ECB20403 (E-MARKETING)

SUMMARY WEBINAR ASSESSMENT

“THE BROWN BAG SERIES BY PEMANDU ASSOCIATES SESSION
WITH TAN SRI ABDUL WAHID OMAR”

SEMESTER SEPTEMBER (2021)

PREPARED BY:
NAME STUDENT’S ID CLASS
SYAZA NAJIEHA BINTI MUHAMMAD NAZRI 62212120565 IB10
NUR AYUNNI BINTI MOHD RADZUAN 62212120558

PREPARED FOR:
DR. KHAIRUL SHAHIDA BINTI SHABI

DATE OF SUBMISSIONS:
19TH NOVEMBER 2021
The Brown Bag Series: Purposeful Leadership – Lesson Learnt in transforming UEM, TM, Maybank and
more

PEMANDU associate has created a new platform which called The Brown Bag Series to gather
views from the leaders from different professional industries. The Brown Bag Series has given a positive
impact as people who join the webinar able the gain new knowledge from the presenters in different fields.
During this session, PEMANDU associates has invited Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Abdul Wahid Omar to share his
knowledge and experience at UEM Group Berhad, Maybank, TM, EPU and more.

The webinar began with the Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Abdul Wahid Omar’s career journey. He started by
introducing himself by sharing his educational journey from his secondary school and pursue his studies to
UK and comeback as chartered accountant. Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Abdul Wahid Omar was appointed as CEO
of Maybank on 1 May 2008. During his tenure with Maybank, it experienced three major challenges.
Maybank worked extremely hard and within 18 months (about 1 and a half years) executing the
performance improvement program called LEAP30, Maybank was back as the number one bank in
Malaysia, and the most valuable company listed in Bursa Malaysia. However, they were worried about its
sustainability and decided to adopt a new mission of Humanizing Financial Services.

With vast experience, Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Abdul Wahid Omar listed 4 guidelines on organizational
sustainability which are, (1) need to select the right leader for respective organizations. Organization is
a group of people working together to achieve a certain mission. In the same group of people, there is a
leader who is responsible for guiding them. According to Tan Sri, to become a good and sustainable leader,
it goes beyond working hard and working smart. It requires unquestionable integrity, competence, and
humility. (2) Have proper succession planning and talent development program. The larger the
organizations, the more potential candidates needed. Companies need to be clear with the candidates’ state
of readiness and intervention required to prepare them to succeed in the incumbent. Furthermore, the
potential candidates do not only limit internal talent, but also external talent. The importance of bringing in
external talent is to refresh the organization and bring in external perspectives. Tan Sri said 15% - 20% of
senior positions should be filled by external promotions. (3) Embrace diversity as a source of strength.
Diversity is vast. It could be in terms of skills, gender, ethnicity, age, and even nationality for multinational
organizations. It is time for companies to break the taboo and begin to explore and embrace diversities. For
instance, Malaysia encourages women empowerment by leading important national institutions such as
BNM, PIDM, KWAP, etc. proving women at the same par as men. (4) Be conscious of the Affinity-
Prejudice continuum. Affinity in the working environment is normal, yet it must be contained before it
turns to favoritism or worse, cronyism.

To conclude, this talk allowed us to discover the underlying history of a few big companies and
learn from the leader himself. We get that to operate an organization, or a business requires quality leader,
good management, and clear goals. The three components are related to each other. A leader is not just
about making decisions for the company, a right leader provides employees with two-way communication,
decent company culture and complies with the standard and rules of corporate and is an example for the
employees. From there, employees are convinced of the company and create great teamwork together which
results in good management. The passion of a company is driven by clear goals. Goals are meant to be
accomplished, therefore, throughout the journey, a company could measure their progress. Before the talk
ends, Tan Sri guaranteed us, Malaysia is doing well and operates a lot better than most countries, in our
personal view, as Malaysians, it is such a relieved and touched phrase to hear.