Training Consultants - About ABS | Asian Banking School

Dr. Paramsothy Vijayan

Director of Graduate Training & FSTEP / Senior Consultant

Dr Vijay started his career working in one of the big 8 Chartered Accountants and Management Consultancy firms in the UK. He has over 20 years of banking experience working in local and foreign banks up to a senior management level, ranging over a diverse range of disciplines. He is currently involved in structuring bespoke technical and soft skill programmes for banks. In addition, he is involved in the curriculum working committee for professional qualification programmes such as the Chartered Banker and Bank Risk Management. He is also a designated Chartered Banker trainer, bringing a fresh approach to self-directed learning using mind-mapping techniques, case studies and problem-based learning. Dr Vijay has published banking and finance related text books and journal articles internationally, including, "Success Factors for the Implementation of Entrepreneurial Knowledge Management in Malaysian Banks" (Journal of Information & Knowledge Management, 2013).

He holds an Honours Degree in Accounting and Finance from Scotland, a Master of Science Degree in Multimedia Technology (Banking), a Doctor of Business Administration (Banking Strategy and Marketing) from Australia, and a Doctor of Philosophy (Knowledge Management in Banking) from Malaysia. He is also a Certified Training Professional (ARTDO).

Vijay is a sports car enthusiast and spends his weekends driving his sports car on the LEKAS Highway, which cuts across some beautiful scenic views of the mountains. His life’s motto – Success is not a destiny but a journey.

K. Balasingam

Director of Commercial Banking

K. Balasingam has 35 years of banking experience having worked in Wholesale Banking and Risk Management holding senior positions in financial institutions that includes both international as well as local banks. He has a deep understanding of relationship management, bank credit and risk management besides having a passion for training and development.

Bala was at Standard Chartered Bank in Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia in various client relationship management roles in Corporate and Commercial Banking, Global Clients, Sales and Credit Services, Transaction Banking and Institutional Banking, before moving on to risk management roles as Senior Credit Officer and Country Chief Risk Officer at Standard Chartered Bank in Philippines and Indonesia. He was also the Risk Management Director of Danajamin Nasional Malaysia Berhad and played a significant role in strategic planning and implementation in the younger markets like Mongolia at Khan Bank as their Wholesale Banking Advisor and in Vietnam having served as the Executive Vice President and Head of Wholesale Banking in Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank), one of the largest joint stock commercial banks in Vietnam by equity.

Bala obtained his post graduate qualifications in banking and finance and is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Bankers as well as a Certified Omega Trainer. He holds an MBA in Finance (with Distinction) from The University of Hull, England, has the Certified Credit Professional (CCP) Certification awarded by the Institute of Bankers Malaysia (now known as Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers) and carries the designation of Certified Financial Planner awarded by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. USA.

Bala is an avid golfer and enjoys reading and travelling during his free time besides being involved in community service projects.

Cheah Wee Leong

Director of Investment Banking Training

Cheah Wee Leong has more than 25 years’ experience working in the banking industry with local and foreign banks in various roles and capacities. A seasoned professional, Wee Leong brings with him broad experience as a former banker and management consultant.

Wee Leong started his career at Citibank in 1993 before joining US management consultancy firm Accenture in 1997. At Accenture, he was involved in managing large bank merger-integration, process re-engineering and transformation projects. He has worked in projects in various countries including Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia.

In 2003, Wee Leong joined CIMB as its Head of Operational Risk Management and led the implementation of the bank’s operational risk management and Basel 2 – Operational Risk framework. Subsequently, he assumed various senior roles in Trade Finance, Regional Transaction Banking, Corporate Banking, Treasury and Markets division and Group CEO office at CIMB. He was instrumental in helping CIMB win numerous awards in Transaction Banking in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand as Head of Regional Marketing, Regional Transaction Banking from 2011-2014. His last role at CIMB was as Director, Group Strategy.

Wee Leong holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the USA and a Master of Business Administration (with Distinction) from the Anglia Rushkin University, United Kingdom. He obtained training from Citibank Asia Pacific Banking Institute in Singapore in 1995. He is a certified Chartered Banker, Finance Accreditation Agency (FAA) Certified Training Professional and has completed the Kirkpatrick Four Levels® Evaluation Certification - Bronze Level certification.

