Speakers

Carl Benedikt Frey is Oxford Martin Citi Fellow at Oxford University where he directs the programme on the Future of Work at the Oxford Martin School. He is author of The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor and Power in the Age of Automation.

In 2012, Frey became an Economics Associate of Nuffield College and Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, both University of Oxford. He remains a Senior Fellow of the Department of Economic History at Lund University.

Frey has served as an advisor and consultant to international organisations, think tanks, government and business, including the G20, the OECD, the European Commission, the United Nations, and several Fortune 500 companies. He is also an op-ed contributor to the Financial Times, Scientific American, and the Wall Street Journal, where he has written on the economics of artificial intelligence, the history of technology, and the future of work.

Zul joined Khazanah in May 2014 as an Executive Director of Investments. He is also Head of the Strategic Management Unit, overseeing both corporate and portfolio strategy. Prior to Khazanah, he was appointed as the first Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Danajamin Nasional Berhad in 2009, Malaysia’s first financial guarantee insurer. He has 20 years experience in both banking and corporates, including tenures with UBS Warburg, Pengurusan Danaharta Berhad, CIMB Group and Symphony Group. 

Jayati Ghosh is Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has authored and/or edited a dozen books and more than 180 scholarly articles, most recently Demonetisation Decoded: A critique of India’s monetary experiment (with CP Chandrasekhar and Prabhat Patnaik, Routledge 2017), the Elgar Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development (co-edited with Erik Reinert and Rainer Kattel, Edward Elgar 2016) and India and the International Economy, (Oxford University Press 2015).

Her research output has been recognised through several national and international prizes. She is the Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates, an international network of heterodox development economists. She has advised governments at different levels, including as Member of the National Knowledge Commission reporting to the Prime Minister of India, and consulted for several international organisations. She writes regularly for popular media like newspapers, journals and blogs.

Dr. Nungsari Ahmad Radhi is an economist and is presently the Chairman of Khazanah Research Institute as well as the Executive Chairman of the Malaysian Aviation Commission. He also sits on the MARA Council.

In his career of over 30 years, he has been an academic, a Member of Parliament, a consultant, and a policy advocate and has sat on various corporate and statutory boards. His interests revolves around the microeconomics of policy making and has been a contributing columnist for The Edge since 2000.

Jomo is Senior Adviser at Khazanah Research Institute. He was in the 5-member Council of Eminent Persons and is in the Economic Action Council appointed by Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Professor at the University of Malaya (1986 – 2004), Founder-Chair of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs), UN Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development (2005 – 2012), Research Coordinator for the G24 Intergovernmental Group on International Monetary Affairs and Development (2006 – 2012), Assistant Director General for Economic and Social Development, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (2012 – 2015) and third Tun Hussein Onn Chair in International Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia (2016-2017). He received the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. 

Nathan Nunn is the Frederic E. Abbe Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Professor Nunn’s primary research interests are in political economy, economic history, economic development, cultural economics, and international trade. He is currently a co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics. His research focuses on the historical and dynamic process of economic development.

In particular, he has studied the factors that shape differences in the evolution of institutions and cultures across societies. He has published research that studies the historical process of a wide range of factors that are crucial for economic development, including distrust, gender norms, religiosity, norms of rule following, conflict, immigration, state formation, and support for democracy.”

Selvendran Katheerayson has been with Khazanah since January 2006. Prior to this, he has worked at Motorola Inc and Maxis Communications Berhad. He started his career at Ernst & Young in June 1994. He holds a Master in Public Administration degree from Harvard University, a Master of Business Administration (Finance) degree from the University of Hull and an Honours degree in Law from the University of London. 

A well-recognised media executive and an award-winning music producer, Izham started his career heading the legendary Positive Tone label, producing progressive music with artists like Faizal Tahir, Innuendo and Too Phat. Izham also launched 8TV, Fly FM, Hot FM and tonton, a breakthrough video streaming service. He was CEO of Media Prima Television before his current role as CEO of Primeworks Studios. Izham wrote Pulang, a Netflix Original. 

