Write-up: CEO Series 34: Mohd Nur Ismal, Chief Executive Officer of the Land Public Transport Commission

YCM CEO Series 34: Mohd Nur Ismal, Chief Executive Officer of the Land Public Transport Commission
22nd June 2011
Writing credits: Farhana Roslan

 

 

The below is the live-blog write-up on the CEO Series 34 session with Mr Mohd Nor Ismal, Chief Executive Officer of the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD).

Mr Mohd Nor (MN) started off with outlining the three main items he was asked to come speak to YCM about; the journey of his career, SPAD and of course, the MRT.

When he graduated from university in the US, he took the path every graduate wanted to during the time, which was to become an investment banker. He decided Wall Street was too competitive, and so decided on Chicago. He started his career in CNA Financial Corporation, in an investment-banking job and spent 10 years of his career there, though he claims he made the mistake of staying in the place for too long. He did miss Malaysia and had the idea of returning home at the back of his mind, but he knew if he did, the hit on the compensation was going to be too much.

He decided the best way to go about this problem was to go back to business school. He went to Kellogg for his MBA. Upon leaving business school, there was a shift in the trend from investment banking to management consulting. So he went on from what he called a steady desk job to a career of talking to clients. MN claims this was a challenging experience, but a very fulfilling one; where people “look at you, pour their hearts out and expect you to solve their problems”. He calls it satisfying.

MN knew he had to return to Malaysia, so he did. Upon finding out that AT Kearney, the top tier management consulting firm he works for was expanding into Asia, he took the job offer without even thinking. He spent 3 years in Singapore serving a variety of clients from the Financial Services sector and even microelectronics. Most of the time he was in Singapore and Bangkok, too much so that the apartment in Bangsar that he had, was only stayed in 12 days in a year.

After sometime, MN resigned, and took 1 year off. He spent 6 months in Las Vegas, spending his time deciding whether he wants to return to Malaysia. Las Vegas didn’t work out, and so he returned home. He did not know what to do after, and so joined Accenture, only because they were the ones with most contracts in Malaysia at the time. Malaysia was going through a difficult time, and so he had had to travel, as far as even South Korea.

This was when several leaders on the DRB Hicom board asked MN to come on board. He claims this was the first time; he was playing a “defense” type role, joining a GLC corporation. He also joked that his experience was usually the “offence” player, but now he is playing defense for the government. This was when MN realized that he is already making good money, lived a comfortable life, and could afford to buy anything he wanted, but wanted something more out of his career.

Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, who was then the Minister of Higher Education, asked MN to join him. He jokes “What did I know about education!?” But at the point of time, they were releasing a strategic plan for higher education. MN highlighted that he thought the contents of the master plan was less than what Malaysians deserve. He convinced the ministry to redo the whole plan, but also became extremely unpopular within the ministry along the way. The revised plan didn’t work out either. The minister than asked him to redo it again. That was when, with him on board, the MOHE came up with the National Action Plan for universities, which involved doing away with egalitarianism amongst universities and release institutions to chart their own paths.

MN then joined the team of Ministry of Transport, under Datuk Seri Ong Tee Kiat, where he claimed he “jumped into” the role. Again, he jokes, “What do I know about transport?” That was also when Datuk Seri Idris Jala was transferred onto his role at PEMANDU, and MN again was sourced into the team for 5 short months, to work on the urban transportation NKRA. Datuk Seri Idris Jala offered him a position in PEMANDU but MN was made to understand that that was against the PM’s wishes. He jokes “Oh, so the PM really does hate me that much.” It turns out that the PM had another job waiting for him. A job he claims, that “no one else wants.” MN knew from the start that this was going to be an impossible mission; there is little chance that everyone will be satisfied.

MN decided, whatever it is that is to happen during the period of his contract as SPAD chief, he told himself he wouldn’t care, as long as he can make at least a little change. This was when he admitted it was his colleague Annafi telling him that the commission was in need of manpower and personnel that he was here talking to YCM tonight. He says he thinks this is a good idea, standing in front of the brightest young Malaysians, sharing his story in hope that some of them would be moved by SPAD’s efforts and would want to find “higher meaning” to their career. He jokes, “so this is the end of my sales speech for today.”

The MRT
MN started off rekindling how popular public transport was back in the 1980’s, before Malaysia started going through fantastic economic growth. People earned more and hence were able to afford their own cars. There were investments in the LRT, monorail, and the Intrakota buses (now Rapid KL). But, nothing has really changed since the 1990’s. We were back to the problem (inaccessibility) and dread blocks, which MN claims was starting to impair economic growth in the affected areas and the city. MN showed that the modal share of people using public transport declined significantly, with 34% usage in 1985, 20% in 1997 and 10-12% in 2008.

Because things were really bad, our beloved PM saw an opportunity, and agreed to include land public transport and MRT as one of the NKRA under the ETP, where the target modal share of users is 25% by 2012. MN was glad that we are on track with 17% modal share achieved last year.

MN highlights the current issues we face. If we are lucky enough to live near the LRT rail network, we could use it. It was made better slightly with the 4 train car sets introduced. KTM, he points out, is still a problem, but expects this to be better when the new longer train car sets are delivered. Buses, are highly unpredictable, taxis are “as you know…” he claims. Networks are unplanned, ad hoc and driven mainly by suppliers and players. The root cause; the way we govern public transport. MN claims that public transport has always been merely an afterthought. DBKL was much more concerned about structural planning, while the MOT did not have much jurisdiction over local councils. We need a holistic approach to address this; this was how the idea of a single authority to address all this issues, came about (SPAD). For those who might be swayed, MN tells the crowd how he only hear one of two things every time he meets people; either “I feel sorry for you I don’t envy you,” or “Great! You are in the hottest team in the government.”

Public transport is a key NKRA. ETP has a few mega projects under it, and the MRT is evidently at the center stage. Even though they were relatively new kids on the block, people tend to listen to them. Although, MN claims that they did not get much power until January this year, although they were formed more than a year ago. SPAD is to act as a centre of planning, enforcing, regulating. They didn’t have as much power as their Singaporean counterpart; because of the constitution, SPAD does not have jurisdiction over local governments. However, the minister in charge is the PM himself, and so SPAD ten to have a lot of influence. MN shares some of the SPAD’s job scope; from broad planning and drawing up the NPT policy framework and the public transport masterplan, enforcement on operators, “boring stuff” like standard setting, and operating call centers for consumer relations purposes, to the project management of the MRT itself. SPAD, he says, is data driven, and builds up its research capabilities as together with the public transport associations. MN disclaims that he does not want to sound too ambitious. Their biggest issue is they are still fighting for next year’s budget, resulting in them having to narrow down their targets next year. Safety, he notes, is a key area that SPAD needs to show major improvement in.

MN assures us that he knows our careers may have involved us having some very low days. He shares that, in his time since SPAD, when it was low, it was really low. He notes the recent NST article blaming the SPAD for the return of taxi touts, as another very low point in his time as CEO. However, the highs are also very high, he claims.

