Industry Advisory Panels

Dato’ Ooi Kok Seng

Partner

KPMG

Kok Seng is a Chartered Accountant by profession and he has been with KPMG Malaysia for 32 years with extensive audit, accounting and advisory experiences both in Malaysia and USA. He has the distinction of being involved in numerous large cross-border mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and successful listing of companies on the local and foreign Stock Exchanges. He currently heads the KPMG Northern Region practice and the Shared Services Outsourcing Advisory function in KPMG Malaysia. He also sits on the Executive Committee of KPMG Malaysia.

He plays an active role in promoting the accounting profession in the Northern region and served the Malaysian Institute of Accountants as its Regional Chairman from 2008 to 2013 and was a member of the Penang State Services Advisory Panel during that period. He also contributes immensely in promoting Penang as the destination of choice for Global Business Services (“GBS”) Hub and encourages foreign investors to relocate or set up their GBS hub in Penang. He currently sits in the Penang State Government Shared Services Outsourcing and Creative Multimedia Content Council.

Besides contributing his time to the accounting profession and business community, he has also spent five years in the Steering Committee of Penang Tech Centre Berhad (“PTC”) in developing the first Science Discovery Centre in Penang. He was made a Director of PTC in 2017.

Mr Tan Kee Kwong aka Coach K

Coach

FlogM, CMILT

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.

Ms Joyce Wong

Executive Director

JWC Consulting

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 Suresh Chandra

Intel Malaysia HR Director

Intel

Suresh Chandra has been the Intel Malaysia HR Director since 2010. Prior to this he held the position of Finance Director for the company– a role he held from April of 2001 to 2010. Suresh has been with Intel for ~ 25 years

In his role overseeing the HR division in Intel Malaysia, Suresh is responsible for ~ 8000 employees in 2 locations – Penang and Kulim. Intel’s operations in Malaysia are very diverse and include a large manufacturing footprint employing ~ 4000 employees, R&D and Engineering which has ~ 3000 employees and the remaining are a variety of functions including Shared Services for HR, IT and Finance, Logistics and various other site services.

Mr. Khoo Boo Lim

General Manager Jazz Hotel/Chairman of Malaysian Association of Hotels

Malaysia Association of Hotels Penang Chapter

Mr. Khoo has a total of 36 years of work experience in various industries.  He has a strong interpersonal skills and passionate in the field of learning and development.  He is also the Chairman of Malaysia Association of Hotels Penang Chapter since 2014 till present.

Mr. Audee Cheah

Chairman

Penang Chefs Association Penang Chapter

Chef Audee has a total of 31 years of work experience in the field of culinary arts. He is passionate in the field of learning and development and always nurturing the junior chefs for competition and career development. He is also the Chairman of Penang Chefs Association Penang Chapter.

Mr. Thomas Ch’ng

Director of Human Resources

Hard Rock Hotel Penang

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 at the palms of his hands. He is abreast with the current human resources issues in the hospitality service industry.

Mr. Abdul Aziz Bin M M Yusoff

Training Manager/Human Resources Manager

Hotel Jen Penang

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.

Mr. Ramesh JC Balachandran

Area Director of Human Resources – West Malaysia

Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa Penang

Mr. Ramesh has over 25 years of knowledge and experience in human resources. He had opened many new hotels, the latest Shangri-La Hotel in Ulaanbaatar.

Mr. Steven Ang Cheng Liang

General Manager (Northern Region)

Hotel Sentral Group

Mr. Ang had vast experience in the pre-opening of hotels, which include the training and recruitment of staff. He is a hotel consultant; thus enabling him to achieve high standards of customer satisfaction and greater understanding of employee behaviours and needs. He has more than 20 years of experience in the hotel industry.

Ms. Nirmala Pathmanathan

Director of Human Resources

Hotel Jen Penang

Ms. Nirmala has the knowledge and experience in human resources at 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 organization. She also oversees the recruiting, interviewing, and hiring of new staff; consult with top executives on strategic planning; and serve as a link between an organization’s management and its employees.

Professor Tham Choy Yoong

Former Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Wawasan Open University, Penang

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

Founding President

Values First Consulting Sdn. Bhd.

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.

Mr Mahfooz Nabi Rasool

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.

Ms. Silviana Bonadei

Special Education Consultant, Switzerland (currently based in 2-Way Centre Penang)

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.

Dr. Lai Fong Hwa DSPN DJN PKT PJK

Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, Hospital Pulau Pinang
Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, Island Hospital
Cognitive Behaviour Therapist & Family Therapist
Honorary Associate Professor in Psychiatry, Penang Medical College

MBBS (Malaya) MPM (Malaya) ACT Certified Diplomate (America) PGDipFamilyT (Rome)

Dato’ Dr Lai has been practicing psychiatry at Penang General Hospital since 1994. He trained in child & adolescent psychiatry in Oxford in 2001 -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.

Prof Dr. Raman Santhiram

Dean

School of Education, Languages and Communications Faculty, WOU

Prof Santhiram Raman has over 47 years of experience in the field of education. He has vast experience in course developments which includes Education & Development (M.Ed., Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), Education Research Methods (M. Teach. UBD), History Education ll (M. Teach. UBD), Curriculum & Innovation in Soc. Studies Education (M. Ed. UBD), Critical Review of Research in Soc. Studies Education (M. Ed. UBD)

Prof. Mohd Jain Noordin Mohd. Kassim

Professor Kehormat

School of Chemical Sciences, USM

Prof Jain has over 35 years of teaching and research experience. He’s the Chief Administrative Officer for the ‘Pra Universiti USM MARA’ programme and has been awarded with ‘Profesor Kehormat’ by University Sains Malaysia in 2015 for his contributions in the field of education.