Industry Advisory Panels

Mr. Anuar brings with him a wealth of experience as he progressed through various management positions in the field of convention centre operations as well as in gastronomy and culinary arts.  As the CEO of PICC he is leading the organisation through its next phase of innovation and growth.  He has the overall responsibility for creating, planning, implementing, and integrating the strategic direction of PICC.

Mr. Ivan Tham has extensive knowledge in food and beverage as well as in human resources management.  In his capacity as human resources manager, he is responsible for coordinating all administrative activities related to his organisation’s personnel.  He is into developing recruitment strategies, implementing systems for managing staff benefits, payroll and behaviour and onboarding new employees.

Mr Heah is the Founder and Group CEO of IRC Group of Companies since 2002 under INTER Group. He holds a Master Degree in Business Administration (MBA) from University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom and has more than 38 years of working experiences in human resource management and post graduate education industry. In view of his consistency in complying with the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Code of Conduct, he has signed Corporate Integrity Pledge with Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in 2014 and successfully completed EICC Lead Auditor Labor & Ethics Program by Verite in 2015.

Mr Heah is currently appointed by Malaysia Ministry of Human Resource as the National Industry Career Advisor to promote and teach the National Career Guider Program under National Occupation Safety and Standards (NOSS). He is also a qualified Trainer and successful completed the HRDF Train The Trainer (TTT) Program. He was awarded the Advanced Diploma in Career Management and Diploma in Career Guidance by The Malaysia Skills Centre, Ministry of Human Resource.

In 2014, he was invited to represent Malaysia in the Asia-Pacific Anti Human Trafficking Conference and had organised many Anti-Human trafficking seminars and programs with MAPO (Council of Anti Human Trafficking and Smuggling of Migrants Malaysia). He was also invited by Intel, Hewlett Packard, Western Digital and Seagate to speak on the best practices in hiring foreign manpower and his leadership experience in completing EICC (VAP) at the MNCs EICC Road Show in Johor, Klang Valley and Penang.

In his endeavour to help Malaysia to achieve to Tier 1 Anti-Trafficking in Persons (ATIP) ranking, Mr Heah is appointed by the Malaysia National Human Resource Association (PUSMA) as the Executive Committee (EXCO) in Anti-Human Trafficking Portfolio.

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He is a proud father of 3 daughters, with 3 qualifications including a Master of Science, a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons). Having been a CEO, a Group COO and a Group GM for several companies, he has accumulated experiences in several industries including logistics, education, property development, software engineering and business consultancy. He continues to be a visiting lecturer for MBA and Professional Qualifying Examination programmes for several institutions.

In 2017, he has left the corporate environment to pursue his passion in education and learning. Being equipped as a Certified Trainer, a Certified NLP Master Practitioner, a Certified Coaching & Mentoring Professional, a Certified Time Line Therapy® Practitioner and a Certified Hypnotherapy Practitioner, he founded Wisdom Woods, an academy which offers learning programmes for children and adults, as well as coaching and research services.

He is also active in community services, being the President of the Penang Symphony Society, the Secretary General of The Society of Logisticians, Malaysia, the Vice Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, Penang Section, the Divisional President of AKCAD 2, AK Corps, St John Ambulance Malaysia and the Chairman of the Kwang Hwa Alunni Society, to name a few.

She has more than 11 years professional experience in providing assurance and consulting services such as risk-based internal audit services, enterprise risk assessment and management, internal controls reviews, risk management and corporate governance reviews for proposed listing, business process reviews and enhancements as well as formulation and documentation of policies and procedures.

Her experience includes providing assurance and consulting services to public listed companies and local corporations ranging from property development, construction, manufacturing and trading sectors to gaming and amusement operations, food industry and shopping complex management. Joyce has wide exposure gained from providing assurance and consulting services in Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Mongolia, Dubai and Malaysia.

Mr. Raja Halim has strong interpersonal skills, being creative, resourceful and well organised are part of his over 26 years of wisdom in the field of events communication.  Over the years of business, he had helped many companies organised and hosted corporates events and road shows. According to Mr. Raja Halim, being in the corporate event management one has to be very competitive and has to bring in high level audio visuals which are the keys for a successful event.

Mr. Lengeswaren is equipped with 15 years of industry experience in the aspects of food and beverage operations.  He has to manage several food and beverage outlets in the hotel.  Planning, forecasting, staffing and delivering an excellent guest experience are part of his job capacity.  His goal is to maximize sales and revenue through customer satisfaction and employee engagement.

Mr. Billy Lee Chan Hoong, PJK, PJM

Deputy President

Penang Chefs Association

Mr. Billy Lee has gained and accumulated 20 over years of culinary and management experiences.  He is also proficient in procurement and food costing.  Mr. Lee had won many accolades and numerous medals by representing the Association in culinary competitions held in Thailand, Taiwan, China and Malaysia.  He is a strong believer in learning is challenging.  Culinary competition serves as a forum to share good practices and at the same to compare the professional level of participants in the culinary arts sector.

