Leadership

Datuk Kamarudin bin Meranun, male, Malaysian, 60, is a co-founder of AirAsia. He was appointed as a Non-Independent Executive Chairman of Capital A Berhad (formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad) on 30 March 2018.

He is also a Non-Independent Executive Chairman of AirAsia Berhad (AAB), taking the lead in engaging with the government, aviation regulators and airport authorities of Malaysia. Before being designated as Executive Chairman, he was AAB's Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer.

In December 2001, Datuk Kamarudin, together with Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, Dato' Pahamin Ab Rajab and Dato' Abdel Aziz @ Abdul Aziz bin Abu Bakar, acquired struggling domestic airline AirAsia and, with the help of Conor McCarthy, relaunched it as a pioneer of budget travel in Asia, building AirAsia into the world's best low-cost carrier. In 2020, amidst the global Covid-19 pandemic, AirAsia pivoted from just an airline to a unified digital and e-commerce platform with its airasia Superapp, powered by technology and data.

Prior to setting up AirAsia, Datuk Kamarudin worked at Arab-Malaysian Merchant Bank from 1988 to 1993 as a Portfolio Manager, managing both institutional and high net-worth individual clients' investment funds. In 1994, he was appointed Executive Director of Innosabah Capital Management Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Innosabah Securities Sdn. Bhd. He subsequently acquired the shares of the joint venture partner of Innosabah Capital Management Sdn. Bhd., which was later renamed Intrinsic Capital Management Sdn. Bhd.

He holds a Diploma in Actuarial Science from University Technology MARA (UiTM) and graduated with a BSc with Distinction (Magna Cum Laude) majoring in Finance in 1986 and achieved an MBA in 1987 from Central Michigan University.

He received the Darjah Panglima Jasa Negara (PJN), which carries the title Datuk, from the Malaysian King in November 2013.

Datuk Kamarudin is also a Non-Independent Non-Executive Director of AirAsia X Berhad, a Director of Red Giants Football Club and a member of the Board of Trustees for the Mahathir Science Award Foundation.

Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, male, 58, is a co-founder of AirAsia. He was appointed as a Non-Independent Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Capital A Berhad (formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad) on 30 March 2018.

Tan Sri Tony is one of Asia's most recognisable entrepreneurs, best known for co-founding low-cost carrier AirAsia and democratising air travel in the region.

In December 2001, Tan Sri Tony, together with Datuk Kamarudin Meranun, Dato' Pahamin Ab Rajab and Dato' Abdel Aziz @ Abdul Aziz bin Abu Bakar, acquired struggling domestic airline, AirAsia, and with the help of Conor McCarthy, relaunched it as a pioneer of budget travel in Asia, building AirAsia into the world's best low-cost carrier.

He studied in the UK and qualified as an Associate Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in 1991, then as a Fellow Member in 1996. He is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). An accountant by training, he began his career in Virgin Group before returning to Malaysia as Warner Music Group's Vice President for Southeast Asia before venturing into the airline business.

Tan Sri Tony has received numerous honours and awards over the course of his career. These include the Honour of the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, conferred by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2011, and the Commander of the Legion d'Honneur, awarded by the French Government for outstanding contributions to the economy of France through the aviation industry. He also received the Panglima Setia Mahkota (PSM) award conferred by Yang Di Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin, which carries the title Tan Sri.

Dato' Fam Lee Ee, male, Malaysian, 61, was appointed a Senior Independent Non-Executive Director of Capital A Berhad (formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad) on 30 March 2018. He is a member of the Audit Committee, and Chairman of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and Safety Review Board of Capital A.

He received his BA (Hons) from the University of Malaya in 1986 and LLB (Hons) from the University of Liverpool, UK in 1989. Upon obtaining his Certificate of Legal Practice in 1990, he has been practising law since 1991 and is currently a Senior Partner at Messrs Gan & Zul.

Dato' Fam used to sit on the Board of Trustees of Yayasan PEJATI from 1996 to 2007. Since 2001, he has served as a legal advisor to the Chinese Guilds and Association and charitable organisations such as Yayasan SSL Haemodialysis Centre in PJ. He is also an Honorary Adviser of the Perlis Chinese Chambers of Commerce.

Dato' Fam is also a Non-Independent Non-Executive Director of AirAsia X Berhad and a Director of the Malaysia-China Business Council.

Dato' Abdel Aziz @ Abdul Aziz bin Abu Bakar, male, Malaysian, 68, was appointed a Non-Executive Director of Capital A Berhad (formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad) on 30 March 2018. He is the Chairman of the Risk Management and Sustainability Committee and a member of the Audit and Nomination and Remuneration Committees of the Board of Capital A.