MN moves on talking about how the MRT is the biggest infrastructure project since Malaysian independence. With lesser intensity, is the public transport outside the city. They are playing this down a bit, since this part revolves about of money. He notes that the SPAD wants to be lead by data. They will not be moved, until the data tells them to. Also, they want to publish the data, so the public knows what they are doing. The SPAD also absorbed two government agencies; the department of railway from the MOT and the commercial vehicle licensing board. In terms of number, the SPAD dwarfs them. Now the SPAD is trying to operationalize their operations under it. Other aspects of include, the national framework, investments and allocation of them so that it would be an equitable manner. Right now, the main focus of SPAD is the Klang Valley, and then they will go region by region, starting from Johor, Penang and then Perak.

SPAD is also about to release the Urban Railway Transformation Plan, then taxis, buses, and terminals and networks. They are targeting to release all this by September 2012. MRT will be their centerpiece. MN shows a picture of the current situation of traffic in Malaysia. Part of the map shows read areas, which represents 300minutes of travel time to get into the city centre. If we do not do anything, the situation will reach a point where the whole map turns red (MN shows another photo of what it will be like in few years time).

But Why Is MRT So Exciting?
This is for what it is going to do to the economy. MN highlights Greater KL as the largest NKEA in the ETP; expected to contribute to GNI by US$12billion. What is central to the Greater KL in turn is the issue of mobility. If the picture is as the 2nd scenario (he refers to second photo, where the map turns all red), this US$12billion is not going to happen for Malaysia.

On its own merit, the MRT alone is expected to contribute US$3 to 4 billion in GNI in 10 years, creating 130,000 new jobs, and will multiply via multiplier effect into US$8 to 12billion in a year. The second major advantage is the effects it will have on property price appreciation. Increase in GDV is expected at RM300million a year. MN thinks even this is understated. A third advantage and the most exciting is the 20billion in time savings it will create, which will translate into a total of RM21billion a year that it will create in productivity, according to PEMANDU estimates. MN adds that we are banking on the success of ETP to generate knowledge workers. This is the point where he shows that 1 MRT coach is to carry enough people that 3 buses or 177 cars will carry, to illustrate the tremendous help the MRT will create.

MN takes a step back and disclaims that it is not that they are just too obsessed with the MRT. It is because of sheer distance and the capacity required. He claims that we need the biggest capacity, of more than 25000 people per hour per day (PPHPD). Secondary transport plans include the Bus rapid Transit (BRT).

MN explains that the MRT is expected to carry 1.2million people within the city centre, with daily ridership of 400,000. The alignment will be as long as 51.0km, with 9.5km of it is underground. There will be 35 stations, of which 8 is underground. There will also be park n’ rides, which will consist of 13 floor car parks. The first of 3 lines will be completed in 2016, and commissioned in 2017. He adds that the status of the alignment is sitting on the PM’s desk as he speaks and pending discussions with him, for the PM to make his final decisions, especially in areas where MN claims “people are very loud.” The details of these will be announced end of June 2011, and further details can be obtained at the SPAD website.

MN then went on to explain the people involved. They have been entrusted as the agency to supervise. Syarikat Prasarana Negara will be the asset owner, and will be doing the heavy lifting. He highlights that SPAD is the one with the ultimate authority, and to put simply, he jokes “If the government knocks my head 1st, and if I am alive after that, I will knock on Prasarana’s head.”

He then shares what they are doing; parking space will be ample, during construction traffic management will also be managed, it will not be hassle free he admits, but it will be minimized. Touch n’ Go will be like Oyster and Octopus and can be used across modes of transports and across operators. They will be developing a fantastic feeder service, to take people to the MRT stations, so that people who really need it will use the parking space. All in all, he assures that there is comprehensive effort to make sure that this is going to be a success.

MN then exhibits a slide on the stakeholders; MoF will be the funding co, there will be value management consultants but notes they will be using as little public money as possible on them, independent checking engineers. Meanwhile, SPAD will play the role of supervising agency, while Prasarana is the infrastructure co. Project Development Partners, the term coined to describe MMC-Garuda partnership that went under public scrutiny, is explained to be chosen for their experience in project management, track record, and financial capacity, above just execution. They will be made responsible for and incentivized to deliver earlier than expected or cheaper than budgeted. SPAD has also compared this project to the likes of Crossrail London, ODA Olympics, the Qatar Civil Aviation Centre, and the Korean High Speed Rail project.

MN notes that in the past, the government has tended to have a narrow view of just cost. If they could afford it, they went ahead with it. Now, they are looking at other aspects such as whether the project will present opportunities to further create value. They focus not only on rail but also property. They have looked at Hong Kong and predicted the values in dollar terms receivable from the project. The appreciation of the land will pay for the shortfall in development costs. There is a 5- 38% chance of increased value, when there are MRT facilities nearby. Because the lives are not initially interconnected, when they are, it will create tremendous values, he notes.

MN points out that these values are being looked at to offset the cost of development. He gives the example of how the Docklands Railway Network, and the Kowloon Station created value for the Canary Wharf development and Hong Kong Kowloon district respectively. MN finishes by suggesting the use of these values, to compensate the public money, and not just benefit the private developers, riding on these value creations.

YCM CEO Series 33: Shahnaz Al-Sadat, Executive Director of Khazanah Nasional Berhad

 

 

For our YCM CEO Series 33, as part of our Great Women at Work series, we have the privilege to host Shahnaz Al-Sadat, Executive Director of Khazanah Nasional Berhad.

Among the topics Shahnaz will be speaking about is one which many of us are passionate about, that of education. Be sure to come to ask your questions and learn what is being done to address education issues of the nation.

You’re cordially invited to attend our CEO series. Do remember to show your support by liking our Facebook Page and by joining our group.

Date: Tuesday, 14th June 2011
Time: 8.00pm – 9.30pm
Dress Code: Your work attire
Venue: Intercontinental Hotel (formerly Nikko),
Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur
Fee: Free of charge

RSVP here

As with all YCM events, this event is FOC. Light food and beverages will be provided, also FOC!

Ps- if you are unable to RSVP via Facebook, fill up your details here.

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Shahnaz Al-Sadat Abdul Mohsein joined Khazanah in August 2004 as Director and Chief Financial Officer. She was appointed Executive Director, Strategic Human Capital Management in January 2009.

She began her career at Arthur Andersen in Audit, Corporate Finance and Process Risk Consulting. Thereafter, she joined Malaysian Airline System Bhd where she was the General Manager, Internal Audit and a member of the Management Committee.

She holds a LLB (Hons.) degree from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland. She is also a member of the Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (MICPA).

