When I was doing my MBA some years ago, there was one local lecturer everyone paid close attention to his words.  Mr Lai was not your typical academic. He was a hands-on corporate man  — then a COO in one of the key subsidiary companies of Genting Group. He had war stories from boardrooms, high level  negotiations, crisis meetings and corporate planning. He did not teach from slides. He taught from scars. One afternoon, during a class on strategic management, someone asked whether a brilliant strategy was enough to guarantee success. Mr Lai smiled, paused, and said something that has stayed with me ever since: “The most critical stage of any strategic plan is implementation. And the most critical decision in implementation is choosing the right CEO.” He explained that once the board approves a strategy, everything depends on the clarity of the chief executive’s role.  The CEO must know his mandate. He must know what he can and cannot do. His KPIs must be clear. There...

There are moments in public policy when you don’t need to argue anymore. You just lean back, sip your kopi, read the headlines — and whisper, “ I told you so .” The recent decision by the United States Supreme Court striking down former President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff move was one of those moments. Because suddenly, all those who were shouting that Malaysia had “kowtowed” to the United States over ART are looking… slightly less certain. You remember them. The opposition politicians who saw weakness everywhere. The conservative voices who declared sovereignty under siege. The opportunists within the ruling coalition who mistook theatrics for strategy. Apparently, some believed that dealing with Trump was like negotiating a municipal by-law or unregistered temple. It wasn’t.

In the late 1990s, I was working in Hong Kong, just before the historic 1997 handover from Britain to China. Like many Malaysians abroad, I carried with me a suitcase full of assumptions — especially about food.  After all, Hong Kong was the beating heart of Cantonese culture. If there was any place outside Malaysia that would understand our version of Chinese cuisine, surely it would be there. One evening, friends visiting from Kuala Lumpur asked if we could order fish in belacan sauce — the kind regularly served at the old Hotel Equatorial Kuala Lumpur. The waiter looked puzzled. We tried to explain: sambal, shrimp paste, spicy, fragrant. He shook his head politely. No such dish. It was our first gentle reminder that what we thought of as “Chinese food” was, in fact, something uniquely Malaysian. The bigger revelation came during Chinese New Year.

A fresh clash has erupted between Bloomberg and Azam Baki, head of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, following allegations over corporate shareholdings and influence.  Azam has filed a RM100 million defamation suit, while Bloomberg stands by its reporting, citing filings from the Companies Commission of Malaysia despite claims the data were one-year lagged and not updated, deepening scrutiny over transparency and regulatory accountability. The public and local media will likely swallow every morsel of words written from Bloomberg as the truth and investigative reporting by international news agency as fool proof. This is despite Bloomberg relied on information leads from the website Corporate Secret to as far back as 2023. Its falling flat on their face because last night, the whistleblower site,  updated  to suspect Bloomberg is in cahoot and relied on tip-off from Victor Chin, the Corporate Mafia corporate and criminal syndicate kibgpin himself. The Malay articl...

The Bloomberg report alleging that Tan Sri Azam Baki owned 17.7 million shares in Velocity Capital Berhad has predictably ignited a media and political storm. Within hours, the narrative hardened: the MACC Chief Commissioner had breached a 1993 civil service circular, and therefore his integrity was in question. But when the noise settles, a more uncomfortable question emerges: are we dealing with a clear governance breach, or another episode of selective outrage shaped by politics, timing, and institutional backlash?

There is no magic recipe ... The landslide victory of Takachi and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan’s recent general election has predictably sparked commentary back home. Almost immediately, suggestions surfaced that UMNO should “study the LDP formula” if it hopes to reclaim Putrajaya.  Only a few months earlier, a different crowd was busy urging Malaysian parties to emulate Zohran Mamdani’s insurgent win in the New York City mayoral race. Before that, it was Modi. Before that, Erdogan. Before that, someone else with a microphone and momentum. Not long ago, Jokowi was fashionable. If politics were a cookbook, Asian Grand Old Parties (GOPs) would be binge-watching foreign elections like cooking shows and hoping the dish magically turns out the same. Unfortunately, politics is less MasterChef and more kampung kenduri : same ingredients, wildly different outcomes, and someone always complains the rendang is too dry. A quick look across Asia should sober anyone tempted by th...

Elected Mayor for Kuala Lumpur: Democracy, Power, and the Limits of Good Intentions Few governance ideas sound as intuitively appealing as the call for an elected mayor for Kuala Lumpur. It promises democracy, accountability, transparency, and a clear line of responsibility. In a city as complex, wealthy, and influential as Kuala Lumpur, the absence of an elected city leader feels, to many, like an anachronism. Yet good intentions are not the same as good outcomes. Before embracing the idea wholesale, it is worth examining both the promise and the pitfalls—and more importantly, whether the political actors championing this reform are equipped to deliver the deep structural changes it would require.