In December 2001, Dato' Aziz together with Datuk Kamarudin Meranun, Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and Dato' Pahamin Ab Rajab acquired struggling domestic airline, AirAsia, and with the help of Conor McCarthy, relaunched it as a pioneer of budget travel in Asia, building AirAsia into the world's best low-cost carrier.

Dato' Aziz served as Chairman of Performance and Artistes Rights Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PRISM), a collection society for performers of recorded music, and the Academy of Malaysian Music Industry Association (PAIMM) for more than 10 years until end 2012 and January 2011, respectively.

From 1981 to 1983, he was the Executive Director of Showmasters (M) Sdn Bhd, an artiste management and concert promotion company. He subsequently joined BMG Music and was General Manager from 1989 to 1997, and Managing Director from 1997 to 1999. He received a Diploma in Agriculture from Universiti Pertanian Malaysia in 1975, a BSc in Agriculture Business from Louisiana State University, USA in 1978, and an MBA from the University of Dallas, USA in 1980.

He is also currently a Director of Yayasan Astro Kasih and the Non-Executive Non-Independent Chairman of Pegasus Heights Berhad, a member of its Audit Committee and a member of its Nomination and Remuneration Committee.

Dato' Mohamed Khadar bin Merican, male, Malaysian, 65, was appointed an Independent Non-Executive Director of Capital A Berhad (formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad) on 30 March 2018. He is the Chairman of the Audit Committee, and a member of the Risk Management and Sustainability Committee and Safety Review Board of Capital A.

Dato' Mohamed Khadar is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and is also a Chartered Accountant of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.

Dato' Mohamed Khadar has more than 40 years' experience in financial and general management. He served as an auditor and a consultant in an international accounting firm, before joining a financial services group in 1986. Dato' Mohamed Khadar has held various senior management positions in the then Pernas International Holdings Berhad, a company listed on Bursa Malaysia, between 1988 and April 2003, including those of President and Chief Operating Officer. In 2013, Dato' Mohamed Khadar, in his capacity as the Chairman of RHB Capital, was named "Chairman of The Year" by the Minority Shareholders Watch Group at its Asean Corporate Governance Index Awards 2013.

Dato' Mohamed Khadar's other directorships in public companies are Iris Corporation Berhad and Rashid Hussain Berhad (In Members' Voluntary Liquidation) and he is the Independent Non-Executive Chairman of BNP Paribas Malaysia Berhad. He was also appointed the Independent Non-Executive Chairman of Tune Protect Group Berhad, a company listed on Bursa Malaysia, on 5 October 2021. In addition, he is a Director of Asia Aviation Public Company Limited, a company listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

Surina binti Shukri, female, Malaysian, 46, was appointed an Independent Non-Executive Director of Capital A Berhad (formerly known as AirAsia Group Berhad) on 31 January 2022. She is a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee of the Board of Capital A.

Puan Surina spent the bulk of her career in New York City, USA before returning to Malaysia in 2019 to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the lead government agency for digital economy development in Malaysia, where she played a central role in developing programmes to nurture Malaysia's digital ecosystem and advised the government on digital economy policy and economic recovery plans.

She began her career in financial services as an investment banker, strategist and leader and made JPMorgan Chase & Co. her home for 17 years. There she served as the Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Management for Middle Market Banking, Head of Strategy for Commercial Banking, Chief Staff to the CEO of Commercial Banking and Executive Director of Natural Resources Investment Banking.

In 2018, she pivoted her career to start SheNovation Ventures, a transformation and growth venture studio where she advised fintech and blockchain startups on growth strategy and capital raising and consulted business leaders on culture change and transformation.

Puan Surina is a globally recognised and respected thought leader in digital transformation, innovation and diversity and is a fierce advocate of women empowerment. She was named among the World's 50 Most Influential People Revolutionising Governance in the inaugural Agile 50 list by Apolitical and World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Agile Governance.

She graduated from University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Management & Technology dual degree programme with a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School and Bachelor of Applied Sciences in Systems Engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Puan Surina is also an Independent Non-Executive Director of CIMB Investment Bank Berhad and a Director of Accelerate Global, a social enterprise aimed at tackling youth unemployment issues worldwide.

Tharumalingam Kanagalingam, better known as Bo Lingam, male, 57, is Capital A Berhad's President (Airlines) and AirAsia Aviation Group Limited's Group Chief Executive Officer ("GCEO").

Bo joined AirAsia in 2001 as a Ground Operations Manager, responsible for the implementation of the low-cost concept in operations and procurement. Since then, he has held several key positions including Purchasing and Supplies Senior Manager, Regional Guest Services Director, and President & Group Chief Operating Officer, where he supervised AirAsia's operations in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, drove process improvement and set up new airlines in the region for the Group.