Write-up: CEO Series 32: Sajith Sivanandan, Country Head of Google Malaysia

YCM CEO Series 32: Sajith Sivanandan, Country Head of Google Malaysia
19th April 2011
Writing credits: Aiman Syed Jaafar

Live blogging of event, done in point form:

• Sajith started by stating that Google started in a garage.  YCM is not that different because its CEO Series started with humble beginnings in an old bungalow.
• Sajith stated that YCM, like Google was and is still worth doing as “It is better to be part of something than be a bystander”
• The presentation revolved around Google’s Mission statement, and the emphasis of its words. Google’s Mission statement is “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”
  • Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO and current Chairman, said that this is a 300 year goal
  • Sajith showed a 2D map of the world, showing volume of Google searches in 2000. Key areas were US, Europe and Japan
  • Through Google’s 20 pc time, a Google Engineer developed a tool that showed it in 3D
  • Sajith demonstrated Google Instinct, where by playing the Beatles’ Hey Jude, as playing and typing the lyrics, Google search is able to predict what you are looking for
  • Sajith demonstrated the integration of Google Maps with Google Streetview and stated that this is among the things Google Malaysia is planning to bring to Malaysia
  • • Sajith demonstrated Streetview at New York, and even Antartica!
• He then demonstrated Google Art Project, Google is bringing Streetview into museums, as he demonstrated Vincent van Gogh’s painting zoomed to the tiniest details
• Sajith then spoke of Google’s book scanning project. They estimated that there are (arguably) 129 million books in the world, of which Google has scanned 5.2 million books. That is equivalent to 500 billion words!
  • Sajith then spoke of the uses of having scanned 500 billion words. Sajith demonstrated Googles Books Ngram Viewer (accessible here: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/), able to scan particular words in books from any time.
  • He asked, in the books from 1800 to 2000, what is the pattern of mentions of “Men” versus “Women”? Results showed more men than women, but mentions of men declined starting 1920 and women mentions overtook men mid-1980s.

  

  Are the words “money”, “love” or “power” more popular? Unfortunately, its Power.

  

  • Sajith demonstrated the pattern of SMS at New Year where the spikes of one day, are tremendous
  • Information is one thing, how and what is Useful? His context is a question: What time of the year do most men propose to their girlfriends?
    • You only search for something when you have a need. He demonstrated Google Insights for Search (accessible here: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#) and searched, “engagement rings”. It shows the pattern when people search for the word. It shows that the spike is in December. And unsurprisingly, the search for “wedding dresses” spike in January. How is this useful? As a business, why not have a marketing campaign for a ring near December?
    • Next question: When is the highest peak for movie goers? Its December. The highest grossing film of all time is first Avatar then Titanic, both launch in December and both released by James Cameron!
    • Question: When do people care about their weight? The spike is in the 1^st week of January.
    • Question: Consumer insights for laptop purchases. Do people want long battery laptop or light weight laptop? Searches reveal that people search for long battery laptop. This information is useful as manufacturers can know what laptop to design for.
    • What can we do to make information universally accessible?
      • Sajith demonstrated a Google graph of mobile penetration. In Y2000, China has 10 million phones, a single digit percentage of its population. Past 2000, it boomed to 50% penetration with 600 milion phones in 2008, a tremendous growth. Its an indicator how fast business change.
      • In Google’s opinion, Indonesia will have more queries on mobile than PC. More people are searching Google on mobile.
      • The kind of person Google is looking for is one who is able to adjust to the fast pace of change.
      • Sajith noted that the new generation is introduced to the internet first through mobile than through desktop. Mobile searches actually spike during weekends, when we are not in office.
      • More and more media content, TV content, are available online. How much media is uploaded on YouTube every minute? Every minute, 35 hours worth of content is uploaded on YouTube! People do not consume TV content anymore, they consume Internet media.
      • He demonstrated a YouTube video Double Rainbow, which someone then made a reply and made a song out of it. Go YouTube Double Rainbow Song!
        • Original video: (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI)
        • Double Rainbow song: (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA)
        • How is this information useful? Windows Live Photo’s advert was out of the Double Rainbow! (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jXz7NrfzsI)
        • Overall Malaysian searches in Google:
          • Queries on mobile phones went up 10 times the last 5 years.
          • Queries on financial and insurance information went up 6-7 times the last 5 years.
          • Queries on travel went up 3-4 times the last 5 years.

 

Q&A

Vishal (Question 1): Does Google earn financially with such projects like the Art Project?

Sajith: Google’s philosophy is that if the product is good and user uses it, revenue will come in. As a company, they allow customers to define how applicable and how useful a product is. Google wants to make a difference in people’s lives.

Helmy (Question2): What is Google going to do about Facebook? Is it seen as a rival or a partner?

Sajith: We want more and more companies to encourage people to surf online. Such moves enrich the ecosystem. It is not a zero sum game. The more companies encourage people online, everybody benefits.
Sajith hopes that in 5 years time, there will be 3 local internet companies in Malaysia.

Question 3: When is a movie about Google gonna come out?

Sajith: Let’s ask James Cameron.

Brendan (Question 4): What kind of person are you looking for?

Sajith: We are looking for people with the X-factor, beyond just good grades. People who have demonstrated they can do something else. With all that has been shown (the product demonstration), you need to have more than just good grades.

Question 5: Why did Google hire you Sajith?

Sajith: It helped that I had a couple of Masters. It helped I played sport, I played cricket for Singapore. I debated, I have worked in 4 different industries. It helps I speak 3 languages. Do you do something at work over and above the usual call? We are not looking for someone with just online experience.

Eric (Question 6): Why does Google set up an office in Malaysia?

Sajith: Hey, are you Malaysian? With 30 million people, more and more people choosing to be connected online. Malaysia has the highest number of average friends on Facebook. Malaysia is the first Google office in 3 years in Asia Pacific.

Guru (Question 7): What is Google +1?

Sajith: The second largest search engine is YouTube, owned too by Google. When we search, there is a social element that we have missed. Such as the question of “How does Siti feel about this event when she speaks to Alia?”. Google +1 adds an additional layer of social signal to make searches more meaningful.

Guru (Question 8): How do you determine 20% time in the 80:20 time concept? How do you quantify?

Sajith: Trust is implicit in all we do at Google. We don’t have timesheets. What Google is most interested in is the outcome. You are intelligent enough to be trusted with what you do with the time. You are surrounded by intelligent and driven people so we don’t need to answer how to ensure people to work 80% of the time. They just do. It’s a desire to make a difference and we hope it would inspire people.

Write-up: CEO Series 31 – Natasha Kamaluddin , Managing Partner of Ethos and Co

YCM CEO SERIES 31: NATASHA KAMALUDDIN, MANAGING PARTNER OF ETHOS & Co
Writing Credits: Farhana Roslan

The below is the write up from the session with Natasha Kamaluddin, Managing Partner of Ethos and Company.
Natasha began the session assuring the crowd that she had only a maximum of 15 slides.
Natasha then informed the crowd that she has decided to talk about Malaysia, making a slight comment of her favourite topic; political economy. She joked that most of us in the room at the time were either too young or were not even born yet, to really understand the NEP and its justifications. She did not discount the fact that she was standing where she is today, as a result of the NEP.

Back when the NEP was originated, 60% of Malaysians were in poverty. Up to the year 2000, the NEP was largely successful. Economic growth was ranging between 5 to 10%. It was only after 2000 that we have come to realize and find that our growth prospects weakened considerably. Natasha notes that this was probably attributed to the two major economic recessions Malaysia suffered from (Late 90’s and 2008). She asserts that the cost was too high (cost of recovering the economy), for an economy like Malaysia (to sustain incredible growth we enjoyed in the past).

Then Natasha went on with the stimulus packages that Malaysia has had. Malaysian government debt grew (CAGR) more than 12% (federal government debt as a % of GDP). She informed the crowd that we are now at an (alarming) 74% level. However, she notes that this is true if we use national income as denominator. Arguably, the experienced economist that Natasha is, she would prefer using government income instead, which would bring the debt level to 26%. In both cases, she notes that the government debt is still considered very high.

