***Updated March 27, 2020
IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) offers our heartfelt support to those directly or indirectly affected by the coronavirus outbreak around the world. Our approach to this challenge has been simple: to demonstrate social responsibility for the safety and well-being of our stakeholders, including our staff, our professionals and students in 150 countries, and our partners.
With the coronavirus now being a global pandemic, IMA employees across all IMA offices around the world are currently working from home for business continuity and staying safe with their families. Even as people in Beijing and other cities in China are gradually beginning to return to work, our staff in China is continuing to work from home. We also made a sizable monetary donation for N-95 masks and other critical supplies in China and the U.S.
Our number-one priority at all times remains social responsibility for the safety of our global stakeholders, including staff, volunteers, CMAs, candidates and partners. As such, due to many unknowns about the virus, including how it is contracted and spread – all IMA in-person events, conferences, and meetings scheduled through May 31, 2020, are cancelled or postponed. This includes any group event and all chapter and council events. Virtual events are encouraged as an alternative.
In addition, our April 11 CMA® (Certified Management Accountant) Chinese language exam has been postponed to Sunday, May 10, 2020. Should conditions change and if safety remains a concern or government regulations limit site availability, we will reschedule the May exam to a later date. Our English exam testing window for May/June has been extended to July 31, 2020. More information on the impact to CMA candidates is available here.
While candidates are safely at home with their families, we are encouraging them to take this time to study. To that end, we are accelerating the development of new online courseware to add to our growing inventory of bilingual exam prep and learning opportunities.
We are also continuing to assess the implications the outbreak may have on IMA’s Annual Conference & Expo (ACE). At this point, the Conference is proceeding as planned, and Early Bird registration remains open. More information on the impact on ACE is available here.
The IMA leadership team is monitoring the outbreak daily and its impacts on our stakeholders. We will communicate any changes we feel members should know about. Times like these make us all realize how interconnected and interdependent we are. On behalf of IMA, I can assure you that social responsibility – doing the right thing – will always be first and foremost.