Abdul Wahid Omar

Tan Sri Dato' Sri Abdul Wahid bin Omar was appointed as Group Chairman of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) on 1 August 2016 following completion of his term as a Senator and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Economic Planning from June 2013 to June 2016. Prior to his Cabinet appointment,^[1] he was the President & CEO of Maybank, Malaysia's largest public listed company and one of the leading financial services groups in Southeast Asia.

With over 28 years of corporate and public sector experience, Tan Sri Wahid is well regarded as one of the most versatile CEOs having led three major organisations in financial services, telecommunications and infrastructure development. He successfully led the transformation of Telekom Malaysia into a regional telecommunications group (prior to its demerger with Axiata in 2008) and spearheaded the successful turnaround of the UEM Group, Malaysia's leading infrastructure conglomerate following its takeover by Khazanah Nasional in 2001.

Tan Sri Wahid is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), United Kingdom, a member of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW). Over the years, he has received many accolades including Malaysia's CEO of the Year Award 2006 by Business Times/American Express, Asian Banker's 2013 Leadership Achievement Award for Malaysia and The Edge Value Creator Award 2013.

United Engineers (Malaysia) Berhad (UEM) & UEM World Berhad (2001-2004)

In October 2001, Tan Sri Wahid was appointed as MD/CEO for the UEM Group. The takeover by Khazanah Nasional back then received mixed reactions. The first step that Tan Sri Wahid did to address these predicaments was to unlock the value of its highway concessions led by PLUS Expressways. The toll concession was reviewed to lower the toll rate increase (from 5% pa to 3.2% pa) but increased every 3 years. This allowed space for UEM's debts to be restructured and thereafter undertook its IPO listing on Bursa Malaysia in July 2002. Another step taken by Tan Sri Wahd was to dispose the non-core assets in order to reduce the Group's debt to a more manageable level.

After 2 and a half years later, the Group's debt was halved to a more sustainable level of RM16 billion with the bulk of it in the form of project financing. The UEM Group was back on profitable track with annual profit of RM500 million and revalued net assets of RM10 billion. Khazanah Nasional not only achieved its main objectives in the takeover but also doubled the value of its investments within 3 years.

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) (2004-2008)

Tan Sri Wahid returned to TM as CEO in July 2004 as part of the larger transformation plan of GLCs. He was given a mandate to transform TM into a regional telecommunications company with a particular emphasis on mobile communications. His experience in turning around UEM Group and being the CFO of TM before gave him a very conducive environment to carry out the mandate.

Having addressed the fundamentals of the business (organisationally, culturally, customer service wise, business wise) and as a part of the efforts to enhance shareholder value, it was decided that the TM Group would be better off being demerged into two separate listed entities. TM International (now known as Axiata Group) with Celcom and other regional mobile communications business under its wings were successfully demerged and listed on Bursa Malaysia in April 2008.

This left TM being repositioned as the National High Speed Broadband (HSBB) Champion spearheading the national HSBB deployment in Public Private Partnership with the Government of Malaysia. The demerger "unleashed" Axiata Group to grow further across Asia.

Maybank (2008-2013)

In May 2008, Tan Sri Wahid was appointed as President and CEO of Maybank, replacing Tan Sri Amirsham Abdul Aziz who was then appointed as a Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) after the 12th General Election.

In the three months prior to his arrival, Maybank finalised three major acquisitions', An Binh Bank in Vietnam, Bank International Indonesia (BII) and MCB Bank in Pakistan. He faced three major challenges in the first few months at Maybank. Firstly, he had to follow through on the three major acquisitions costing some RM11 billion and to raise the necessary equity and debt capital required to fund the acquisitions. Second, to deal with the Global Financial Crisis that was unfolding with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, among others, in September 2008. And third, to improve the financial performance of Maybank.

While the corporate finance team was busy completing the three acquisitions, the rest of the management and staff members were busy implementing the performance improvement programme called LEAP30 - a series of 30 initiatives identified to improve Maybank's performance and restore its market leadership.

