Prior to co-founding Ikhlas, Nazir led CIMB as Chairman from 2014 to 2018, and as Group CEO from 1999 to 2014. As Group CEO of CIMB, he spearheaded CIMB’s transformation from a local investment bank to the fifth largest universal bank in ASEAN, the largest Asia Pacific-based investment bank and a world leader in Islamic finance. He served on the Investment Panel of the Employees Provident Fund (2002 to 2017) and the board of Khazanah Nasional (2014 to 2018). Nazir is currently the Chairman of PLS Plantations and Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Berhad, a development finance institution.

Nazir has received some of the most prestigious awards from international journals and institutions as a banker and a corporate leader. He is recognised as a passionate advocate of ASEAN through his achievements at CIMB, founding of the ASEAN Business Club and inaugural chairmanship of the World Economic Forum ASEAN Regional Strategy Group. He is currently the Chairman of ASEAN Business Advisory Council Malaysia.

Nazir holds a BSc from Bristol University and an MPhil from Cambridge University. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and at the Blavatnik School of Government (“BSG”), Oxford University. He is also currently a member of the BSG’s International Advisory Board.

One of Asia’s most recognisable entrepreneurs, Tony Fernandes is best known for co-founding low-cost carrier AirAsia with Datuk Kamarudin Meranun in 2001 and democratising air travel in the region. Since 2018, Fernandes has been spearheading a digital transformation of his businesses, launching AirAsia’s super app in October 2020, a comprehensive travel and lifestyle platform which offers flights, hotels, e-hailing services, food, and edutech products. He is currently the CEO of Capital A, an investment holding company with a diverse portfolio of synergistic businesses, including aviation, fintech BigPay and logistics venture Teleport.”

Fernandes studied at Epsom College and the London School of Economics and Political Science in the UK, and qualified as an Associate Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in 1991 and Fellow Member in 1996.

An accountant by training, Fernandes began his career in Richard Branson’s Virgin Group before returning to Malaysia as Warner Music Group’s Vice President for Southeast Asia before venturing into the airline and digital businesses. Fernandes has received numerous honours and awards over the course of his career.

These include the Honour of the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, conferred by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2011, and the Commander of the Legion d’Honneur, awarded by the French government for his outstanding contributions towards the economy of France through the aviation industry. He also received the Panglima Setia Mahkota (PSM) award conferred by Yang Di Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin, which carries the title Tan Sri.

As one of the world’s leading floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) service providers, Yinson Holdings Bhd is setting standards in the way offshore oil and gas production is managed through a modern fleet of purposebuilt offshore production assets and offshore support vessels.

At the age of 30, Lim Chern Yuan (CY) became the Group CEO of Yinson in 2014. Although he was much younger than most of his peers in the industry, CY proved his leadership skills during the Great Oil Crash that year. Prior to becoming the Group CEO, CY had spent nine years working in the company, starting off as a Business Development Executive. Throughout those years, CY actively learnt the ropes of the business. His entrepreneurial mind was constantly thinking through new strategies to remain on the cutting edge, whilst balancing out the risks that they presented.

Yinson was founded in 1983 by CY’s father, Lim Han Weng, as a humble transport company in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Twenty years later, Yinson became one of Malaysia’s biggest transport companies. In 2011, Yinson ventured into the oil and gas industry through a joint venture. Since then, Yinson has grown tremendously and its geographical presence extends across the world, from West Africa to Europe, the Americas and South East Asia.