnership between Unitrend and ICE Business Times (IBT) as we share a common vision of paying back to the business society at large in Bangladesh. Future Biz is about the future businesses and the future corporate and business professionals. Keeping this in mind Unitrend launched the Future Minds initiative a few months back. This project predominantly works with fresh graduates by providing them with opportunities such as internships, give them real life exposures and ideas about brand management and about corporate life. Since this project was such a hit, we decided to take this further by partnering with a publishing house to reach out to a larger audience. In other words, Future Biz is a continuation as well as a logical progression of Future Minds.
Our idea is to reach out to the future generations to not only inspire them with stories of the great business leaders of Bangladesh but also to give them an insight on the know-hows of the businesses. The idea is to add to the entire value chain by allowing these budding entrepreneurs and professionals to do their jobs better. IBT plays an essential role in disseminating information in the business community hence it made perfect sense to partner with them for the success of the project.
Why is a program like Future Biz necessary for the Bangladeshi market?
The future lies with the youth of Bangladesh. I believe that the 16 Crore or more people are the biggest strength of our country. We must ensure that we are providing them with the right skill sets and opportunities too so that they can take the country forward and of course in the right direction.
We hope that a synergy between Unitrend and IBT will provide numerous benefits to corporate businesses and professionals of Bangladesh. Since the magazines are sent to different corporate houses and young professionals, we will be able to reach our target audience and try to guide them in better managing their own selves & businesses.
Where do you see Future Biz in the next five years?
Primarily, we would want to reach out with the content through IBT which will be about business strategies and acquaintances to groom people for the future. The content will surely inspire them.
We are hoping that in the future this platform will stretch. We would like to include knowledge sharing sessions where cross-industry leaders shall be invited to share their experiences. Icons of the present day Bangladeshi business scene sharing their lives with the youth while also knowing about the success story about brands such as Pran, Walton etc. is what a typical session would look like.
After a while, we will be able to garner feedbacks from the participants. Perhaps, we can also narrow down our sessions to certain sectors. Such as a session only for Chartered Accountants, CFOs, CEOS, or on areas like Corporate Social Responsibility and so on.
What inspired you to come up with such a project?
While still a visiting professor in the private universities in Dhaka, I would often find students being told about international case studies and business leaders. But I believe that highlighting local leaders is more relatable for our students. This creates a knowledge gap. In recent times, I have noticed another difference working with young professionals who seem unacquainted with the local factors. Our local media in many cases cannot manage to cover the success stories of our business giants, and thus I felt that we need to highlight these and thus the idea of Future Biz was born.