Natasha went on to explain a chart showing that Malaysia is still very much a resource based economy; with crude oil only is making up 73% of our GDP. But, Natasha points out that investment and consumption (private investment as a share of GDP) is very low. This will one way or another translate into very low productivity growth in Malaysia, suggesting that fundamentals is very concerning.
Because productivity growth is a problem, Natasha points out that the aim for Malaysia to be a high income nation is going to be a tough pursuit. She pointed out that the middle and bottom 40% income is stagnated. Talent in Malaysia is so scarce, that there is so much room for the slightly skilled labour force to demand higher wage levels. Natasha supports with some statistics that only 5% of the Malaysian labour force earns more than RM5,000 per month. She jokingly congratulates any members of the audience earning RM 5,000 or more per month, saying they would be the top 5% of Malaysia’s income earners. Referring to these arguments, we are, she says, in deep trouble (as an economy).

REASON NUMBER 1: Execution

Natasha proposes that the ONE single most important reason this is, is execution problems.
She recollects 1970’s Malaysia, where we started off with a commodity-based economy, however most of the plantation estates and mines were still majority owned by the British colonial masters. She highlights government initiatives, citing the example of PNB, as some of the organistaions who made a considerable effort to acquire back these assets so that Malaysians will start to actually own these resources ourselves.

But then we went on to still having Multi National Companies (MNCs) develop and establish their presence in Malaysia. She poses a question to the crowd, asking us what sort of MNC-type of companies were based in Malaysia; mostly resource-based organizations and hence, there really weren’t much competition.

She supports this with another alarming statistic; 28% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into South East Asia went into Malaysia in the 1970’s. Now it is 11%. Natasha began explaining why this is.

Most value chains of services start with R&D then component and ingredient and manufacturing, assembly, final assembly, and then marketing.

Essentially, however thriving with FDI Malaysia was back then (being the electronics hub), we were sadly but true, only mainly the final assembly hub. The FDIs were resource seeking (namely cheap cost of semi skilled labour) and not as many value or technological know-how and substances were actually imparted onto us. This translates to only 15% value-add.
So essentially, Natasha claims that our failure was to develop ENOUGH backward linkages in the value chain of services and products. So that we had all these FDI come in and go with not enough knowledge transfer onto us.

She provided the example of Palm Oil. Palm Oil was THE Malaysian thing; most major FDIs were coming in under the pretext of Palm Oil development. This was when the government imposed rules on how each FDI must operate in the form of JV with Malaysian home-grown partners in the ratio of 50:50. This saw the establishment of major Malaysian based Palm Oil developers. Natasha uses the example of P&G, Felda, Cognaise, Golden Hope.

Natasha claims that this is quite counterproductive, because the FDI sides were the ones to design their processes so as to ensure minimal transfer of technology.

What we could have done instead, was to collaborate with MPOB/ PORIM, do collaborative research products, and impose the Malaysian ownership of the end legal entity since we had a hand in the development of the end product.
As a result, Malaysians high end technical skills were not created, which brings to exactly why now, there is no reason for any FDI to come into Malaysia and establish value-added services in Malaysia!

REASON NUMBER 2: Privatization of Government Linked Conglomerates

Natasha recalled the era of this privatization of conglomerates back in the 80’s to 90’s period. She explains that this was the time when the experimentation of the creation of mega entrepreneurs such as the likes of Tan Sri Halim Saad and Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli.
The government had these major entrepreneurs buy these entities in order to privatize them. But, Natasha points out again, that because of breakdown (between government ran organizations and privatization, corporate governance and ability to establish economic relevance as a private company), almost all these organizations had to had the government come back in to re-nationalize those assets.

Natasha however, does not discount how Khazanah Nasional, for example, had done a successful transformation to some of these assets. This brings us to today, where we allow entrepreneurs to manage these assets again.
Natasha then digresses, stating that she acknowledges that the intention to rejuvenate corporate Malaysia was not wrong; it was again back to the execution issue.

Natasha said that the government of Malaysia actually does care about Malaysia a lot, proposing a less cliché outlook than what is probably on most of the Gen-Y minds sitting in this room today. This brought grins amongst the audience.

She simplifies this concern of our government with a few illustrations:

Foreigners taking our resources

Foreigners steal our jobs

Infant industries not getting a level playing field to grow

Consumers’ rights are not protected

These were all fears which justified the protectionist policies that the government establishes.
Hence, Natasha says, these brought about the forced JVs (that the government imposed on FDIs), control of expatriates, and the need for JPPD to sign off assuring the job given to this expatriate employee absolutely cannot be done by any Malaysian, as well as trade barriers, citing the case of Proton as the typical example.
This, she says, is where the government “failed”.

These coupled with of course, the usual inconsistency, corruption, lack of financial discipline, Natasha mentions briefly.

Tun Razak, she says, was the era where the government was deemed to know best and where government protectionist policies were needed to protect the rakyat. Through time, the private sector capabilities become better, leaving the government policies being left in the hands of people with comparatively (arguably) less capabilities.

Natasha compared (simplistically) that the Singapore approach was simple and effective- “Hey, actually we just want to create growth, an environment that supports (incoming and creation of) talent, and an environment for businesses to thrive.”

This is in contrast with the Malaysian approach; we take the approach of jump starting a few industries which we think is the next big bet. She lists down a few examples of our previous attempts and big investment themes; steel, Proton, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Biotechnology, and then of course, there was the Halal industry.

By the way, Natasha does not discount that these could (individually) have been right, but we (Malaysia) just wanted to kill too many birds with one stone.

What should we have done instead?

(1) Use top-down approach
But be efficient, minimum level is only this size. She illustrates by giving an analogy; If, for example, we need only 3 why create 13? (referring to capital expenditure (CAPEX) orders of National Oil Integrated producer, Petronas). This is why as a result; Petronas gives licenses to about 300 companies, when only 30 are needed.

(2) Innovation
The Innovation Ecosystem in Malaysia is very very weak, Natasha argues. This means that only very projects translate into executable projects from idea generation stage. And this is referring to the best government projects funded!
Natasha points out another statistic; Only 10% of the ideas made it to commercialization stage and only 3% managed to reach profit-generation stage.

She then rhetorically asks the audience: What do we need to create a conducive environment for innovation?
She names deal flow as one of it. She uses the example of the U.S. where high quality scientists are able to come up with a solid market value adding product to sell. More importantly, they have a strong fund management expertise, which can really tell the value of a firm and its projects.

This makes it easy to consummate a deal.

In our case, Natasha says, we have very poor quality deal flow. (One reason is probably the fact that) only 8% of entrepreneurs have degrees in Malaysia.

(On the asset management side), the major institutional players in Malaysia are really only essentially the involvement of pension funds. She points out that of course, these funds generally like the dividend story, not so private equity and “growth-type” stories.
Furthermore, Natasha informs us that in Malaysia one would struggle to get a 10- to 20 times return on your investment (ROI), whereas other countries can churn out more than 1000 times returns for investors. Again, she explains, this is why there is no reason (for FDIs) to want to come to Malaysia, for her lack of scale and ability to generate these kind of (return) multiples.
Natasha points out that specialization needs scale and generalists cannot really come up with a value proposition. Malaysia lacks content, depth, competitiveness have traditionally been anchored on cost. As liberalization of prices and markets intensifies, it is going to be even harder for Malaysian industries to compete. She also notes that although our trade deficit is still positive, it is declining.

