For working individuals, I’d say LinkedIn is kind of like Facebook, but more professional.
I personally would prefer to keep all my conversations and discussions surrounding work within LinkedIn, but several factors make it hard to do so.
One of them is the fact that nothing I do or say on the site garners much engagement, which is pretty discouraging, so I end up being rather inactive there.
However, unlike me, these 13 individuals have shown just how well they can engage their audience, and because of that, they’ve been featured by LinkedIn Spotlight for Malaysia.
Coming from various industries like technology, banking and finance, education, F&B, and healthcare, here are the 13 of them in alphabetical order.
1. Asim Qureshi, CEO, Jibble Group
Asim could be called a serial entrepreneur (and a great storyteller), as he once relayed in detail how he launched 5 startups in 2016, and shared key takeaways from each of those experiences.
One of those businesses was Jibble.io, and it’s a location based time and attendance app. At the moment, he serves as its CEO, and he also holds the CEO position at PayrollPanda and LaunchPad Startups.
2. Azran Osman-Rani, CEO & Co-Founder, Naluri
Quite the prolific entrepreneur, Azran previously served at AirAsia X Berhad as its CEO for over 7 years, and was iflix Malaysia’s CEO for 2 years too.
Besides also being an investor, he’s an advisor at iflix and the chairman at MoneyMatch. Currently, his main venture is Naluri, which is a digital health therapeutics platform that tackles not only physical health but also mental health.
3. Byran Loo Woi Lip, CEO, Tealive Asia (Loob Holding Sdn Bhd)
The man behind Malaysia’s largest bubble tea franchise is probably one of our most well-known entrepreneurs, particularly within the F&B sector.
Bryan graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology, but diverted from the path of medicine to enter the local F&B industry instead. One of his most popular ventures is Tealive, which has over 400 outlets in Malaysia alone.
4. Devika Rajamanickam, Country Head of Corporate Sustainability, HSBC Malaysia
At HSBC, Devika is responsible for leading, developing and implementing strategic corporate sustainability (CS) projects and initiatives.
She’s in charge of HSBC’s approach to sustainability in Malaysia which covers sustainable finance, future skills, and sustainability network and entrepreneurship.
5. Faeez Fadhlillah, CEO & Co-Founder, Tripfez
Faeez is very involved in the travel industry, being on the Board of Directors at MATTA and the CEO and co-founder of Lagisatu Travel Sdn Bhd.
In January 2016, he launched Tripfez, which is a travel portal dedicated to the rise of global Muslim travellers. To accomplish this, it works with Salam Standard, a hotel classification which informs travellers how Muslim-friendly a hotel is.
6. Khairul Abu Bakar, Certified Consultant, Principal Financial Group
Khairul works with Principal Financial Group to help individuals plan for wealth creation, kids’ education, and good retirement, among other things.
Principal Financial Group also offers financial solutions for employers like employee retirement plans, business planning and protection solutions, and group insurance benefits. It serves institutional clients too by helping them develop a portfolio for their goals.
7. Lung-Nien Lee, CEO, Citibank Berhad
Lung-Nien has been working with Citibank for almost 30 years. He got his start in the company as a credit analyst in 1990 and over the decades, he’s been in Citibank’s different branches like Singapore, New York, and now, Malaysia.
Outside his professional career, he keeps active in his personal life. Not only is he a retired scuba diving instructor, but he’s also an avid race car driver and represented Singapore this past October at the world finals in Italy. He plays the drums semi-professionally too, and enjoys playing football on a weekly basis.
8. Muazzam Mohamed, CEO, Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad
Muazzam has been with Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad for over 4 years, first as its Chief Financial Officer then in 2015 then as its Acting CEO in July 2018, before getting the title of CEO in December 2018.
Overall, he’s been involved with the finance industry for the past two decades. He was previously with KPMG for 18 years, spending the first half of his career there in Financial Audit before moving on to Management Consulting for the latter half of it.
9. Nadhir Ashafiq, Co-Founder & Executive Director, TheLorry.com
Nadhir’s love for entrepreneurship and finance began with an online pet website he got addicted to when he was 11 years old. It was called Neopets. With it, he learnt the basic concepts of retail and the fundamentals of the stock market.
He went on to become a millionaire (in the game), and when he grew up, he worked for CIMB Investment Bank. When he left the company, he co-founded TheLorry.com, a platform where users can easily book lorries, vans, and 4x4s in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia.
10. Noor Azizi Ismail, Vice Chancellor, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan
Noor Azizi Ismail was with Universiti Utara Malaysia until 2017. Prior to that, he was the Deputy Director General of Higher Education at the Ministry of Education.*
*Editor’s Update: The information in the above paragraph has been updated to reflect accuracy.
He’s published over 100 articles on topics such as accounting, information systems, and entrepreneurship, among others. His academic work can be found on Google Scholar and ResearchGate.
11. Sinan Ismail, CEO, Digital Durian
With his team of 105, Sinan has been creating fun and meaningful content for young children at Digital Durian for the past 7 years. Their first production called Didi & Friends has almost 2 billion views on YouTube, and has more than 2 million subscribers.
It’s even been dubbed into 7 languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Malay, and Bahasa Indonesia. Their second production, Omar & Hana, has also seen success with over 900 million views on Youtube, and has been dubbed in English, Arabic, and Malay.
12. Suzanne Ling, Co-Founder & CMO at PichaEats
At PichaEats, Suzanne has been Head of Marketing & Communication for the past 3 years and 11 months. PichaEats’ mission is to serve great food while providing opportunities for refugees in Malaysia to start new lives.
The social enterprise partners with families from Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan to cook up delicacies like Rohingya curry, Palestinian hummus, Afghani dumplings, and Syrian sweets. They can cater to corporate lunches, wedding dinners and smaller events with buffet catering, meal boxes and even plated 9-course meals.
13. Umi Kalsom Yusof, Data Scientist, UEM Edgenta Berhad
At UEM Edgenta, Umi Kalsom Yusof is a passionate data scientist who’s skilled in data sourcing, storage, extraction, mining, and manipulation that’s beyond the capacity of conventional tools for AI, Machine Learning, Big Data project.
She’s the Lead for Infrastructure Division in the Data Science Team where she processes, cleanses, and verifies the integrity of data used for analysis. On LinkedIn, she often shares stories of her personal experience as a woman in STEM.
- You can read more about what we wrote on entrepreneurs here.
Featured Image Credit: Bryan Loo / PichaEats / Nadhir Ashafiq
