The Governing Council of the Ghana Association of Restructuring and Insolvency Advisors (GARIA) has appointed George Fosu as the new Chief Executive Officer of the professional association with effect from 1st September 2022.
George Fosu has a 30-year track record across a variety of economic sectors and geographies (Cohen Arnold & Company-United Kingdom, Price Waterhouse-Ghana, PwC-South Africa, IBM-South Africa and Akanani Group of Companies-South Africa).
He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, United Kingdom, and a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Ghana) with degrees from Henley Business School and Oxford University (United Kingdom).
Trained as a chartered accountant, he has specialist expertise in institutional reform, governance, business transformation, and organization restructuring, in complex stakeholder environments.
President of the association, Felix Addo notes that George takes over at a strategic time when the GARIA is being transitioned into the Chartered Institute of Restructuring and Insolvency Practitioners, in fulfilment of the Transitional Provisions of the Corporate Insolvency and Restructuring Act, 2020 (CIRA), which provides that the association should be established under an Act of Parliament within two (2) years after the coming in to force of the Corporate Insolvency and Restructuring Act.
The purpose of this provision is to establish the organization as a statutory body working in tandem with the Office of the Registrar of Companies to educate and certify Insolvency Practitioners with a professional code of conduct “George’srich experience and expertise will serve the associationwell as it transitions to a worldclass professional association of Insolvency Practitioners.”
According to George Fosu, the key and important goal of the insolvency professional is to the extent possible, preserve viable businesses that find themselves in a spot of financial distress. He notes that the complexity of commercial arrangements; business financing; human resource management and preservation of property rights require highly competent, knowledgeable, and skilled professionals well-grounded in multiple disciplines to help with the navigation of insolvent businesses.
He points out that CIRA fast-forwards Ghana into the 22nd Century and offers companies (however large or small) one of the most progressive business rescue regulatory regimes in the world.
“My vision of a forward looking progressive and innovative profession guided by an unforgiving ethical code of conduct, offering options for preserving value to companies, business owners and creditors for the common good of our economy is one that is enabled only because of the shoulders of giants that I am privileged to stand upon.
I look forward to building upon this foundation and accelerating implementation so that our economy may fully realise this awesome opportunity afforded by law to save viable but financially distressed businesses from liquidation especially, in these uncertain and unpredictable economic times”.
About GARIA
The Ghana Association of Restructuring and Insolvency Advisors (GARIA) is an association of accounting, banking and legal professionals with an interest in restructuring and insolvency established in 2006 to play a leadership role in corporate restructuring, business recovery and insolvency in Ghana. It is presently registered as a professional body under the Professional Bodies Registration Decree, 1973 (NRCD 143) and also incorporated as a company limited by guarantee under the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992).