Mr. Khoo has a total of over 36 years of work experience in various industries. He has a strong interpersonal skills and passionate in the field of learning and development.  Currently he held the post of Executive Director of StudyPENANG. He is busy promoting Penang as a world-class education hub, increasing awareness and establishing recognition for the education industry.  He envisions that all education institutions in Penang should be working and cooperating as one to attract local and foreign students from neighbouring countries to pursue their studies in Penang through its quality education, affordable living and safe environment.

Mr. Audee Cheah Phee Lee, PKT, PJK

President

Penang Chefs Association

Mr. Audee Cheah has a total of 35 years of work experience in the field of culinary arts. He is passionate in the field of learning and development and nurturing the junior chefs for competition and career development.  As the President of Penang Chefs Association, he is actively promoting Malaysia in the global culinary scene, in particularly Penang state through culinary events.  He strongly believes that having a strong network among chefs would enhance friendships professionally.

Mr. Ch’ng came from a humble beginning and worked his way up to a Director in Human Resources.  He had many years of experience in opening new hotels. He has deep knowledge in human resources in the palms of his hands.  He is abreast with the current human resources issues in the hospitality service industry.  In his role he effectively plans, designs, develops and evaluates human resource-related initiatives that support the organisation strategic goals. He believes in developing a culture that enables employees to perform in accordance to a firm’s objectives.

Mr. Aziz has a strong interpersonal skills and passionate in the field of learning and development.  Has more than 30 years of experience in the hospitality service industry.  He specialises in developing, facilitating and supervising training programmes for his organisation’s employees. He had successfully conducted a wide variety of training programmes that enhance the effectiveness of the hotel’s workforce.

Mr. Ramesh has over 30 years of knowledge and experience in human resources.  He had opened many new hotels, the most memorable and challenging is Shangri-La Hotel in Ulaanbaatar.  One of his responsibilities is to provide an effective and efficient human resource generalist function that is aligned with Shangri-La group’s strategic goals.  He leads and directs the routine functions of the Human Resources department including hiring and interviewing staff, administering pay, benefits and leave, and enforcing company policies and practices.

Mr. Ang has vast experience in the pre-opening of hotels, which include the training and recruitment of staff.  As the hotel’s General Manager, he holds the ultimate responsibility for oversight of a property, including all sales and marketing, operations, events, maintenance, and customer services. He said that in the era of digital transformation, the hotel industry will focus on intensifying on guest personalization.  He is also a hotel consultant; thus enabling him to achieve high standards of customer satisfaction and greater understanding of employee behavior and needs.

Ms. Nirmala Pathmanathan

Director of Human Resources

JEN Penang Georgetown by Shangri-La

Ms. Nirmala has the knowledge and experience in human resources in the palm of her hand.  She is abreast with the current human resources issues in the hospitality service industry.  In her capacity she has plan, direct, and coordinate the administrative functions of an organisation. She also oversees the recruiting, interviewing and hiring of new staff; consult with top executives on strategic planning; and serves as a link between an organisation’s management and its employees.

Tham Choy Yoong’s career spans across industry, business and academia. He began his involvement in tertiary education, particularly in the area of science and engineering, in various capacities since 1995 while he was working in industry. He had acted as external examiner and member of academic quality validation panel for franchised British university programmes in Malaysia. He still serves as a member of the industrial advisory panel of an external programme assessor for such programmes offered by a college in Penang.

After graduating from the University of Malaya in 1973, for 10 years he worked in the public sector, then in industry, followed by another 14½ years operating his own engineering consultancy business. As employer, he gained insight into the training and education of graduate level manpower. He was founding dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Science, Tunku Abdul Rahman University, Kuala Lumpur where he had spent 6 years, and dean, School of Engineering and Science, Wawasan Open University, Penang.

He retired as Professor and acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) of this institution in 2013. Choy Yoong received the PhD in electrical and electronic engineering from Swansea University in 2000 and spent 3½ years as postdoctoral academic staff in the University of Cambridge working in astrophysics. his current interests include open resources, software development, applications and policy issues in open education.

Dr Tan Seow Hwee Tan is the founding CEO of Values First Consulting Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia), an established engineering firm with an international clientele in the semiconductor industry, and Values First, Inc. (USA), a tech company providing augmented reality apps to enable innovative solutions for industries world-wide. He holds a Ph.D. in Digital Signal Processing and a M.Eng in Instrumentation and Electronics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY. Prior to founding Values First Consulting and Values First, Inc., he was managing Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) projects at Intel Technology Sdn Bhd, Intel Corporation’s largest Assembly/Test plant from 1992-1997.

At Intel, Dr. Tan was a pioneer in introducing SECSII equipment interface, wafermapping capability and automated SEMI Standards-based data collection and analysis, among others, as part of his overall responsibility for data automation at the plant. Prior to that, he worked as a researcher/inventor from 1990-1992 for the R&D Department of Walt Disney Imagineering (of the Walt Disney Co.) in Glendale, CA., in projects ranging from real time voice transformation to virtual reality.

