I am a Chartered Accountant of Malaysia and a Fellow Member of ACCA.  I have completed my ACCA in 1995 and admitted as associate member of ACCA and subsequently Malaysia Institute of Accountants in year 2001.

Started my career in 1996 as audit assistant in L H Lee & Co, an audit firm in Kuala Lumpur.  During the first 1½ years as audit assistant, I was mainly assigned to help out the audit senior in their audit and tax field work.  Occasionally, will be given a task to handle and complete a small company audit and tax fieldwork.  Subsequently, as a result from the resignation of my senior, I was given the opportunity to take over his portfolio and lead a small team.  Ever since taking over the portfolio as a team leader, I was give various exposure various industries ranging from investment holdings to manufacturing and also construction companies of single company stage as well as consolidation.  Besides the audit and tax field work, my task as a team leader involved training and supervising 3 junior staff, planned and designed the audit work for the subordinate, review and supervise the work progress in order to meet the dateline.

After resigning from L H Lee & Co., I joined Golden Plus Holdings Bhd (GPHB) in January 1999, holding the position of Accountant.  My duties and responsibilities are to assist the Group Accountant in the operation of the Finance Department for 6 subsidiaries, which are involved in the quarrying, manufacturing and sale of premix and road construction. Total staff count under my care at that period of time was 7

My other responsibilities include:

·        Conducting, monitoring and improving the internal control system of the companies

·        Provide suggestion and proposal on the current system as well as implementing changes agreed upon

·        Preparation of financial and cost projection on ad hoc basis

·        Preparation of annual budget

·        Treasury management

With effective on 28th February 2001, GPHB has disposed off the 6 subsidiaries, which involves in quarrying and ready mixed concrete business, to RMC Industries (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (RMCI), a wholly owned subsidiary of RMC Group PLC in UK.  Along side with the takeover, all the staff under these 6 subsidiaries will be absorbed by RMCI as well, in which all our employment terms remained status quo.  With the secondment, my job responsibilities remain relatively unchanged but an added portfolio will be on the group consolidation.  As my job portfolio has increase, the total number of staff under my care has increased as well from the original 7 person to 15 person.  The increase in the number of headcounts as RMCI had already 7 existing staff which were preparing for the Concrete Division accounts.

When we first joined RMC, our reporting dateline has cut down from previous 15 days to only 5 days and only given 3 months grace periods to fully adopt to the tight reporting dateline.  During the transitional period, I had a lot of discussion with my subordinate in order for me to understand the potential problems that they are facing if such a tight dateline to be followed.  Follow up is the discussion with the operation department as to which level of assistance that they can give us in order for us to meet the dateline, and after listening to the both side of their story, eventually find a balance point to even out the work process.  And with that, manage to fully adapts to the RMC culture after 2nd month, we are continuously looking forward to better our work process.

In Jan 2002, I was promoted as Finance Manager and with the promotion; I was given additional responsibilities on Group Treasury Management.  Year 2002 was an exciting year for RMC in Malaysia as it has adopted an aggressive expansion plan.  This is where and investment committee was form and I was being absorbed into this team together with a Senior Marketing Manager and an Operation Manager.  The following are the summary of the investment proposal that were carried out:-

Lumut – Premix Plant

·        Cost of investment: RM200,000

·        Period of completion: 7 weeks; being initial work has been carried out by Country Manager and we are then follow up on the remaining works.

·        Success rate: 100% as the returns of initial capital outlay of RM200,000 was fully recovered within 5 months of its operation, due to sudden demand of premix (unexpected windfall) resulted from one of our competitor was unable to re-commission their new premix plant on time.

Bukit Tambun – Quarry Plant

·        Cost of investment: RM9,500,000

·        Period of completion: 10 months as it involve from the initial feasibility study and market research, identifying of best possible quarry plant set up and obtaining government approval to profit forecast for 7 years and presentation of top management, subsequent implementation and follow up of the quarry set up etc.

·        Success rate: 95%, as we have burst our original budgeted cost of investment by additional RM500,000 which was due to softer ground at that area and we have to incur additional cost to put concrete slab before the quarry plant can be set up.

·        Came out with a price reduction program for cash sales in order to generate positive cash flow for the working capital, which has been used up for the concrete slab.

·        Actual results from this operation were doing better than our initial profit forecast by approximately 25%.

Bukit Tambun – Premix Plant

·        Cost of investment: RM450,000

·        Period of completion: 2 months.  Shorter period required because during our process of obtaining approval from the government on operating the quarry plant, we submit our application for premix operation together.

·        Success rate: 95%, as the actual results from this operation is doing better than our initial profit forecast by approximately 15%.

Lumut – Quarry Plant

·        Cost of investment: RM5,500,000

·        Period of completion: 5 months as it is a take over from the existing operator.  Out of the 5 months period, 70% of it mainly of refurbish of plant & machinery to put back into best operating condition.