Wee Leong enjoys reading, jogging, cycling and travelling in his free time and is involved in community service work.

Lim Guan Chye

Senior Consultant

Lim Guan Chye has 35 years of working experience in the banking industry as well as at senior management levels in commercial organizations.

Over a 25-year period, he has worked at Malayan Banking Bhd. (Maybank), The Pacific Bank (now acquired by Maybank) and EON Bank (now under Hong Leong Bank Berhad) where he held senior positions including Regional Manager – Northern Region, as well as United Overseas Bank (UOB) as Vice President with in depth knowledge and exposure to credit processing, banking operations and branch management. After his stint in banking, he joined the commercial sector and worked for 10 years with various companies in areas involving finance, human resources, marketing, risk and general management. He then ventured on his own and prior to joining ABS, was a Management and Financial Consultant assisting companies in developing their businesses, human resource competence and strategic planning activities.

Guan Chye was an invited speaker to the 1st Borneo Summit in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah in 2013 and authored a book in 2015 entitled “What Every Entrepreneur Ought to Know About Business and Banking”. The book was translated in Bahasa Malaysia in 2016.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Analytical Economics (2nd Upper Honours) from the University of Malaya and is a holder of the Certified Credit Professional Certification awarded by the Institute of Bankers Malaysia (now known as Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers). He is also a certified HRDF trainer.

He is an avid golfer and badminton player, and is a contributor to Ipoh Echo – a bi-monthly community newsletter.

Lew Taw Fong

Senior Consultant

Lew Taw Fong has over 32 years of banking experience where he worked for Maybank holding various key positions including Branch Manager, Regional Trainer and Facilitator, Head of Trade Finance, Chief Operating Officer Maybank Hong Kong and Group Organisational Trainer.

His areas of training expertise include Branch Banking Operations, Introduction to Trade Financing, AMLA/CTF, Central Credit Reference Information Search (CCRIS), Fraud Detection and Prevention, Introduction to Credit and System Work Flow for Mortgage and Investment Loans. He was also the Master Trainer for the Microfinance Training for Practitioners 2017 jointly organised by the Asian Banking School with Bank Negara Malaysia and the World Bank Group.

Lew holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Majoring in Management, from the University of Ottawa, Kansas, US. He is a certified Manager Trainer from the Singapore Institute of Management, a certified HRDF trainer from the Malaysian Institute of Management, a Certified Training Professional by the Finance Accreditation Agency (FAA) and a certified FAA Assessor for Individual/Branch Managers.

Lew was a former footballer for the national team during the Malaysia Cup in the late 70s and early 80s. His favourite hobbies are reading, singing, doing charity work, swimming, jogging, tennis and badminton.

Lynette Kwek

Senior Consultant

Lynette Kwek started her career as an internal auditor working in the financial services sector prior to joining the public accounting practices. During her tenure as an internal auditor, she gained wide exposure to the review of financial and operational business processes in the banking environment. She led process walkthrough and reviews of revenue processes, assessment of systems and manual controls for revenue cycles, general ledger interfaces as well as data analytics for the bank and its subsidiaries in the unit trust, asset management and insurance businesses. Besides her industry experience, she also specialised in the reviews of various IT systems environments in the areas of IT governance, information security management, data management and MIS framework, change management, IT system operations, and implementation of IT projects.

Upon joining the public accounting practice in 2003, she went on to lead and manage a portfolio of audit engagements and risk assurance related projects, which involved sizeable financial services organisations based in and outside of Malaysia. She also led several Sarbanes-Oxley related engagements, IT due diligence, third party assurance reviews, regulatory compliance and outsourced service provider reviews for several local and foreign banks. She was also part of a major IT advisory project for a major bank in the UK when she was attached to one of the big 4 audit firms in London.

Lynette Kwek holds a Master’s Degree (with Distinction) in Accounting and Finance from the University of Birmingham, UK. She is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) UK, a member of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) and a member of ISACA.

Lynette enjoys reading and practising pilates in her free time. She also loves to travel with her family and friends to experience the culture and food of different cities.

Shahrul Adzuan Ahmad

Consultant

Shahrul Adzuan Ahmad has 27 years of working experience in the banking sector, with 24 of those years in training and development at several banking institutions. He started his career in banking in 1990 as a Branch Officer when he joined Maybank Finance Berhad.

