KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 — Axiata Group Bhd is looking forward to leadership transition that gives a good balance between continuity and fresh leadership.

President and group chief executive officer (CEO) Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim will step down at year-end and he will be succeeded by Datuk Mohd Izzaddin Idris.

The former UEM group managing director, Datuk Mohd Izzaddin Idris was appointed as deputy group CEO and group CEO-designate, effective Jan 24, 2020.

"The last 12 years have been exciting, challenging and incredibly demanding, to say the very least. Time has flown past in the blink of an eye!

"To an extent, my more than a decade at Axiata can best be described as a mini roller coaster ride of almost 50 financial quarters of rigour and scrutiny, with its ups and downs and unexpected twists and turns, as we battled heightened competition, unpredictable regulatory environments and global events beyond our control,” Jamaludin said in the latest Axiata’s annual report filed with Bursa Malaysia.

He said when Khazanah Nasional Bhd former managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar pitched the leadership role in Axiata in 2007, he was intrigued by the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform a homegrown government-linked company up from an already good company into a great multinational group that is globally recognised and respected.

"As a Malaysian who is grateful for the countless opportunities the country had provided me to develop my own professional growth, I was confident we had the talent, capacity and vision to put Malaysia on the world map as one of the top telecom players in the region, and well-known globally,” he said.

Putting it in perspective, the Axiata of today is present in 11 countries in Asean and South Asia with revenue almost 2.5 times larger since inception in June 1992.

Jamaludin said the group’s local companies are fierce competitors, fighting hard to stake their number one and strong number two positions in their markets.

"As a regional champion, we take pride in how Smart has leapfrogged to grow by five times in the Cambodian market within a short time span. The same can be said for Robi in Bangladesh, XL in Indonesia and Dialog in Sri Lanka, all of which have tripled in size since we first started,” he added.

Jamaludin said all Axiata operating companies were recognised as one of their countries’ best performers, if not the best in their respective markets.

"If I were to pick a guiding principle that has been Axiata’s stealth weapon that drove our performance, it would be our obsessive adoption of diversity as one of our key differentiating strategies. We could not have performed as well without the strength of our diversity.

"It is also an excellent experience for all our staff to work in this diverse environment, reflecting the globalised world, and providing the impetus to get out of the "katak di bawah tempurung” (living in a cocoon) and "jaguh kampung” (village champion) mindsets,” he added. — Bernama