Dr. Tan’s experience also extends to the industrial automation arena. From 1985-1986 he was a Senior Officer at the German Singapore Institute of the Singapore EDB, where he implemented robotic workcell projects and conducted industrial automation courses for the local industry. A co-inventor of US Patent 5,327,521 entitled “Speech Transformation”, Dr. Tan continues to identify and work in a number of areas of technology that may be applied for the advancement of modern society.

Mahfooz NR is a low profiled published photographer, the former editor and one of the pioneers who started CLICK!, a local based digital photography magazine. In his early years, he was a columnist for Photo Asia, a Singapore based regional photography magazine, photojournalist and assigned photographer to International Freelance Photographers Organization (I.F.P.O.), World Wildlife Fund for Nature (W.W.F.) and National Geographic Society (N.G.S.). Some of his very early works have also been published in Fotografik Malaysia magazine and Utusan Melayu/Malaysia newspapers.

His works have been showcased in the Islamic Heritage and Culture Exhibitions throughout the world since he was very young. He was also the editor of Camerasia magazine (for Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand editions) and Imaging Channels, a photographic trade magazine meant for the photographic dealers, distributors and manufacturers circulation. He has conducted numerous photography workshops with CLICK! magazine, on his own and also for Nikon Malaysia. Now he’s in charge of the Nikon Professional Services (NPS), a department providing technical and service support to Nikon professional photographers worldwide, including press/media, commercial, studio, sports, wildlife etc.

During his work as the head of NPS, he’s been sent to 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, London 2012 Olympic Games and Incheon 2014 Asian Games. He’s also conducting extra-oral photography workshops to dental post grad students and practicing dentists since 2010 until now. He has also been involved in outlining the syllabus of photography and multimedia faculties plus being one of the External Assessor and Industry Advisor for UUM and Disted College.

Bringing and sharing over 30 years HR experience from multiple corporate cultures at different regions (local and global), different HR disciplines in managing human resources (from resource planning, talent acquisition, talent management to talent in/out placement) by applying multiple methodologies, tools & technologies. With hands-on strategic and tactical HR exposure, I believe in deploying & enriching a new generation of HR practitioners and aspirants to learn and sharpen their HR skills and competencies.

Silviana Bonadei is an experiences Special Educator on emotional and learning difficulties, and has served under the ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross prior to relocating to Penang. Silviana established and currently coordinates the activities of the 2 Way Centre which provide assessment and intervention for the special needs as well as training for teachers. One of the founding member of the Penang Child Trauma Psychosocial Response Team, she is also a volunteer with Mercy Malaysia.

Dato’ Dr Lai has been practicing psychiatry at Penang General Hospital since 1994. He trained in child & adolescent psychiatry in Oxford in 2001 and upon return to Penang, he established services for child psychiatry, special education assessment and intervention through the Penang Mental Health Association. He also conducted awareness programmes on various aspects of mental health including depression and suicide prevention. Dato’ Dr Lai also established the Penang Psychosocial Trauma Response Team and also conducts training in psychosocial trauma response in the aftermath of disasters. Dato’ Dr Lai is also trained in cognitive behavior therapy and family therapy.

Indranee Liew has 30 years’ experience teaching in Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Oxford from early years to tertiary level. With a first degree in law, Indranee chose teaching as a career and pursued further qualifications in education, English language teaching and special education. She is an experienced tertiary and school administrator and is English Speaking examiner for a renowned UK university. Indranee is an engaging and inspiring IGCSE First Language English & Geography teacher and a HRDF Certified Trainer.

With a postgraduate qualification in education from University of Leicester, Indranee who holds Qualified Teacher Status in UK, taught Literacy and English Language to mainstream Key Stage 1, Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 students in England in 2001 – 2002. She worked with Year 7 special needs students on literacy and reading skills. Indranee also taught one term of GCE ‘A’ level Government & Politics in UK, having prior experience of teaching ‘A’ level Law and Business in a college in Kuala Lumpur from 1990 – 1994.

Indranee’s passion for helping people has led her to train in counselling, cognitive behaviour therapy, disaster mental health, play & expressive arts therapy and family therapy. She works with children and adolescents in school settings on developing learning skills and emotional regulation. In 2015, Indranee was invited by the Asia Society for Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (ASCAPAP) to co-facilitate a workshop on psychosocial response techniques for child and adolescent victims of trauma.

Indranee has presented 21 papers at national and international conferences and has 2 publications in her name. She is frequently invited for public talks on mental health, parenting and behaviour management. Indranee consults to international schools on the UK Curriculum & IGCSE, Behaviour Management, Special Education and Teaching Skills. She also conducts training in early childhood education. Indranee sits on the Penang Education Council and Wawasan Open University (Penang) Research Ethics Board. She is active in community service pertaining to mental health and education and is member of Penang Mental Health Association and Penang Association of Counselling & Psychology.