·        Success rate: 35%, as we are too optimistic about the market condition.  Unexpected take over by our competitor (LaFarge) on another nearby quarry took us by surprise and that has reduced our market share from 65% to 40%

Melaka – Cement Sand Dust Bricks

·        Cost of investment: RM425,000

·        This project was not implemented after our feasibility study as the management are of the opinion that bricks manufacturing is not the main core business and it has deviate from the corporate policy of focusing on core business. 

·        The reason of carrying out the feasibility study is mainly because of excess quarry dust stock in our Melaka operation and we are trying to create internal demand to push the quarry dust instead of keeping it as stock and tied down our working capital.

My other achievements during my tenure in RMC were as follow:-

·        Carried out an internal audit on 1 of the subsidiaries on inventory control and lead a team of accounts staff and MIS executive to implement new computerised system in which it mitigates the stock loss situation of approximately RM160K.

·        After moving into RMC, we are required to submit a monthly rolling forecast to UK.  Because this is a monthly affair, we could not come out with a very detailed forecast as what we usually do in our annual budget process.  I have actually come out with a simplified forecast template and though it is simplified form and yet it would not deterred the top management from decision-making process where important KPIs are still available for monitoring. 

In Jan 2005, CEMEX, another global cement player, had acquired RMC globally and subsequently undertook a massive organisation restructuring.  The Finance Team now will have to report directly to the Mexico HQ and due to the time zone difference couple with being the Head of Department, I have spent almost 20 hours in office and been working under such condition for 3 months and finally decided to quit CEMEX.

In June 2005, I joined FCW Holdings Bhd as Group Finance Manager.  My recruitment into this organisation is not merely just to lead the Finance Team but also assist the Group Financial Controller in business feasibility study.  FCW, at that time, was only a distributor of Motorola walkie talkie, and with only 1 main core business, the revenue generated is way below our paid up share capital and if we do not take necessary action to increase the revenue stream of the group, we will fall under PN17 Category.  During these periods, the business feasibility study and profit forecast that we had carried out and presented to the Board of Directors were as follow:-

Korea BBQ Chicken Restaurant

·        To franchise this brand, which is a hit in Korea, and the initial agreement with the Korea Franchiser was to open 20 outlets in 4 years.

·        Period of completion: approximately 4 months

·        Our feasibility study had identified 4 locations for the start of this business, which were potentially to be the flagship outlets of this new brand into Malaysia and all these locations were in the major shopping mall in Klang Valley.

·         Our proposal turned down by the Board of Director, and reason given was that stiff competition from other fast food concept as well as the strong brand of KFC will means we had to spent a lot in marketing in promoting this brand, which will then bring down the ROI of the investment.

Cosmetics Products from Korea

·        To act as main distributor of this very well know cosmetic brand in Korea, The Face Shop, which were very popular in Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

·        Period of completion: approximately 4 months

·        Our feasibility study also identified the same locations in the major shopping mall in Klang Valley.

·        Our proposal turned down by Board of Director, citing reason of competitiveness and not a very well known brand in Malaysia.  However, we subsequently learnt that our Chairman has actually brought in this brand into Malaysia through his privately owned company.

I left FCW Holdings Bhd on 15 July 2006 and joined Kajang Rocks Quarry Sdn Bhd as a Group Finance Manager.  My recruitment is mainly to help the CEO of the new premix division in setting up the premix operation system and to maintain and improve the internal control system of the Group.  Since the Company was awarded for ISO 9001, again was appointed as the Quality Representative of the Group to liaison with the official from SIRIM.  My task as the Group Finance Manager were summarized as follow:_

·        Ensure timely and accurate preparation of 2 subsidiaries and holding company monthly management accounts;

·        Supervising 4 accounts staff in day to day operation;

·        Preparation of monthly group management report to be tabled for management meeting;

·        Preparation of quarterly group consolidation accounts for Board Meeting;

·        Monitoring group cash flow and treasury function;

·        In charge of the Group ISO compliance procedures and conduct internal audit on quarterly basis;

·        Responsible for group credit control as well as group insurance matters;

·        Preparation of group annual budget;

·        Work hand in hand with the CEO (premix division) on the business operations;

·        Carried investment appraisal for new business opportunity

In Aug 2007, I was introduced to the Group Managing Director of Revenue Valley Group, which is the operator a chain restaurant (The Manhattan Fish Market, Tony Roma’s, Sushi Groove and London Fish Tales).  After a few rounds of social meet up, unexpectedly he offered me the Financial Controller position in his company, which I gladly accepted the offer.

My major task as Financial Controller were summarized as followed:

• To lead the accounts & finance department, procurement department, internal audit department and MIS department; strategise yearly goals and objective to achieve the Group Vision.
• To ensure timely and accurate reporting on expenditure provision and management reporting and ensure that the business and financial objective is achieved.
• To provide accurate and timely submission of tax returns and computation that is in compliance with the regulatory requirements.
• To build effective relationship to enhance the company’s business and statutory reputation within the local legal framework and provide support during the audit process through external auditors.
• To ensure that the audited financial statements comply with FRS and local accounting and auditing standards.
• To ensure liquidity is sufficient to pay debts when it is due and ensure that employees and suppliers can be paid in accordance with the relevant deadlines.
• Keep up to date market trends and new development, utilising this information for business development and improvement.
• To lead, motivate and empower staff through effective and open communication, excellent leadership and regular performance feedback and team building.
• To create a career development path for the staff to grow within the organisation.
• Work closely and supports Company’s strategic planning and execution of the F&B business and future growth.
• To enhance management system to function on a long term basis.