A recipient of Enterprise Asia’s Most Promising Entrepreneur and Voice Of Independent Music’s Lifetime Achievement awards, Izham is also Chairman of the Communications and Multimedia Content Forum, Vice-Chairman of the Malaysian Film Producers Association and Music Authors’ Copyright Protection, Director of Music Rights Malaysia and a Trustee for Yayasan Perpaduan Malaysia.

Alina is the co-founder of Arus Education, an award winning social enterprise focusing on tech education and teacher development. At Arus, she leads the design and strategies of its programs. She was involved in the development of teacher modules and teacher training for the latest national syllabus for computer science for both primary and secondary level. She works with marginalized children in national schools and undocumented children in alternative learning centers providing innovative learning experiences that uses technology as a medium. 

Before starting Arus, Alina was in management consulting and then taught for 4 years in a national high-need school. She has a degree in Actuarial Science from University of Illinois and a post-graduate diploma in Education from Universiti Utara Malaysia.  

Saidah Rastam is project director of Melaka In Fact, an initiative to investigate and disseminate Melaka’s evidence-based histories. She trained as a barrister and has worked as a litigation lawyer, music producer and composer. Works include M! The Opera (KL), combining Malay traditional instruments and western orchestra, Spirits (St Petersburg) featuring Peking and Cantonese opera singers and Pulau Antara (Tokyo). She has been music director of numerous shows, including the launch of the Petronas Twin Towers. Her book on Malaya’s music, Rosalie and Other Love Songs, was published in 2014 and 2016 as part of a cultural preservation project. Saidah’s grandfather, Abdul Hadi Hasan, wrote Sejarah Alam Melayu (1925), the first history textbook used in schools written by a Malay.

Surina Shukri brings two decades of experience working across a diverse range of companies including global multinationals, middle market companies and early stage startups across the financial services, natural resources and technology sectors. 

She spent the bulk of her professional career in the United States, including 17 years of experience as an investment banker, strategist and leader at JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest bank in the United States. There she served as Head of Strategy, Innovation & Business Management for Middle Market Banking, Head of Strategy for Commercial Banking, Chief of Staff to the CEO and Executive Director in Natural Resources Investment Banking. 

Surina left JPMorgan Chase in 2018 to start SheNovation Ventures, a transformation and growth venture studio where she advised fintech and blockchain startups on growth strategy and capital raising and consulted business leaders on culture change and transformation. 

She graduated from University of Pennsylvania’s Management & Technology dual degree program with a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School and Bachelor of Applied Sciences in Systems Engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 

Ramana Rajalingam, Director of Special Projects, joined Khazanah in 2012. Ramana has experience in areas such as government and economic transformation, corporate restructuring, airline business and academics. A project manager by training, Ramana specializes in project execution, having delivered expected outcomes via change management, transformation, turnaround and innovation programmes. Prior to Khazanah, Ramana held senior positions at the Performance Management and Delivery Unit, Prime Minister’s Department and Malaysia Airlines. He also served as Deputy Dean at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tun Abdul Razak University, Malaysia.  

Ramana holds master’s degrees from Malaysia University of Science and Technology / Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of Oxford, while currently pursuing a master’s degree at University of Cambridge.

Ronnie del Carmen is a director, writer, story artist, story supervisor and production designer. He co-directed and was one of the writers for the 2015 Pixar film Inside Out, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He was the story supervisor on Pixar’s tenth full-length computer-animated film, Up and directed its accompanying short film, Dug’s Special Mission. 

Del Carmen was born in the city of Cavite in the Philippines. After high school, he worked in the painting department on set for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, which was filming in the Philippines. He graduated from the University of Santo Tomas with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Advertising. He moved to the United States in 1989 and worked as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and for DreamWorks as a story supervisor. He joined Pixar in 2000 and worked on Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and UP where he was in charge of the opening sequence of the life of Carl and Ellie.  

Wong Shu Hsien joined Khazanah in February 2005 from Binafikir Sdn Bhd. Prior to that, she worked in a private equity firm, Emerging Markets Partnership, the Principal Adviser to AIG Infrastructure Fund II. She holds a degree in Economics from University of Cambridge and a Masters in Economics from London School of Economics.