Prior to joining AirAsia, and upon completing his Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia, he worked extensively in the publication and music industry at various production houses, including as Production Controller at EMI Music Malaysia as well as Operations Manager and Promotions Manager at Warner Music Malaysia.

As Group CEO of AirAsia Aviation Group Limited, Bo leads AirAsia's Airline businesses, overseeing the four airlines in the Group (AirAsia Malaysia, AirAsia Philippines, AirAsia Thailand and AirAsia Indonesia) as well as related shared services divisions including AirAsia Consulting, corporate services division AirAsia SEA, the Santan food group and the ground handling services joint venture business called GTR.

As President and the Chief Executive Officer of RedBeat Capital, Aireen Omar, female, 48, is responsible for Capital A's ventures builder pillar (Ventures) strategy, promoting innovation throughout the Group and encouraging collaboration across AirAsia's businesses and markets.

She is also a Non-Executive Director of Tune Protect Group Berhad.

Aireen joined AirAsia in January 2006 as Director of Corporate Finance. Her portfolio expanded rapidly to include Insurance, Treasury, Fuel Procurement and Investor Relations functions. Taking on these roles, she was instrumental in shaping the development of AirAsia into one of the fastest growing and most highly-acclaimed airlines globally. In 2012, Aireen was appointed as AirAsia Berhad's Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer.

She began her career at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc, where she served as an Associate from 1997-2000 in New York and London, her last position being at the Equity Arbitrage Proprietary Trading Desk focusing on international equities, equity derivatives and equity-linked products. After returning to Malaysia in 2001, she served in several major local financial institutions including the Maybank Group, the country's largest banking and financial services group.

Her accolades include Outstanding CEO Achievement Award by Malaysian Women of Excellence, Corporate Treasurer's 25 Most Influential Women in Treasury, Masterclass Woman CEO of the Year by Selangor Excellence Business Awards, Eminent Leaders in Asia at the Asia Corporate Excellence and Sustainability Awards (ACES), and APAC CEO of the Year 2017 by Aviation 100 Awards. Under her leadership, AirAsia was awarded Digital Transformer of the Year in Malaysia at the IDC Digital Transformation Awards (DXa) 2019.

Aireen is an Economics graduate from the London School of Economics and Political Science and holds a Master's in Economics from New York University.

Pattra Boosarawongse, female, 52, is responsible for Group Finance, Investor Relations, Internal Audit, Group Procurement, and Group Tax.

Pattra has over 8 years of extensive experience in managing multicultural teams in Capital A, she joined Capital A in March 2014 as the Chief Financial Officer of AirAsia Thailand and Asia Aviation PCL; and was appointed as Capital A Group's Chief Financial Officer on 1 September 2016. She successfully implemented Oracle ERP supports by shared service center to the whole Capital A and aggressively drives wide standardisation of financial policy, management reporting, eSourcing, boosting finance and procurement's role in managing data, data engineering and data visualisation by implementing dashboards to support all finance and procurement functions by use of technology, AI and RPA. Pattra supports Capital A CEO on investment strategies to generate the value for the entities under Capital A, she also leads tax strategy and planning.

In 2019, Pattra was named Asia's Best CFO at the 9th Asian Excellence Recognition Awards.

Pattra is a Certified Public Accountant, having started her career as a senior auditor at Ernst & Young. She then joined Sony Music as its Finance Director and rose to become its General Manager. Pattra graduated from Thammasat University in Thailand with a Master's in Finance and Accounting.

Joanna, female, 43, was appointed as Chief Corporate Development and Ventures for Capital A in Jan 2023, she is a seasoned executive with over 15 years of experience in management consulting, aviation, travel, telecommunications, energy and private equity. She previously led airasia grocer as Chief Executive Officer, where she led her team to establish a fresh produce and food grocery supply chain business.

Prior to that, Joanna was instrumental in leading investment and fundraising for the digital ventures in RedBeat Capital, as well as promoting innovation and encouraging collaboration between startups and AirAsia. Joanna joined Capital A in 2010 as Group Head of Strategy, focused on developing and implementing the Group's business plan and turnaround initiatives. She also played a significant role in various joint venture projects and acquisitions at AirAsia, including Big DutyFree (now known as airasia shop), Tune Money (now known as BigPay) and Rokki. Joanna also spearheaded the turnaround effort as Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Financial Officer of AirAsia Indonesia, which ultimately led to the listing of the company in 2017..

She has an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College, London, and a postgraduate degree in Operational Research from the London School of Economics. Joanna has now taken on a new role as Chief Corporate Development and Ventures for Capital A.

Mahesh Kumar, male, 37, was appointed Chief Executive Officer of ADE in September 2020. In this role, he leads the transformation of AirAsia's Engineering department into a comprehensive Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) service provider driven by data and technology serving AirAsia and third party commercial airlines in the region.