He then went on to join EON Finance Bhd in 1993 as a Training Officer, which then marked the start of his training and development career. In 2004, he became a trainer at EON Bank Bhd where he conducted technical and non-technical programmes. His last position prior to joining the Asian Banking School was with United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Berhad where he was involved in numerous bank-wide training initiatives and programmes, with Foreign Exchange Administration (FEA) Rules being one of the key training programmes he conducted. Other training programmes delivered during his years with the banks include Exchange Control Notices of Malaysia (ECM), AML/CFT related programmes, credit-related programmes, Leadership Development and soft-skills programmes. He also developed new training programmes and reviewed training content for improvement and enhancement, as well as coordinated and administered the internal AML/CFT e-learning programmes.

Shahrul holds a Diploma in Banking Studies from Institut Teknologi Mara (now known as Universiti Teknologi Mara) and a Bachelor’s Degree (Sc.) in Human Resource Development from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. He is also a Certified Training Professional (CTP) and DiSC - Certified Behavioural Consultant (CBC).

Travelling, photography and exploring nature are some of his interests, apart from his favourite sport activities that include jogging, football, futsal and cycling.

Michelle Loo Phoy Wan

Consultant

Michelle Loo has more than 10 years of banking experience in secured and unsecured lending, wealth products, bancassurance, SME banking and branch management.

Michelle started her career in the banking industry with HSBC Bank as a Mortgage Executive. In 2008, she joined OCBC as a Business Development Manager in SME Banking and during which time, the team she was in achieved Top 5 in the nationwide overall performance. Following that, she joined Maybank as a Mortgage Consultant. She was one of the pioneers in the Direct Sales Team and recognized as the Nationwide Top Team for 3 consecutive years. She then went on to join Alliance Bank and was promoted as Branch Manager. Subsequently, she joined Public Bank in Regional Sales and Support in SME Bancassurance, supporting 19 branches in the Klang Valley. Her main task was to maintain Regional top sales, which she achieved for 2 consecutive years.

At ABS, she is involved in developing e-Learning content, storyboarding and gamification, as well as having the role as a Trainer for the “Introduction to Ethics in Banking” programme. Michelle holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics majoring in Finance from University Putra Malaysia. Outside of work, she enjoys listening to music and reading books on personal development.

Sylphy Chui

Consultant

Sylphy Chui has more than 16 years of experience in the banking sector in credit sales and marketing, credit evaluation and credit approvals, consumer and commercial loans, and branch management.

She started her career as a Senior Sales and Marketing Executive at Public Bank Berhad in one of their branches where she gained valuable knowledge in branch operations. She then went on to their regional office, where she supported more than 15 branches in the sales team and gained recognition as the Top Three Sales Achiever for 2003 and 2004. In 2005, after receiving the Regional Top Sales Achiever Award, Sylphy was promoted to Sales and Marketing Manager, leading the sales team in the Regional Office. She was promoted again in 2007 and became Business Manager, based in one of their Kuala Lumpur branches. There she led the Credit Department and handled most of the credit portfolios with her team.

Sylphy’s career at Public Bank continued to flourish and in 2012, was promoted to Branch Manager. She was responsible for ensuring the smooth functioning of the entire branch and meeting all the KPIs with assistance from her team. During this time, the branch she managed maintained themselves as an award-winning branch for five years consecutively from 2013 to 2017.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce, double majoring in Economics and Marketing, from Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia and is also a Certified Credit Professional (CCP) through the Institute of Bankers Malaysia (now known as the Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers). During her leisure time, Sylphy enjoys reading, watching movies and travelling with her family.

CAREER OPPORTUNITY

TRAINING CONSULTANTS

“I BELIEVE THAT ABS HAS A GOOD VALUE PROPOSITION FOR CAREER BANKERS THAT ARE LOOKING FOR A CHANGE. IT IS A UNIQUE CAREER OPPORTUNITY AND THEY CAN ALWAYS RETURN TO THE INDUSTRY AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE, AS WORKING FOR ABS AS A TRAINING CONSULTANT REQUIRES THEM TO STAY UP-TO-SPEED WITH THE LATEST PRODUCTS AND TRENDS IN THEIR FIELD OF EXPERTISE.”

Professor DC Gardner

CEO, Asian Banking School