During my tenure as the Financial Controller, the following are some of my achievement summarized as follow:-

• Assist the Operation Team in successfully opening 6 outlets, which were the Sushi Groove (1) in Sunway Pyramid, Tony Roma’s (1) in Pavillion, London Fish Tales (1) in Kota Baru, The Mahanttan Fish Market in Sarawak (2) and Sabah (1).
• Write up a complete SOP for inventory count and conduct the first ever year-end inventory count across the group.
• Set up internal audit team, which was spearheaded by me, in conducting internal control check at outlet level.
• Complete the fixed asset tagging process across the group, which was not carried out since the first day of its operation
• Consolidate and work closely with the Thailand accountant in updating and cleaning up the accounts, which were messed up by the previous Thailand accountant.

Since my major job function to prepare the company for IPO listing, I had also started the discussion and work preparation with the appointed consultant, PwC Consulting Group, for the possibility of getting private equity funding for Revenue Valley Group and subsequently to allow the Private Equity Fund to cash out via IPO listing.  However, my wife suffered some form of difficulties in her pregnancy and the situation has been worse when come to November.  I requested for an unpaid leave for 1 month to take care of my wife but my request was rejected.  After looking into the situation, I decided to tender my resignation to take care of my wife for that moment. 

Since then, I decided to be a freelance consultant as this gave me more flexibility in time to settle and taking care of my family.  During this period of time, I have been appointed as consultant by The Syuen Hotel in Ipoh to carry out an extensive review exerice internal control system, as well as review the procurement system to integrate with their system migration to ERP.  The project successfully completed in 4 months.  Thereafter, working as a consultant for a company in setting up and operates a fusion restaurant in Kota Damansara.  The work involve from feasibility study, setting up (which inclusive of restaurant design, hiring of workers to application of respective business licenses) and now helps to operate the restaurant, which is up and running in June’10.

In Jun’10, I re-join the employment market and took up the position as Finance Manager in Codemaster Studios Sdn Bhd.  This role is simply a one man show as I was hands on preparing the management accounts and reporting to UK Finance Team. 

After 2year plus with Codemaster Sutdios, I was pinched by Chaswood Resources Sdn Bhd as Financial Controller.  My task as financial controller were summarised as follow:

·         Provide guidance and support to 1 Accounts Manager and 2 Assistant Accounts Managers in their daily running of the Accounts Department operation and ensuring timely and accurate preparation of the management accounts.

·         Provide guidance and support to the Finance Manager in his daily running of the Finance and Treasury Department operation and ensuring the cash flow.

·         Overseeing the financial operations of subsidiary companies in Indonesia and China.

·         Preparation of the monthly consolidation accounts as well as the Quarterly Financial Results for Board Meeting.

·         Develop and implement finance, accounting, cash monitoring and PPE control procedures

·         Preparation of yearly budget

·         Assist CFO in strategic planning and execution ie monitor and direct the implementation of the budget and strategic plans, develop tax strategies in minimising tax liabilities of the Group

·         Liaising with IRB officers and Royal Customs Department officers on the IRB tax audit as well as the Sales and Service Tax Audit findings, subsequent negotiation of reducing the potential tax penalties.

·         Assist in the internal Due Diligent Audit on the taking over the China operations from the then franchisee in China

·         To lead, motivate and empower staff through effective and open communication, excellent leadership and regular performance feedback and team building.

·         To create a career development path for the staff to grow within the organisation.

During my tenure as the Financial Controller, the following are some of my achievement summarized as follow:-

• Spearheading the accounting system migration for Chaswood Resources Group from Focus to Autocount.  Successfully in implementation of the inventory system for the Central Kitchen.
• Spearheading the implementation of GST system for Chaswood Resources Group.
• Develop a more efficient way of doing the Group Consolidation Reporting Package analysis by building an Excel Template with automated formulation, which cut down the preparation time of group consolidation reporting package from 5 days to 2 days.
• Redesign the Monthly Management Report and Weekly sales report for better and more detailed information for the management.
• Setting up finance and accounting team in China after taking over from the then TGI Fridays team in China.
• After taking over the China operation, restructure the accounting and finance department in Malaysia to streamline the reporting structure to achieve faster and better management reporting system for the BOD.

During my tenure in Teh Tarik Culture Sdn Bhd, the following are some of my achievement summarized as follow:-

• Successfully revamp the brand of Lancelot and change the concept from Lancelot Tea Guild to Lancelot Dining
• Spearheaded 2 menu change changes during the tenure
• Lead the operation team and eventually being awarded by Carimakan Asia.com for Malaysia Top Ten Supreme Cuisine Brand Award in June 2018.