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It’s been quite a ride for Tunku Dato’ Ya’acob bin Tunku Tan Sri Abdullah. The former Group Managing Director and CEO of MAA Holdings Berhad, the holding company of no less than 10 prominent subsidiary companies, including Malaysian Assurance Alliance Berhad and MAAKL Mutual Berhad, has recently taken on a new role as the group’s Deputy Chairman. Just 46, Tunku Ya’acob has already placed Muhamad Umar Swift into his former position and is looking forward to a less operational role, preferring instead to focus his attention on strategy and “looking at the bigger picture”.
“MAA has been a real up and down ride. We’ve been through two recessions and grown from the smallest to the biggest.” He’s come a long way ever since 1987 when he joined the firm in the capacity of director and chief general manager. In that time, Tunku Ya’acob succeeded in turning around the once languishing company that was writing off million-dollar losses into a regional insurance and unit trust powerhouse listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange with, to date, close to three million policy holders, 16,000 agents and paid-up capital of 304 million.
Armed only with the experience he had gained from six years working with Pricewaterhouse, he acknowledges it was indeed hard work. “Things were so bad at MAA where it was a struggle even to pay salaries,” he remembers. “It was also recession time and all I had was my work experience with Pricewaterhouse. The newspapers were also slagging us off, so much so our agents were all diving for cover. |
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But, somehow, we pulled through. We spoke to the staff and agents and got them all to hang in there. I also put to practice all that I’d learnt from PwC — from auditing companies to understanding how they work. Somehow, things fell into place, but I can tell you it took till 1993 to clear everything up.”
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