Mr. Hiro Chai has over 15 years of career track records in global investment banking, sustainability reporting, and carbon market.
He started his first career as a project engineer in UK working on bridges and buildings in South West England. Later, he successfully transitioned his career into global financial markets in Dubai after having worked on world-class projects such as Burj Khalifa and Jebel Ali Palm Island in UAE. Subsequently, he returned to Malaysia for good with his first job being business development (BD) manager in Kenanga Investment Bank. He dealt with international financial institution (FI) clients and conducted new branch readiness assessment in accordance with Securities Commission. During his investment banking career, he also worked for CIMB Investment Bank as Associate Director of BD and Affin Hwang Investment Bank as Head of Derivatives.
Riding on his international exposure and multi-lingual capabilities, he was then hired by Bursa Malaysia to manage International Development of its Derivatives Division. Following that, he was appointed as Head of BD and Sales in Bursa Carbon Exchange (BCX). He was responsible for the successful launch of its inaugural carbon credit auction and go-live of their trading platform facilitating the first trade of their standardised contracts. During his time in BCX, he onboarded several FIs in Malaysia such as Maybank, CIMB Bank, AmBank and Permodalan Nasional Berhad as the first group of participants of the national voluntary carbon credit market exchange.
There were several highlights in his academic achievements. He was awarded First Class Honour in his Bachelor degree of Civil Engineering with University of Swansea and was presented Golden Jubilee Award by the Institute of Structural Engineer in UK. During his banking careers in Malaysia, he was awarded Japanese Government scholarship under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to study Masters in Business & Administration (MBA) in GLOBIS University in Tokyo. Recently, he also successfully graduated in the first cohort of senior executive talent program of Penjana Kapital which is a venture capital subsidiary of Ministry of Finance.
He was now the Director of a local company operating a Decarbonisation Clinic and specialising in Japan Green Transformation (GX) agenda. The clinic provides decarbonisation consultancy service and product solutions to corporate clients. Their services also include corporate training on carbon market, sustainability reporting for public listed companies, corporate carbon offsetting, waste management, consulting for carbon credit project development, and support service for validation on GHG inventory and product life cycle.
His latest career was with Bursa Malaysia Index & Sustainability Business unit within Data & Digital Services division. He specialised in promoting Sustainability Data Disclosure by Digital and AI technological means for more than 1000 public listed companies. The sustainability disclosure services provided by the national stock exchange aligns with the national framework NSRF established by the securities regulator SC. It is also in alignment with the International standard on sustainability-related and climate-related disclosure (IFRS S1 & S2).