 

There is Good News!

Since 2004, Natasha notes that there has been a concerted effort to transform Malaysia (by various parties).
Phase 1, she notes, was the revamping of GLCTs, with names like Khalid and Wahid Omar taking leadership. These leadership positions also, she says with subtle hint of gladness, are contract-based. This means that these top positions are well governed with KPIs, paid well but possibility of being replaced is always there in case of non performance. She quotes that between 2004 and 2006, most senior management positions (in corporate Malaysia) were converted to contractual based positions.

These makes salaries become more adjusted to the market. Also, because of this move, it is (more likely) that these companies have the right people (at helm) which allowed the company-level sort of transformation (that Malaysia so badly needs to complement industry and country level transformation plans). This is done through proper rationalization and execution of strategy.
This then allows for the not only domestic but also international growth of these companies! Why? Natasha says that this because economies of scale in these growth sectors have been exhausted, so now it’s about finding economies elsewhere, which brings Malaysian companies to the strategy of expansion abroad.

Now, Natasha points out, it’s about the government using legislation to actually force rationalization and liberalization. This PM, she assures, has made some efforts to address key enablers which did not happen before.

She points out the NEM reform initiatives which included Talent Corp. Natasha says in all seriousness, there has been a demonstration of some form of success. We have seen a number of sectors which have undergone and seen industry consolidation, enabling building blocks for this industry to move forward.

Parting thought

Essentially what we were doing, Natasha says, that a few years ago we compared ourself against giants like Singapore, Japan and the west. Now we are struggling to compare (our competitiveness) against the likes of Vietnam.

Natasha speaks about her the subscale fabrication industry, which happen to be a subject she’s passionate about.
First it’s the labs. Then move forward. When it is more rational to consolidate, Malaysia says OK, we consolidate.

But she says there are no economies of scale. For example, how do we consolidate one north plant and another one down south? She points out the problem with merging 2 players with similar capabilities is that it is hard to extract consolidation benefits and economies of scale when these assets were not in the first place created strategically and holistically looked at in the country wide perspective.
Also, Natasha highlights the fragmented delivery system, on the government side. She asks rhetorically how it is possible for the government, when the delivery system is so fragmented, say want to support a company. She points out (based on experience) one to go through 22 different government agencies to coordinate across just to set up a business in Malaysia. This does not only apply to foreign ventures, but also for Malaysian initiatives.

The problem with government bodies is that nobody wants to give up their power for all these processes. So the idea of a one stop centre cannot happen.

What in the NEP started off with pure objectives, Natasha points out, over time became a Bumiputera agenda. She acknowledges that however this may be debated; she does not believe that this is the true spirit of the NEP. She claims that (arguably) the NEP now has been widely misunderstood. (Unfortunately), some members of the citizen have tended to believe they are entitled to different privileges just because they are Bumiputeras.

Natasha recalls that when we had the 30% equity allocation for bumiputera ruling, it started from the intention of transferring ownership from foreigners to locals. Now, these resources are owned in joint by Malaysians, so that the transfer now can only go from non bumiputeras to bumiputeras (which were not the intention).

Natasha then touched on the topic of the Malaysian education system. The difference is that we are so content driven (that we have forgone method of gaining the knowledge itself). She asserts that the point (of education) is not to cram content into a few years of education).

She cites the example of a British example, where only 2 things are meant to be achieved at the end of a 2-year learning period. (She recollects her experience undergoing her A-Levels in the UK).

These two are the aims to impart students with the knowledge of how to learn by themselves, and the love or learning.
She rekindles her deciding to take a History paper in her A-Levels (she was the only Malaysian to, as pointed out by her course advisor).

To illustrate how she as a Malaysian has been taught to concentrate too much on content and text; she recalls an examination question: The Wars of the Roses between the York and Lancasterians. The question was “Why did the duke of York become king of England?” She laughed while telling the audience how she tried looking for the answers to that question frantically.
She couldn’t find the answers.

Upon realizing that the answers really are not there, she then points out that the British system is a system that forces you to find the answer for yourself, instead of memorizing.

Natasha explains that only 0.4% students are sponsored to study abroad every year. This translates to only a few of the currently High-performing Bumiputeras (who earn RM20,000 to RM40,000 a month). These, she pointed out are foreign graduates (which makes it unfortunate, given the earlier statistic).

The sad thing is that such a small minority gets a foreign education. She recalls recruiting for clients, a national cause that attracted 900 resumes (all local grads), and they only made 1 hire for the client.

Natasha then claims that we are only improving because we are an open economy. This means, we improve as the world improves. In 15 years time, which country will be comparing ourselves to?
End.

Her Journey

When I was in Accenture there were a bunch of women managers, the sad thing is that, I was kind of the only one left. All decided to part time, then not to work at all, but work in an environment and consciously allowed their careers to plateau. 8 years later there are still managers, so my journey is very relevant to all of you here. (That’s why I want to share with you my story).
Only 13% of women in Malaysia are in professional and managerial positions.

Where I am, it is lonely. They are all men. I even find that the women at my level, do not have kids.
I went to boarding school, got a Petronas scholarship to study at Millhill High Barnet for 2 years. I learned absolutely nothing but it was good fun. Got into Cambridge, and learned a lot of things.

In 3rd year in Cambridge, I decided that they wanted to further mankind’s knowledge and have PhD and work for World Bank. I missed the application deadline.

Accenture, which was then Anderson tracked me down and had an offer. I spent my time in Accenture for 8 years. I was fortunate that was the time when people were willing to pay a premium for Accenture–type skills.

Now there is Tatas and the other IT consultant Indian companies (which costs much less). On top of that, the lack of competition afforded new people like me, time. What now is sold for 3 months, was sold for a year.

American firms are good at documenting their knowledge capital. Most companies were at the time to automate a lot of things, so consultants get a good overview of how the company works. Nowadays, we’re only working for very specific solutions you don’t get the end-to-end picture.

Because I am the type to put myself into what I’m doing passionately, I got my PhD plan canceled.
After a while I got bored, I met the partners of the then start-up Ethos. It had lovely red carper in 900 sq feet office. I liked the people, they had a journey in mind, not a destination. I knew after a few minutes into the conversation that they could not afford me. I proposed to them ok, I didn’t mind being paid 5000 a month but compensate me when you land big deals.
Ethos itself has been an interesting journey. We were struggling to find meaningful work.

In the GLC transformation phase, we were lucky to get our big break, Nor Yaakob awarded contracts to start up Malaysian consultants: Bina Fikir took MAS, and Ethos was given the MAB contract.

That’s how we built the firm. We were ambitious, in 2006 we wanted to venture into finance and started Ethos Capital. Since then, were happy that it has come to a point that the same clients employing BCG and mc Kinsey giving us the same work. We’re now at time where even companies would want to buy us. Our aspirations grew us by 5 fold in 5 years, and it was all through hard honest work which was fulfilling.

