Nationally acclaimed columnist, management turnaround expert, and former Director General/Chief Executive of the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, will deliver the keynote address on “Business Re-engineering: A Catalyst for Economic Development” at the First International Management Conference, organised by the Department of Business Administration, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IAUOE), Port Harcourt.

The two-day conference will hold on Thursday and Friday, February 26 and 27 2026, at the IAUOE campus.

In his keynote lecture, Dr. Peterside is expected to explore the connection between firm-level and national-level productivity and business process re-engineering. He will draw on his extensive experience advising corporate and governmental entities on how to radically rethink productivity, as well as on recent research demonstrating the link between business re-engineering and economic growth.

The address will also examine lessons from both developed and developing economies, and highlight the role of universities as catalysts for technological and institutional leapfrogging. The conference will likewise feature Professor Isaac Ayandele of the University of Calabar as lead paper presenter, and will bring together members of the business community, policymakers, faculty, students, and other stakeholders to interrogate how business process re-engineering is shaping the economic fortunes of nations.

The Head of Department of Business Administration at IAUOE, Dr. James Vinazor, said the keynote aims to provoke a deeper conversation on the need for business process re-engineering to become a deliberate national productivity strategy. He described Dr. Peterside as uniquely positioned to address the theme, given his long-standing engagement at the intersection of policy formulation, business advisory, and operational management.

Dr. Vinazor added that the international conference marks a new era of town-gown collaboration that will help society tackle its most pressing and complex challenges. The event is open to all stakeholders, but prior registration is compulsory.

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