Mohd Azwan Bin Ahimmat is an award winning director that holds the portfolio of Director of Property and Finance and Director of Marketing & Customer Experience of MYDIN Mohamed Holdings Berhad (MYDIN), Malaysia’s Largest Halal Homegrown Wholesale and Retail Chain. With more that 15 years of experience has given him the edge to drive the leadership of the company for long term success.

Empowering retail revolution, Azwan’s contributions and insights has successfully steered MYDIN market performance with notable achievements in digital marketing and elevations of modern retail and customer experience.

Steven Yong is the Senior Manager of Sunway eMall with more than 14 years of experience in business management & merchandising for retail, e-Commerce, O2O industry. Prior to this, Steven has been with other reputable brands such as Padini, Puma, H&M & Astro GoShop.

Ramneek Puri is a Sales & Marketing Professional with over 10+ years of experience in leading E-commerce & Retail Businesses. Currently heading E-commerce for Bata Malaysia, Ramneek has been involved in various digital transformation projects for Bata Malaysia (current) & Decathlon Malaysia in the past. He also has experience leading retail & product management for FMCG companies in the past.

Cristopher Anthony Ramasamy is a highly accomplished and dynamic retail executive with a remarkable track record of driving business growth, operational excellence, and strategic planning. With over 24 years of experience in the industry, he has consistently delivered outstanding results and contributed to the success of renowned organizations. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in Business Administration & Management from Asia e University, which has provided him with a strong academic foundation to complement his extensive practical knowledge and skills. Currently he is serving as the General Manager of Operation & Sales at 7 Eleven Malaysia Sdn Bhd. He is responsible for overseeing bottom line and top line growth strategies, driving operational excellence, and executing effective business plans. His expertise in online operations has played a pivotal role in adapting the company to the rapidly evolving digital landscape, enabling them to thrive in a competitive market.

During his tenure at TESCO STORE (M) SDN BHD, he held various senior management positions where he consistently delivered exceptional results. As the Head of Mall Operation in the country, he achieved substantial bottom line and top line growth while ensuring operational excellence. Additionally, my role as the Retail Store Director for the Central Region allowed him to showcase his expertise in change management, stock management, and PNL management, contributing to the overall success of the organization. His passion for innovation and forward-thinking led him to serve as the Head of E-Commerce in the country, where he was responsible for managing operations, training and developing management teams, and driving profitable growth.

Furthermore, as the Full & Fresh Program Director, he successfully implemented cross-functional improvement initiatives and fostered collaboration between commercial, operation, and supply chain teams. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated exceptional skills in cross-functional team leadership, business strategy, sales operations, and change management. Christopher’s ability to inspire and influence others, coupled with my talent for people management, has been instrumental in delivering exceptional results and fostering a positive work culture. He possesses strong communication and leadership skills that allow him to effectively engage with diverse stakeholders and build strong relationships. He firmly believes that effective communication is the key to successful collaboration and achieving organizational goals.

Rizal Azis is a speaker, leadership specialist and a seasoned coach, who brings with him close to 20 years of experience in areas of business strategy and development, organizational behavior, talent and performance management, corporate consulting and office management. Rizal’s forté is in organizational, culture and leadership development training, soft skill programmes, as well as team building. He is a professional coach certified by the International Association of Coaching (IAC) and a member of the Malaysian Institute of Management. He is also a trainer certified by the Human Resource Development Corporation (HRDC).

In recent years, Rizal has devoted his time to the development and delivery of structured learning and development programmes for professionals and business professionals within the Rajah & Tann Asia (RTA) organization, an international legal firm headquartered in Singapore. Education-wise, Rizal holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting from La Trobe University, Australia, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Accounting and Finance from Victoria University, Australia.

Rizal has executed trainings for various organizations including Lembaga Pembiayaan Perumahan Sektor Awam (LPPSA), Securities Commission Malaysia, Ambank, Prudential BSN Takaful Berhad, HSBC, CHUBB Securities and a few more in various industries including clients in the Asia Pacific region.

Ostwin Paw is the Sustainability & Impact Officer and also the office bearer of Corporate Social Responsibility Wing of Alpro Group as The CEO of Alpro Foundation.

Being curious and passionate with people interactions, he started with Alpro in the Engagement Wing as a Customer Acquisition Manager to expand the numbers of members through membership recruitment campaigns and activities. With several carefully planned membership campaigns initiated throughout the years, the numbers of membership have increased by 3 folds within a span of 2 years.

He is most interested in bringing care to the community and has been doing so since his teenage days and has accumulated 20 years of experience in serving the underserved community. He believed that consistent care towards a cause is a sustainable practice that organizations should follow and thus, since 2019, he and his team of committed members started The Growing Stars Project to bring students from financially challenged families back to school by covering basic schooling expenses for the students. In 2020, he and a group of interns started a fundraising campaign by selling “Dream and Shine Bright” T-shirts and raised more than RM160,000 within a month.

Since then, gaining more execution capacity, Ostwin and his team spearheaded another 2 more Major Community Empowerment projects, the Alpro Safe Medication Disposal Programme to provide safe medication disposal access for members of the public and providing Oral Nutrition Support for bedridden patients and accumulated savings for the beneficiaries amounting to RM11 million till date since 2019.

These 3 community projects have earned a Gold Award and a Platinum Award for Best in CSR Category from The Star Outstanding Business Awards (SOBA) for 2019 and 2021 which contributed to winning Alpro’s first Malaysian Business of The Year Award for 2021.

