Friday, January 15, 2010

Live & Inspire Series - Dato' Sri Abdul Wahid Omar

Congrats to Tim Fernandez and his team for bringing out yet another successful Live & Inspire Series, and today, it featured Dato' Sri Abdul Wahid Omar - CEO of Maybank (Former CEO of Telekom Malaysia and Former CEO of UEM)


To join Live & Inspire Series' Facebook Page, it is at http://www.facebook.com/liveandinspire .

For today's talk, am going to copy the sharings that are posted in the Live & Inspire Facebook page for all to learn.

1. 9th out of 11 children. Had a tough childhood. First break through was going into boarding school - MRSM Seremban.
2. Leaders are not born. Each and everyone of us has a chance to be a leader.
3. Qualities of a good leader : A visionary, an inspiring person, knowledgeable, a person open and prepared to learn from team member.
4. No corporation can claim to be Regional Leader if home base is not stable 
5. I wanted to create changes so that they didn't live in poverty anymore.
6. I have made mistakes before but what is important is for me to learn from them. Some of them are personal in nature and some of them are from my career. I don't have any regrets. I'm so blessed in my life.
7. I'm the worst example of work/life balance. I work from 12 to 16 hours a day. I want to make sure this year I do not stay in the office past 12 midnight. (Having said that, I have stayed past midnight twice already this month.) Though I work hard, I am grateful to spend time with my wife, 2 daughter and parents. Quality of the time matters.
8. I went through a government education system. Many of my management colleagues went to local universities. There are challenges, however I don't think we should generalize that the local educational system are bad. I think we should stop complaining about how bad the school system is here, and do something about it to make it better.
9. Innovation cannot be dictated by the CEO, as the CEO I provide the platform.
10. The reason why I am where I am is because I am always hungry to do more.
11. 1/3 of my times is spent on meetings , 1/3 on the governance and the business, 1/3 on client engagement
12. Always be hungry to learn and do more work.
13. H.O.T. culture at Maybank - I encourage honesty, openness, and trust.
14. I learn a lot of my leadership skills on the job I've been blessed to work with a lot of inspiring people.

Enjoy learning!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Chen Chow,

just came across this post.
Thankkkkkkkkkkk you so much for this. :)

Chen Chow said...

Tim, it is my pleasure to share on it.

Great job in building up the series!