Professor Harvey Whitehouse is Chair of Social Anthropology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion at the University of Oxford. He is also a founding fellow of Oxford’s Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflicts and a founding director of SESHAT: Global History Databank.

Whitehouse is well known for his theory of “modes of religiosity”, which explains how the frequency and emotional intensity of collective rituals influence the scale and structure of religious organisations. Much of his research examines how social cohesion can be used to motivate cooperation, including self-sacrifice for higher causes. His books include Inside the Cult, Arguments and Icons, and Modes of Religiosity.

Mohd Raslan Md Sharif joined Khazanah in October 2011. Prior to this, he was a communications consultant with Hill & Knowlton. Raslan has more than 10 years of journalism experience with Star Media Group. He has also worked at Multimedia Development Corporation and CIMB Securities Sdn Bhd. He is a graduate of Universiti Pertanian Malaysia. 

Professor Harvey Whitehouse is Chair of Social Anthropology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion at the University of Oxford. He is also a founding fellow of Oxford’s Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflicts and a founding director of SESHAT: Global History Databank.

Whitehouse is well known for his theory of “modes of religiosity”, which explains how the frequency and emotional intensity of collective rituals influence the scale and structure of religious organisations. Much of his research examines how social cohesion can be used to motivate cooperation, including self-sacrifice for higher causes. His books include Inside the Cult, Arguments and Icons, and Modes of Religiosity.

Dr. Henrich is a Harvard Professor, the Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology and has been granted academic tenure in four fields, including Economics, Psychology and Anthropology. His research deploys evolutionary theory to understand how human psychology gives rise to culture and how this has shaped our species’ genetic evolution. He’s conducted long-term fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, rural Chile and the South Pacific, as well as having spearheaded several large comparative projects, while researching a wide range of topics, including cooperation, fairness, innovation, religion, marriage, learning and prestige. In 2016, he published The Secret of Our Success and, forthcoming in 2020, look for THE WEIRDEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD: how Westerners became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. 

Nathan Nunn is the Frederic E. Abbe Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Professor Nunn’s primary research interests are in political economy, economic history, economic development, cultural economics, and international trade. He is currently a co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics. His research focuses on the historical and dynamic process of economic development.

In particular, he has studied the factors that shape differences in the evolution of institutions and cultures across societies. He has published research that studies the historical process of a wide range of factors that are crucial for economic development, including distrust, gender norms, religiosity, norms of rule following, conflict, immigration, state formation, and support for democracy.”

Zainah Anwar co-founded two ground-breaking women’s groups that engage with Islam from a rights perspective to promote the rights of women living in Muslim contexts.

She is a co-founder of Sisters in Islam (SIS) in Malaysia and led it from 1999-2008. She is currently the founding Executive Director of Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, launched in Kuala Lumpur in 2009.

Zainah also writes a monthly column, Sharing the Nation, in Malaysia’s largest English language daily, the Star. In 2018, she was honored by Harvard Law School as one of the top 25 “Women Inspiring Change” globally in the areas of law and policy. She has been named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of the 150 women “who shake the world”, by Women Deliver as one of 100 most inspiring people in championing the rights of women and girls, and was recognized by Huffington Post as one of the 10 leading Muslim women at the global level.

Hisham Hamdan joined Khazanah in April 2011. He was formerly with Sime Darby for over six years where he assumed several senior positions, covering strategy and business development, healthcare, energy & utilities and special projects. He also has 12 years of capital markets experience in equity research and investment banking. He started his career as a process engineer in the US. 

The Honourable Minister, Mr. Lim Guan Eng is the Minister of Finance of Malaysia and the Member of Parliament for Bagan as well as the State Assemblyman for Air Putih.  Prior to assuming his current role, Mr. Lim Guan Eng was the Chief Minister of Penang from 2008 to 2018. 

The Honourable Minister served as a Senior Executive in banking industry before being actively involved in politics with the Democratic Action Party (DAP). He has served as the Secretary-General for DAP since 2004. Mr. Lim Guan Eng was born in 1960 and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Accountancy from Monash University.