After 18 months, assets and deposits grew faster, customer service enhanced, asset quality improved and profit after tax bounced back to a record RM3.8 billion for financial year 2010. Maybank was back as the number one bank in Malaysia and the most valuable company listed on Bursa Malaysia.

Though this left the team, Board and shareholders happy, there was still a concern when it came to sustainability. Professional fatigue was evident and there was a need to revise the organisational structure and revisit the company's mission. Thus, a "Tiger Summit" was held in Putrajaya which gathered the top 1,000 managers and leaders. This summit agreed to adopt a new mission for Maybank of Humanising Financial Services. This means:

To provide people with convenient access to financing, To provide fair terms and pricing, Advising customers based on their needs and; Being at the heart of the community.

This was not just a rallying call but a reason for being for the 40,000 Maybankers in Malaysia and across Asia. Organisationally, a new "House of Maybank" was created with three business pillars of Community Financial Services, Global Wholesale Banking and Insurance & Takaful with Islamic Financial Services and International Operations straddling across the three business pillars.

With the new mission and new "house", Maybank continued to extend its leadership not only as the number one bank in Malaysia but also as one of the top regional banking groups with presence across all ten ASEAN countries.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, in charge of Economic Planning Unit (2013-2016)

Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar, was appointed as a Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of Economic Planning on 5 June 2013. He oversees a number of government agencies such as Economic Planning Unit, Public-Private Partnership Unit (UKAS), Department of Statistics, Ekuiti Nasional Berhad (EKUINAS) and Talent Corporation (TALENCORP), TERAJU and Yayasan Pendidikan Peneraju Bumiputera.

Being appointed (non-elected) as one of the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department is a humbling experience for Abdul Wahid Omar. He pledge that he will do everything in his power to help Malaysia in achieving the vision 2020 mission. He states that he will use his vast banking experience to help Malaysia by applying it in his department.^[2]

He was a member of the Board of Directors of Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council, Council member of East Coast Economic Region Development Council (ECERDC), Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA), Council Member of Aerospace Malaysia, Board Member of Yayasan Peneraju Pendidikan Bumiputera and Chairman of Investment Committee of Innovation Agency of Malaysia.^[3]

Awards

More recently in June 2016, he was conferred with Panglima Setia Mahkota (PSM) award by His Majesty Seri Paduka Baginda Yang DiPertuan Agong for his invaluable contributions to the Country.

Asian Banker Award

The Asian Banker and the Council of Advisers for the Leadership Achievement Awards were impressed with Abdul Wahid's achievements in managing Maybank.

“Abdul Wahid's biggest challenge as CEO in 2010 was when he had to regain shareholder confidence after net profit declined sharply from RM2.93bil in 2008 to RM692mil in 2009 due to the impairment of acquisition investment in BII and MCB Bank of Pakistan."^[4]

References

Second Najib cabinet (2013–present)
Prime Minister: Najib Razak
Muhyiddin Yassin Ahmad Zahid Hamidi Shahidan Kassim Jamil Khir Baharom Idris Jala Abdul Wahid Omar Paul Low Seng Kuan Nancy Shukri Joseph Kurup Joseph Entulu Belaun Wee Ka Siong Mah Siew Keong Azalina Othman Said Abdul Rahman Dahlan Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah Johari Abdul Ghani Hishammuddin Hussein Mustapa Mohamed Ong Ka Chuan Idris Jusoh Mahdzir Khalid Palanivel Govindasamy Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor Liow Tiong Lai Ismail Sabri Yaakob Ahmad Shabery Cheek Subramaniam Sathasivam Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz Noh Omar Anifah Aman Richard Riot Jaem Hasan Malek Hamzah Zainudin Shafie Apdal Fadillah Yusof Ewon Ebin Wilfred Madius Tangau Maximus Johnity Ongkili Douglas Uggah Embas Rohani Abdul Karim Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar Mohd. Salleh Said