Prior to this appointment, Mahesh was the Head of Fleet & Technical Asset Management at AirAsia. During that time, AirAsia sealed two major aircraft portfolio deals with BBAM and Castlelake LP for a combined value of USD3.6 billion which won the 2018 Air Finance Journal Award and 2019 APAC Airline Economics Award. In 2015, he was appointed as a pioneering Senior Vice President, Technical of the newly set up Asia Aviation Capital Limited, the aircraft leasing arm of AirAsia.

Mahesh joined AirAsia's Engineering department in 2009 and since then has been involved in various engineering projects including defining and selection of aircraft and engine type, setting up AirAsia India Engineering and transforming Zest Airways into AirAsia Philippines.

Mahesh holds a Bachelor's in Aeronautical Engineering.

Pete Chareonwongsak, male, 34, is CEO of Teleport, the technology-enabled logistics venture that is committed to enabling delivery anywhere in Asean in under 24 hours.

From 2012 to 2016, Pete was AirAsia's Group Head of Business Development, based in Jakarta and later in Kuala Lumpur. During that time, he worked to set up airlines in India with Tata Group and in Japan with Rakuten Inc, as well as joint ventures in Training, Ground Handling and Leasing. He also handled mergers & acquisitions (M&A) for the Group covering Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and India.

In August 2016, he was appointed AirAsia's Regional Chief Operating Officer, where he led the successful turnaround of AirAsia Philippines.

Prior to Capital A, Pete worked as an Investment Banking Analyst with CIMB, and as the official advisor to the Thailand Trade Representative Office, where he was tasked with promoting inbound and outbound international trade and investment, with specialist focus on crossborder foreign direct investment through M&A, joint ventures and project finance.

Pete holds Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge where he was a Cambridge Overseas Trust Scholar. He also holds a Master's (ALM) in Finance from Harvard University. He is a 40 under 40 Honoree from ZICO ASEAN, which recognises outstanding individuals addressing regional trends or challenges through their work.

He is a Board member of Teleport, Freightchain Technologies, AirAsia India and EasyParcel, a regional e-commerce and parcel delivery startup.

Nadia Omer joins AirAsia MOVE (formerly airasia Superapp) as its Chief Executive Officer effective 26 October 2023. Her key priority will be to drive AirAsia MOVE's vision to be the best-value one-stop travel platform in Asean.

Nadia comes with deep experience within Asia and ASEAN in category conversion, habit change and building new categories that create shared value for the full ecosystem.

She began her career at P&G and subsequently moved to bigger roles at Nestle and PepsiCo and served as the Chief Business Officer of Cars24, Southeast Asia before AirAsia MOVE.

Innovation and building talent is something very close to Nadia's heart. She has built her career as a working mum, and feels passionately about energizing and engaging other young female talents to unleash their potential. She is also a mentor at Antler focusing on helping young founders in tech and e-commerce.

Nadia holds a Master of Business Administration from the Lahore University of Management, and is a Bachelor of Science (Maths, Stats & Econ) graduate.

Zubin is the Group Chief Executive Officer of BigPay, where he will lead the company to fulfil its mission of giving Southeast Asians the financial services they need to level up their lives, one transaction at a time.

Prior to being appointed as Group CEO, he was the Country Head for BigPay Malaysia and also leading international expansion, including BigPay’s upcoming expansion to Thailand in late 2023. Under his leadership, BigPay Malaysia witnessed an exponential growth in user base and revenue figures.

Zubin has almost 20 years of experience in banking and financial services. Prior to BigPay, he was Partner at The Boston Consulting Group, a top tier strategy consulting firm. Here he was focused on: designing and executing digital strategy including launching new digital products; and digital transformation and large-scale change.

Amongst other work in BCG, he developed pre-build plans for two digital bank applicants in Malaysia and Singapore; designed and launched new customer-centric product lines for a Malaysian bank; created and started implementation for a Malaysian bank’s SME strategy; executed an Agile transformation (of >2K employees) of a Malaysian bank; ran due diligences and value creation strategies for financial services targets for investors in Vietnam and Indonesia; and overhauled the digital strategy and architecture for a large institutional investor in Malaysia.

Before BCG, Zubin co-founded Tuas Capital Partners, a private equity house exploring growth opportunities across FMCG, retail, services, tech and nascent businesses in other sectors across Malaysia. He also spent time in Hong Leong Bank, where he helped to craft and implement the strategic agenda. Here he helped to win the licence for, and set up, the first Southeast Asian wholly-owned subsidiary bank in Vietnam; and supported the post-merger integration for Malaysia’s last major retail bank merger. Zubin started his career in KPMG Business Advisory, where he advised financial services players on financial risk and strategy across emerging and frontier markets including Bahrain, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Zubin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from University of Oxford.