GCCs Driving Economic Transformation: ACCA Hosts Leadership Roundtable at GIFT City with IFSCA Support
Speakers included Stephen Hickling, British Deputy High Commissioner to Gujarat and Rajasthan; Ashutosh Sharma, Chief General Manager, IFSCA; and ACCA representatives Md Sajid Khan (Director – India), Sundeep Jakhar (Head of Public Affairs – India), and Naina VG (Strategic Head of Corporate Alliances – India), who also unveiled ACCA’s latest report on GCCs.
Ahmedabad, August 12: The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) convened a high-level leadership roundtable at GIFT City on August 8, in collaboration with the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSC), bringing together senior executives from India’s top Global Capability Centres (GCCs), policymakers, and academia to discuss Gujarat’s growing role in the global GCC ecosystem.
The event in Ahmedabad drew around 40 senior leaders from major GCCs and industries, including Welspun Transformation Services, Adani GCC, BNP Paribas, S&P Global, Kraft Heinz, Baroda Global Shared Services, KPMG, Cadila Pharma, Zydus, TCS, QX Global Group, Befree Global, and Pacific Group.
Speakers included Stephen Hickling, British Deputy High Commissioner to Gujarat and Rajasthan; Ashutosh Sharma, Chief General Manager, IFSCA; and ACCA representatives Md Sajid Khan (Director – India), Sundeep Jakhar (Head of Public Affairs – India), and Naina VG (Strategic Head of Corporate Alliances – India), who also unveiled ACCA’s latest report on GCCs.
The discussions highlighted GIFT City’s emergence as a hub for next-generation service delivery in financial services, fintech, analytics, and strategic decision-making. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, progressive policies, and unified regulatory support from IFSCA, GIFT City is attracting high-value GCCs, contributing to Gujarat’s economic diversification through job creation, innovation, and knowledge transfer.
ACCA’s report projects that GCCs could contribute 2% to India’s GDP and create 2.8 million jobs by 2030. In FY24 alone, GCCs generated $64.6 billion in export revenue, a 40% increase over the previous year.
“India has emerged as an ideal destination for GCCs thanks to our skilled workforce, strong regulatory environment, and robust infrastructure,” said Md Sajid Khan. “Gujarat, with GIFT City at its heart, is becoming a preferred hub for high-value operations, and ACCA is committed to equipping finance professionals with global capabilities to meet these demands.”
Participants stressed the need for continuous innovation, global-standard skill development in digital finance and analytics, leadership pipeline creation, and deeper industry–academia–regulator collaboration.
The roundtable concluded with a call to accelerate Gujarat’s momentum as a full-spectrum global business hub, with GCCs driving foreign investment, high-skilled job creation, and the growth of supporting ecosystems in legal, consulting, analytics, and ESG services.