Ostwin believes in continuous upgrading, acquiring and sharing of new knowledge, he is a certified Neurolinguistics Programming Practitioner (NLP), and also an internationally certified Laughter Yoga Teacher by the Founder of Laughter Yoga in Bangalore, India.

He has conducted numerous training and youth camps for organizations such as Rotary International District 3310, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and multiple NGOs, he has clocked in more than 600 training hours as a trainer.

Evelyn Lee is the Head of Marketing at Secret Recipe Cakes & Café Group which also owns Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart, Pasta Crafters and Urban Food Club. With over 15 years of experience in the F&B industry, she has developed a strong understanding of the market and an immense knowledge of effective marketing strategies that have resulted in a proven track record of awards for Secret Recipe; namely, ‘Brand of the Year by World Branding Awards from London, Kensington Palace’ and ‘Best Brand Platinum Award by SOBA’ for 2018, 2019 and 2022 in a row. Prior to her stint in Secret Recipe, she was the Marketing Manager for Classic Fine Foods which is a leading gourmet and ingredients supplier in Malaysia. During the height of the third wave coffee movement, together with illy caffe, Evelyn helmed the opening of the first coffee training school in South East Asia, Universita del Caffe Della Malaysia.

Passionate, full of vision and with her strong drive, Evelyn empowers her team by pushing their creative limits, believes that solid execution plans are key and embraces challenges head-on to achieve successful marketing goals.  With the ever-progressing digital world, Evelyn also believes that the key to success is by maintaining relevancy and adopting different strategies to excite new customers while retaining existing ones. Striving for excellence coupled with consistent delivery is Evelyn’s daily mission.

Vach Pillutla, Chief Executive Officer of Al-Ikhsan Sports has more than 27 years of global lifestyle and retail experience having run businesses in different markets across Asia for Global brands like Adidas,Sony Corp, New Balance, VF Corp and Samsonite and now Al Ikhsan Sports Sdn Bhd. He has been instrumental in rolling out over 2500 stores across more than 70 key cities across the world includingIndia, Southeast Asia, North Asia, Australia, South Africa, Middle East, Europe, USA and even LatinAmerica for these global behemoths. The most interesting fact of his experiences is that while he has worked with all these iconic brands, he has always been put into a role which is either about starting a new brand, a new market or a new category for these organizations.

He joined the home-grown Bumiputera sports retailer in January 2017 and over the 6 years has taken Al-Ikhsan Sports to new heights with over 180+ stores across 4 different retail concepts - the flagship concept called Al-Ikhsan Sports, Al-Ikhsan Sports Warehouse, Football Republic, and Al-Ikhsan SportsFactory. He was also instrumental in building the E-commerce platform for Al-Ikhsan Sports with a vision of making Alikhsan.com and the personalized shopper program through WhatsApp which has also made Al-ikhsan sports the leading sports marketplace in Malaysia.

He calls the era before he joined in 2017 as Al-Ikhsan 1.0. At this stage, the business was essentially an owner-driven one with a distribution network of around 110 stores. Al-Ikhsan 2.0 started when he joined the business, brought a professional management team, with the Chair offering guidance and advice in terms of navigating the local culture. Fast forward to today and version 3.0 is well underway and is excited for a full-blown expansion of the company, by targeting to open more than 30 stores per annum.

Over the past 6 years under his leadership, the company's sales have grown to double the sales and over 9X EBITDA growth with FY 2022 being the best year in recorded history for Al-ikhsan sports. Today, Al-Ikhsan Sports has more than 30%+ market-share within Multi-Brand sports retail and is the first destination for any global sports brand wanting to establish itself in Malaysia

Ganesh Kumar Nadarajah is the Country Manager and Principal at Eden Strategy Institute in Malaysia. He has a proven 33 years track record in Senior Leadership roles, managing business and strategies, and Financial Control. Previously, Ganesh served as an Executive Director and Group CFO at Farm Fresh Berhad. He co-led strategy formulation and executed growth plans of the business regionally and M & A exercises.

Prior to joining the FMCG company in early 2018, Ganesh was in a leading Malaysian Banking Group (AmBank Group) as the Executive Vice President (EVP). His experience included multiple responsibilities over 19 years, from managing the business, developing strategies, and feasibility assessments to functional finance roles. His notable roles included EVP of Group Strategy, EVP of AmBank’s Consumer Banking, heading the business of all Conventional & Islamic products and Head of Investor Relations. His other key roles included CFO of AmBank (Malaysia) and Head of Group Performance Management. He supported the strategic transformation of AmBank Group post the entry of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group in 2007 and was also the PMO head of then the largest “finance merger” exercise between Arab-Malaysian Finance and MBf Finance over a 2-year period. He has over 12 years of working experience with an international audit firm and a public listed company prior to joining AmBank Group.

Ganesh’s professional speaking and workshop engagements have brought him to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong, Nepal and the US. Most recently at UNGC’s SME SDG Festival Nov 2022, SME CEO Forum 2022,  the “8th CFO Innovation Malaysia” (Kuala Lumpur) and the “Future CFO Conference – Staying Ahead of the Disruption Curve” (2020). He was awarded “Best of Asia” by the Corporate Governance Asia Annual recognition awards in 2011 and “Best in Malaysia” in 2012, 2014 and 2016. “Most Organized IR in Malaysia”, and “Most Improved IR” at the 7th Annual Best Corporate-Institutional Asia Investor Awards in 2017 in Singapore.  He was previously a Board member of the Malaysian Investor Relations Association (MIRA) (established by Bursa Malaysia). 

He holds a Master of Science in Accounting from the University of Missouri (1989) USA and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting (1987) from the University of Central Oklahoma USA.