Back to life story- 2006 had my 2nd child boy in the middle of project. In 2009-while we were working on PEMANDU and EQUINAS, my 3rd child is born so now I have a 13 year old, 4 year old and 1 year old. My advice:
Have kids early, get married early (you meet no one)
Always do what you’re over qualified for

To succeed as a woman:

1) Emulate male behavior
2) Be a woman, use charm and influence and getting your way all the time
Always realize the male ego is most important- must be willing to use that to your advantage
Always have options, always be prepared to walk away (career and relationships)
Financially independent, so I can move out of my marriage. I know I am there for the right reasons. It’s because I love my husband and my family, and not because I am there for the financial support.

YCM CEO Series 32: Sajith Sivanandan, Country Head of Google Malaysia

For our YCM CEO Series 32, we have the privilege of hosting Sajith Sivanandan, Country Head of Google Malaysia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sajith will be talking about how Google touches our lives and what they look for in people looking to join the firm.

Sajith is presently the Country Head of Google Malaysia, where he oversees sales, partnerships and business development operations in the country. Previously he was the Head of Travel for Google Southeast Asia, where he looked after the growth of Google’s online advertising business in the travel sector for the region.

Before Google, Sajith was the Director of Market Development and Consumer Insights at Affle UK Ltd., a mobile media start up where he worked on business partnerships with mobile operators and advertisers. Prior to Affle UK, Sajith held key sales and management positions at the Gallup Organisation and Star TV (part of News Corp.).

Sajith holds a Master’s degree in Business Management with Distinction (majoring in Finance) from the Asian Institute of Management, an MBA (majoring in Marketing) from the Fore School of Management in New Delhi, and a Bachelor’s degree with Honours (majoring in History) from Delhi University.

————————————-

Date: Tuesday, 19th April 2011
Time: 8.00pm – 9.30pm
Dress Code: Just turn up in your working clothes
Venue: Intercontinental Hotel (formerly Nikko Hotel), Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur

Light food and beverages will be provided, FOC!

RSVP here

YCM CEO Series 31: Natasha Kamaluddin, Managing Partner of Ethos & Co

For YCM CEO Series 31, as part of our Great Ladies at Work series we have the privilege of hosting Natasha Kamaluddin, Managing Partner of Ethos & Co

 

Natasha’s core expertise is in strategy development, public policy, large scale process reengineering, operationalisation of new businesses / entities and programme management.

She has led numerous strategy and public policy engagements, including developing the growth and internationalisation strategy for a major Malaysian conglomerate, strategy development for a major regional IPP, strategy review for two major plantations companies and development of economic / industry development plans for several major industries in Malaysia.

Natasha also has an extensive track record in operationalising new Government and corporate entities, where she has helped clients to secure Government approvals, structure their organisation and modus operandi, recruit, obtain funding and design their detailed business processes.

Prior to joining Ethos, Natasha was a Manager at Accenture in Kuala Lumpur where she served public and private sector clients on
large scale Programme Management, Business Process Improvements and ICT systems implementation. Natasha graduated with a BA and
MA in Economics (1st class) from Cambridge University, UK.

Date: Wednesday, 6th April 2011
Time: 8.00pm – 9.30pm
Dress Code: Just turn up in your working clothes
Venue: Intercontinental Hotel (formerly Nikko Hotel), Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur

Light food and beverages will be provided, FOC!

RSVP here

Write-up: CEO Series 30 – Azran Osman Rani, CEO of Air Asia X

CEO SERIES 30: AZRAN OSMAN-RANI, CEO OF AIR ASIA X
Writing Credits: Farhana Roslan

 

The below is the live-blog from the session with CEO of Air Asia X, Azran Osman Rani on the 21st of March 2011. Today, Azran decided to go for the casual look and do without the signature red Air Asia cap. The Master of Ceremony started off with a brief background of his alma matter; Azran graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Management Sciences.

He started by answering questions asked to him prior to his presentation. How does he manage risks? He doesn’t. How did he come about the many different paths he went down in his career? Random.

Azran then went on to how traditional corporate planning takes up a company’s valuable time citing the example of how the company has gone through 5 iterations in 2011 and that it’s only March, which goes to show how we can’t really plan about the future. He believes that living in this time, running a business, is not so much more about planning and budgets. Especially in the sort career he had in the aviation industry; H1N1, Volcanic Ash, the catastrophic winter in Europe as well as the latest earthquake and Tsunami tragedy hitting Japan.

Read more

YCM CEO Series 30: Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X

For YCM CEO Series 30, we have the privilege of hosting Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X

In July 2007, Azran was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia X, the world’s first truly low-cost long-haul airline. He led the start-up team that developed the business plan, raised capital, secured relevant licenses and approvals, acquired aircraft and launched AirAsia X’s first inaugural flight to the Gold Coast, Australia in November 2007.

Prior to his appointment, Azran was formerly the Senior Director of Business Development for Astro All Asia Networks plc, a leading Asian digital satellite television and radio broadcaster, where he led the start-up and operational launch of Astro’s international investments and joint ventures across Southeast Asia, India and Greater China – having oversight management responsibility for a portfolio of over US$300 million invested in these businesses.
Azran was formerly an Associate Partner of McKinsey & Company, an international management consultancy, where he co-led its Southeast Asia Corporate Finance & Strategy practice.
He holds a Master’s degree in Management Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, both from Stanford University.

He is 39 years young, a competitive Ultimate Frisbee player, a keen surfer and snowboarder, and has completed several full marathons.

A prolific international speaker, he has been invited as one of the Young Leaders at the 2010 World Islamic Economic Forum and represented Malaysia as one of Asia Society’s 2009 Asia 21 Delegates. He is also a member of the Young Presidents Organisation (YPO).

Date: Monday, 21st March 2011
Time: 8.00pm – 9.30pm
Dress Code: Just turn up in your working clothes
Venue: Intercontinental Hotel (formerly Nikko Hotel), Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur

Light food and beverages will be provided, FOC

[Bio data courtesy of PATA 60th Anniversary & Conference]

Write-up: YCM Special Session : Keeran Sivarajah, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Teach for Malaysia

YCM Special Session : Keeran Sivarajah, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Teach for Malaysia
Writing credits: Chen Chow Yeoh

This is the posting of live blogging of the Young Corporate Malaysians Special Session. Today, we have Teach for Malaysia with us.

Keeran Sivarajah, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Teach for Malaysia would be speaking tonight. He met Dzameer at PricewaterhouseCoopers and they worked together to start up TFM. He would be speaking today with Yong Su En.

The statistics shown was 1 out of 4 people do not have required level of numerical skills. 4 out of 5 working Malaysians only have education up to SPM. 3 out of 5 head of poor households only have education up to primary schools or less.

There are 9 Million people between age 7 and 17 and there are 400,000 who never go to school. For those from Orang Asli, only 6% finished high school. (Hope that I got the stats correct.)

Keeran shared on his experience visiting a school in Klang. It is March and one parent just brought the kid to school, and the kid missed two months of school, because he didn’t have money to buy school uniform.

