Seminar Speakers

Philip is a Partner with the Risk Services practice of Ernst & Young Advisory Services Sdn. Bhd. (EY). He is also the Asean Risk Transformation Services leader in EY.

In his 27 years with EY, Philip has served on various external and internal audits, risk management and corporate governance, and corporate finance engagements.

He has been the engagement partner on numerous Corporate Governance, Internal Audit and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) engagements in various industries, including stock exchange/capital markets, oil and gas, plantations, construction, property development, services, manufacturing, automotive, hospitality, NGOs, power and utilities, both locally and overseas.

Philip is also the Director of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) award programme in Malaysia. The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. It encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of those who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement.

Philip is a regular speaker and trainer on topics relating to risk management, corporate governance and internal audit, both locally and internationally. He regularly contributes articles on corporate governance and risk management. He was also a member of the 2012/2013 Task Force for the review of the Guidance for PLCs in respect of the Statement of Internal Control in Malaysia.

Philip is a member of the Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (MICPA), the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA), CPA Australia and the Institute of Internal Auditors Malaysia (IIAM). He is the past President of the IIAM.

Kaviyarasu graduated from Universiti Putra Malaysia with a first class bachelor’s degree in Economics. During his undergraduate years, he represented the country in various business plan competitions and won several notable awards. He was selected as an executive intern to Minister of Housing and Local Government under the Perdana Fellowship programme in 2014. Kaviyarasu also gained further practical experience by interning in private equity firm, MNC, and central bank. Kaviyarasu is currently attached to Genting Malaysia Berhad and pursuing his ACA on a part time basis sponsored by the firm. He is also the current President of Perdana Fellows Alumni Association.

He is the Professor of Economics at Sunway University Business School and Director of Economic Studies Program at Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia (JCI) at Sunway University. He assumed the current positions in May 2016 following a 2-year stint as a business school dean in another local private university.

Prior to joining the academia, he had worked at the country’s first credit rating agency, for 20 years principally as the chief economist and managing director of its wholly-owned consultancy services subsidiary. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in forestry from Universiti Pertanian Malaysia and an MBA and a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Hawaii, USA.

He is currently a Vice-President of the Malaysian Economic Association (MEA), a trustee of the Malaysian Tax Research Foundation (MTRF) and one of the two external members appointed to Bank Negara Malaysia’s Monetary Policy Committee in April 2015.

Mr. Jeevakumar Govindasamy is a Senior Public Sector Specialist World Bank Group Global Knowledge and Research Hub in Malaysia. He has been seconded from the Malaysian Government Administrative and Diplomatic Service.

He has a wide range of public policy experience under various agencies of the Prime Minister’s Department, including the National Economic Advisory Council Secretariat, The Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) and Talent Corporation Malaysia. He served briefly with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), and has actively participated in various high level committees and working groups such as the Economic Transformation Program Labs and the Malaysia Development Plans Technical Committees.

Prior to joining the civil service, Jeevakumar had a brief career in the banking industry in Malaysia working in both multinational and local banks.

He holds a Master’s in Public Administration from the renowned Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS).

Amjad Rabi joined UNICEF Malaysia in October 2016 as the deputy representative and senior policy specialist. Prior to this, he taught at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Canada. Amjad previously served in UNICEF country offices including: Nepal, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Argentina, and the HQ office in NY. He earlier worked for the ILO’s social security department, Geneva. Amjad has authored and co-authored several publications and developed costing models that have been replicated in several countries. Amjad holds a Doctorate degree in International Relations, an MPP in Social Policy Financing, an MS in Mathematics (Actuarial Science), and an MA in Economics.

Associate Professor Santha Vaithilingam joined the Department of Econometrics & Business Statistics, Monash University Malaysia in 2003 and was appointed the Head of the Econometrics Department in 2012. She completed her Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in Mathematics and Masters of Economics from University Malaya, and her PhD in Banking & Finance from Multimedia University Malaysia in 2002.

Her research interests are in computable general equilibrium (CGE), financial econometrics, and behavioral economics. More recently, she has been working on modelling human behavior pertaining to technology adoption using advanced econometrics techniques. She has published articles in international journals and has also presented in several national and international conferences and forums. Jointly working with Centre of Policy Studies in Monash University Australia, she assisted The Ministry of Finance, Malaysia in the development of the Malaysian Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model for macroeconomic and industrial policy formulation. Assoc. Prof Santha is also supervising PhD students in the areas of behavioural economics and financial & technology policy formulation.