Wong Yoke Ming appointed as COO of RHB Capital

Kuala Lumpur, Sept 29, 2005: Mr Wong Yoke Ming has been appointed as the Chief Operating Officer (“COO”) at RHB Capital Bhd (“RHB Capital”) on 26 th September, 2005.

Mr Wong will be reporting to the Executive Committee (Exco) of RHB Capital.

The Board has expressed confidence that with the appointment of Mr Wong as COO, the Group would be able to consolidate its action plans to further streamline its current structure and processes.

“In line with that, every effort has been made to ensure that transparency and good corporate governance is practised across the group. The Chief Operating Officer will institute measures to streamline activities within the RHB Group to ensure better administrative processes,” it said.

Mr Wong, 52, is no stranger to the RHB Group of Companies. Until his appointment as COO, he served on the Boards of RHB Unit Trust Management Bhd, RHB Bank Ltd (Labuan) and RHB Insurance Bhd.

Mr Wong, who qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1979, joined Ernst & Whinney (now Ernst & Young) on his return to Malaysia from the United Kingdom. At Ernst & Whinney, he was involved in business planning, acquisition strategies and corporate finance for the firm’s clients.

His areas of specialisation include rationalisation of operations, corporate structures and organisational strategies from the perspective of tax, finance, business diversification and direction.

He left Ernst & Whinney in 1989 to join RJ Reynolds Sdn Bhd where he played a key role in the reverse take-over of Juara Perkasa Corporation Bhd (renamed RJ Reynolds Bhd) and its subsequent listing on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (now Bursa Malaysia).

During the six-year stint in RJ Reynolds, he also served at the company’s international headquarters in the United States where he was responsible for financial planning and analysis for Asia and the Americas. He helped established RJ Reynolds’ joint venture factory in Danang, Vietnam in 1995.

In 1995, he joined Hume Industries (M) Bhd as Group Financial Controller and in the following year was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Hume Group.

Between August 2001 and June 2003, he was a freelance consultant for small and medium size enterprises as well as a public facilitator for Corporate Risk Management workshops for public listed companies in Malaysia and Singapore.

He then took over as Chief Executive Officer of investment advisory firm Newfields Advisors Sdn Bhd before returning to his freelance consultancy business in January 2005.