Keeran shared on another experience yesterday in Gemas, where a parent wanted to take the 16-year-old kid out of school, because he has lost faith in the schooling system. He felt that even though the kid goes to university, the kid might still be unemployed. So, the kid might as well started working now and helped to earn a living.

These kids breathe the same air as all of us. They eat the same food as us. A lot of these kids do not believe that they can achieve big things.

Keeran shared on his experience attending the 4th Young Corporate Malaysians CEO Series of Talk and the speaker was Seelan Singham, Managing Partner of McKinsey & Co for Malaysia. Seelan said that everyone should have a scary dream, and that scary dream of him makes him to dream big. Seelan stressed that being idealistic is good and once we lost that idealism, especially after we worked for 18 hours a day and busy to go on dating/marriage, as well as paying for mortgage, we might look back and see “what the hell has happened to my dream/idealism”. Seelan shared that it is important to have a sense of purpose.

Keeran shared this dream of Seelan and he sees the dream of getting there for Teach for Malaysia. TFM was incubated by a company called Khazanah Nasional Berhad. They wanted to find 50 most eligible Malaysian youths, who want to make a difference in Malaysia. They want to build a movement of people, where people can make a difference to the community.

TFM is recruiting heavily in universities and young professionals. They are looking for people who want to make transformations in high needs schools. These people would be having the mandate to transform the outcomes of the kids, after going through the training.

TFM get their fellows to lead in classroom and community. These two years would be most exciting and rewarding tothese people’s lives.

Keeran shared on the exciting bit of him quiting his job. This program started with Teach for America 20 years ago, and by now, Teach for American has 18,000 alumni who are now in various sectors to solve this huge challenge of providing opportunities to attainan excellent educationfor all children.

Teach First is now the 5th most popular recruiter in UK, even ahead of KPMG. They are the top recruiter in Oxford and Cambridge. They also reject a lot of people from Oxford and Cambridge.

Malaysia is the number 3 in Asia, after India and China. Pakistan just joined the network recently. Malaysia is the first in South East Asia to join the network. There are another 20 countries that would join this network within the next 2 years.

54 years after independence, not every Malaysian kids have the access to quality education. Teach for Malaysia hopes to build the next layer of leaders, who could one day be a minister, Prime Minister or any other leaders, who would have a mission to solve this education issue.

Teach for Malaysia hopes to look for the best 50 in the country to join this year. The first deadline would be in two weeks’ time. This group would be the founding cohort for Teach for Malaysia.

Su En just took over the rostrum. Su En studied Economics at LSE and her favourite class was developmental economics. She did a lot of case studies on how initiatives that can transform the world. While those are fascinating, those were just theory. She went into management consulting in UK for 3 years, and decided to come back to Malaysia to serve the mission of developing the nation.

She initially found that there wasn’t a lot of initiatives from grassroot in Malaysia, especially compared to developed nations. She also spent time in China to help with migrant kids. She was then introduced to Dzameer and Keeran through a mutual program. She had known about Teach First back when she was in UK.

She came on board to join Teach for Malaysia in October 2010. She hoped to recruit the best and brightest among Malaysians to join this movement.

This is going to be the most challenging experience for TFM joiner. They would have to engage with 40 disenchanted teenagers and having to engage their attention. TFM required its fellow to go into the school and change the mindset of the students. The fellows would need to have huge confidence and solid teaching skills.

The Teach for Malaysia Leadership Academy would have an 8-week experiential, residential training in end-October 2011. These trainings are developed in collaboration with Teach for All, corporate partners and Minister of Education. They would practically be applying teaching, learning and leadership theories, based on the Teaching as Leadership framework. The trainers would be from Teach for All. This would adopt the methodof Teaching as Leadership, by Steven Farr from Teach for America. The TFM fellow would have the opportunityto practice teaching, live in a real classroom.

There would be ongoing support and training. There would be Leadership Development Officer, providing personal coaching, resources and guidance. There would be mentor, who would be senior teacher in the same school. There would be Business Coach, who would be senior manager from one of TFM’s corporate partners. There would be workshoips by training partners to share innovative teaching methods and best practices. There would be seminars by corporate partners on a wide rangeof transferable skills. They would also be getting Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching after first year of teaching, as well as earning credits towards Master’s degree.

The role of TFM Fellow is to make a difference in the classroom. They are expected tolead students towards academic achievements that defies traditional expectations, and they would be engaging, teaching and challenging students inside and outside the classroom. They would also work collaboratively with other teachers and school staff to build skills, share knowledge and obtain resources for the classroom. The fellow would lead by example and be inspirational role model to give the students the courage to dream big.

Scott Thomas, Teach for America Corp member shared on his proudest accomplishment was starting an after-school tutoring program. They had 8th graders tutoring 6th graders, who were struggling in Mathematics. It was a fantastic experience watching the older students play this mature role, not only being academic stars, but also developing patience and empathy.

Su En shared on the kids that she had mentored back in UK, where a lot of kids might not have the perspective beyond their backyard. They hoped to do something that is better than their parents, but they might not have the visibility to know of any potential beyond that.

TFM Fellow is expected to impact the wider community. The role would provide unique opportunity to design, implement and manage a sustainable, transformational project in the school or community in which you serve, with the help of your Business Coach and community leaders. They are expected to develop a deep understanding of the many barriers to achievement and complex problems associated with achieving equity in education.

Zeenia Anwar, Teach First Ambassador shared on “If you want to stretch yourself and become a person you never thought you could in your wildest dreams, do it, apply for it. You’ll have the two best years of your life.”

TFM would also provide professional development opportunities. In Malaysia, TFM aimed to help on internship and employment opportunities with top-tier organizations in Malaysia. BCG, McKinsey & Co, PwC have helped tremendously in this early stage of TFM. There would be professional development workshops run by corporate leaders. There would be exclusive networking events with senior figures in private and public sector firms. There would be Business Coach as well.

TFM has gotten approval from the following programmes to do deferral, including Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Management, Harvard Law School etc.

There are five stages of admission process. It would start with online application, and then phone interview, and then a 30-minute long online assessment, with a full-day assessment including a group case study, a mock classroom activity and a one-to-one interview and then would be final offers.

The first round of deadline would be 21st March, and the second round of deadline would be 27th June. TFM practices rolling admission. So, do start apply now at Teach For Malaysia . Please help to spread the words to others too.

The starting pay for teachers would be between RM2,300-RM2,700, which is similar to the starting pay that Keeran had when he was with PwC.

TFM Fellow would also engage the community and keep abreast with the parents. There are a lot of opportunities for TFM Fellow to reach out to the parents and community, but it would be up to the creativity of TFM Fellow and the TFM would be supporting the Fellow.

Keeran related on a case from Teach for America, where a parent wanted to take the kid out of school, as the kid doesn’t seem to learn anything. The Teach for America Fellow asked the parent to give him/her a month to transform the kid. The Fellow put in efforts to educate the kids and keep the parents updated from time to time, and after a month, the kid can read a full page.

After the stint in Teach for Malaysia, the Fellow is flexible to do whichever route that they would want to explore. This TFM program aims to develop leaders and it would be up to the Fellow to chart their pathway. During the two years, there would be a lot of developmental support to help shape the leader. What is needed from this Fellow is that after the two years, they would be asked to support this TFM mission whereever they are. They would be alumni network too, that would support their mission.

One of the Teach for America Fellows said that if he is still not convinced that his children can get quality education in any school in America, then his job is not over. There is still a lot of work to be done.

TFM Fellow would be assuming full-time teaching positions in secondary schools, where they would be teaching English or Mathematics/Science-related subjects. What is important is not to change the curriculum, but the TFM Fellow would go in and set high academic and non-academic goals, to mould and guide the students. TFM is looking into Educational Impact Evaluation and they are looking at partnering universities or Teach for All on this area. TFM is working hard on this, to be able to quantify more objectively on the performance of the TFM Fellows.

One of the attendees highlighted that there might be possibility of putting the students at risk, if the Fellow is not able to perform up to expectation. Keeran and Su En reiterated that the Fellows would be getting continuous training beyond the 8 weeks, and there would be full-time staff who would meet with the Fellows continuously to guide them. There would be mentor within the school too, to guide the TFM Fellow.

For the first year, the 50 TFM Fellows would be placed in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan, so that more monitoring can be done. TFM would be investing a lot in training and building a leadership movement. TFM would be investing to develop the leaders.

TFM selection process would be very rigorous to select new joiners who have strong competencies in leadership, as well as their capacity to handle situations.

TFM Fellows would be fully responsible for their class and they would be expected to teach the normal school syllabus. For TFM, they are also interviewing the schools and the school heads, so that they would get the support needed.

Ministry of Education and Management Consulting firm ranked all the schools in the country, and they are looking into those 70 schools within KL, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan which fell into the grading of Band 6 and 7. TFM would be visiting most of these 70 schools and eventually select 17 schools, where they would be putting 3-4 TFM Fellows in each school. It is very important that those schools selected would have supportive leaders there.

TFM applicants would also be subjected to Subject Audit Test during the application process, so that those TFM Fellows selected would have working knowledge in the subject and they would be getting help from more senior teachers on subject matter issues.

There is a suggestion from the audience where those who are not selected for TFM, could be put into a mailing list, and they could be put to good use by helping others in the community, for example teaching at orphanage etc.

Another audience shared on the practical training of being in real classroom would shape the teachers, no matter how much training is provided. He also shared on teaching students how to fish, instead of giving them the fish. He suggested on potential opportunities to partner with other organizations, to help the students and Fellows.

One of the big responsibilities for TFM Fellows would be to ensure that all students in the class are taken care of. There would be collaborations with various parties on this.

Finally, don’t forget to apply for Teach for Malaysia. Please help to spread the words too. Lets make a difference, by providing every kid in Malaysia with the opportunity to attain an excellent education.

YCM CEO Series 26: Badlisyah Abdul Ghani, CEO of CIMB Islamic

Badlisyah Abdul Ghani, a Malaysian, aged 36, was appointed Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of CIMB Islamic Bank Berhad, CIMB Group’s Islamic banking flagship on 28 February 2006.

He is also a Director of CIMB Islamic Investment House BSC (C), Bahrain and CIMB Islamic Funds DCC Limited, Brunei. Prior to CIMB Group, he was attached to an offshore banking subsidiary of a premier Malaysia Islamic financial group in structured finance, capital market and syndications.

For YCM’s CEO Series 26, we have the privilege of hosting En Badlisyah Abdul Ghani, CEO of CIMB Islamic.

He chairs the Islamic Capital Market Committee of the Malaysian Investment Banking Association and sits in various other industry committees including the Listing Committee of the Labuan International Financial Exchange, Exchange Committee of the Labuan International Financial Exchange, Islamic Capital Market Consultative Committee, Bursa Malaysia and the Working Group on Islamic Accounting Standards, Malaysian Accounting Standards Board.

Badlisyah is recognised as a leader in Islamic finance globally. Amongst his notable accomplishments includes the introductions of the world’s first Sukuk al Ijarah, the world’s first Istisna’ Sukuk and the world’s first Musyarakah ABS/ RMBS. In 2004, at the age of 31, Euromoney named him one of “Global Top 20 Pioneers in Islamic Finance”. In 2007, he was voted “Islamic Banker of the Year” at the Islamic Business and Finance Awards, Dubai and awarded the “Best Individual Islamic Banker in 2007” by Islamic Finance News. Recently, he was named the sole recipient of “The Asian Banker Promising Young Banker Award for Malaysia 2007” in The Asian Banker Achievement Awards 2007 programme.

He is a lifetime member of ANSARA Taiping and was the founding Vice- Chairman of the United Kingdom and Eire Council for Malaysian Students (UKEC). He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

YCM CEO Series 19: Roshan Thiran, CEO of Leaderonomics Sdn Bhd

We are honored to have for our 19 series Roshan Thiran, CEO of Leaderonomics Sdn Bhd speaking.

Roshan Thiran, CEO of Leaderonomics Sdn Bhd, an organization which specializes on developing young capable leaders by constantly setting new goals to challenge, and transforming the minds and hearts of leaders to create a just, free and caring society. Simultaneously, Leaderonomics runs workshops and camps for children and youths.To learn more about Leaderonomics, go to www.leaderonomics.com

He has a passion for helping people fulfil their potential and purpose and believes there is a science to developing leaders. He spent the past 15 years working for General Electric and Johnson & Johnson across the US, Europe and Asia. He is also much sought out for his expertise in talent management and leadership development.

He strives to help world’s leaders – of all ages, classes and ethnicities – to adapt and meet dramatic changes in our natural and synthetic environments and to help them continuously grow and develop as leaders.

Young Corporate Malaysians now brings to you Roshan Thiran, an avid writer and also speaker, to share his thoughts and experiences in creating the best leaders in town!

Date:Thursday, 12th November 2009
Time: 7.30pm – 9.30pm
Entrance: Free
Dress Code: Just turn up in your working clothes
Venue: Menara Integriti
Persiaran Duta, Off Jalan Duta

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=103943877092747428564.00046d566eabf190b1641

Light food and beverages will be provided, all these at no charge to you so please come!

YCM CEO Series 18: Yasmin Mahmood, Managing Director of Microsoft Malaysia

Yasmin Mahmood
Managing Director, Microsoft Malaysia

Yasmin Mahmood is the Managing Director of Microsoft Malaysia. Prior to her appointment, she was the General Manager of Dell Malaysia and Corporate Director of Dell Inc. Prior to that, she was the General Manager of Hewlett Packard Sales Malaysia’s Commercial Channels Organisation.

Yasmin has been in the Malaysian Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) industry for the past two decades, having started her career as a analyst programmer with a local bank.

In 2006, the Association of Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (PIKOM) recognized her contribution to the development of the ICT industry with a Key Industry Leader Award, the only woman to date who has received this award.

Yasmin vision for the company is to “Malaysianize Microsoft” and to align its vision, activities and investments with the national objective and agenda.

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Date: Wednesday, 14th October 2009
Time: 7.30pm – 9.30pm
Topic: Global Company, Local Leadership
Team Leader: Ms Alia Sidek from Bank Negara Malaysia
Dress Code: Just turn up in your working clothes
Venue: Menara Integriti
Persiaran Duta, Off Jalan Duta

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