Sunday 29 June 2014

Law of Demand = meal time everytime

I'm one who cannot work if I have nothing to munch on. I know I know, "you're sooooooo gonna die the next one month Alia!". Funnily though, I've had colleagues come up to me to ask what has happened to me? Everyone seems to think that I've lost weight.

My "food intake vs weight" graph (if there ever is) looks exactly like the Law of Demand (downward sloping). The more food, the less heavy I am. Hoooorayyy! That's good right? More I eat, the smaller I get. There's a little secret to that if it doesn't work for you - go up to your Boss and ask for more work :P

But because I may become dysfunctional if I don't eat, I have awesome colleagues who make sure I always do have food all the time! The problem is when I snack, I really snack and that means heavy food during non-meal times. 11am, 3pm, 4.30pm, 6pm, 10.30pm you name it. I probably eat in my sleep!

Just this week alone, I've snacked on these....
My Boss packed me buns from Bread Shop
My Tea Lady packed this for me!
 My awesome Intern went to buy 10 of these superb Nasi Lemak for a 3pm snack!
 My colleagues gave up and just allowed me to have the entire box!
Less plates to wash anyway, so I was doing everyone a favour. Pffft.


I now have a new nickname in the office. My Boss calls me
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Lil Person

Saturday 28 June 2014

WE LOVE YCM

It's been 4 months since my team and I came in to lead YCM now, and I have nothing but only great things to say about these amazing teammates of mine :)
I’ve always wanted to be very involved in the Corporate world but at the same time in the non-Corporate world as well – which explains my Dreamgirls involvement back in 2011 as well as most of the sports at work. It’s the little added happiness that makes it more interesting to wake up everyday, really! So when I took on the Chairman position at YCM earlier this year, as much as I know we are Young CORPORATE Malaysians, I thought how can I run this organization differently from the past Chairman? Make it less structured and more fun! Yup, it’s rewarding to be a little different sometimes :)

So the first thing I did was to get the committee’s buy-in to have a @youngcorporatemalaysians Instagram account up and running the day I report full time at YCM. We live in a society that relies so much on Social Media to get through our everyday life, it’s only right for us to get in touch with the targeted audience. Plus, Instagram gives me this ‘fun’ feeling to it and who in this world don’t like to see pictures! Our account is barely 3 months old and we've blot close to 600 amazing followers! So a little added fun, CHECKED!


Next thing was once you get their attention, how do I maintain it and stay in touch with my members (we currently have about 6000++ members). Constant communication! I made it a point to make sure my awesome teammates were active with the emails, always helpful in providing any sort of questions people may have. So we make it a point to by hook or by crook plan an event every month and at the same time sought for interesting networking opportunities with Corporates out there. This I believe goes two ways; one is we can allow our members to have the opportunity to participate in Corporate events representing YCM and secondly allow Corporates to get to know these young full-of-potential future leaders! This gave us a huge reason to blast emails and be in touch with our members every month! Thankfully, we’ve been blessed with multiple networking opportunities that were out of our business as usuals (ie: CEO Series). 

That said, we've got a dedicated team to run the YCM EDITS where we publish write ups on all our sessions for the benefit of those who could not make it. You can find it on www.ycm.org.my :)


And then there’s trying to do the impossible (ok, maybe impossible is too great a word) by getting very influential leaders to speak at YCM. Working to get the ‘best of the best’ in town I believe would harness the confidence of our members to believe in our cause and objective and there’s nothing more we need than the support of our members.  Truthfully, when I first started, I felt a little pressured only because I’ve been living and working in London for a while that I don’t know exactly the who’s who in Malaysia. True, BUT starting from scratch and building up the relationship WILL allow you to get to know people, slowly but surely. Plus, you get to learn from your mistakes and this allows you to improve. Just as long as you believe in the idea you’re about to sell to them, it’s done! 

Love it like it’s yours. It’s a very powerful tool, it helps a great deal because when you love something, you’d do anything to make people accept and love it just as much as you if not more.

Keeping in touch with your Sponsors is very important because clearly without them YCM wouldn’t be where it is today. All our events are free for public, and it’s only through our goals and objectives can we get the support of the big boys and corporates out there. Win their hearts and not only will you get the support, but also a priceless experience working with them. These people have been in the corporate world well before many of us :))

There's a lot more I wished I could do for YCM, but I realised that sometimes having a hectic full time job to do on top of this YCM volunteering can be very very challenging. For that, I'm forever grateful that I have amazing colleagues who knows and are very supportive about YCM (yes, our Group CEO made it clear to the entire Bank about supporting YCM). It helps a great great deal, soooooo sayang them MasyaAllah. 

That said, another thing that went very well a couple of days ago was out 52nd CEO Series.
I’m sure most of us know FashionValet - more known as FV. Back in the earlier days when FV launched, I mentioned it to Vivy that it would be great if we can do cross branding between the 2, since you know YCM, FV...2 different target audience. She agreed but we never pursued further until I came back onboard this year and I thought "this would be the perfect time to!"
Branding FV across the young corporates industry and branding YCM across the fashion non-corporate industry!  Vivy, Fadza and I personally had fun doing FV for YCM that night and Alhamdulillah, we thought branding of both went well, as planned :) It was an even greater turnout because Fadza was an amazing honest speaker himself! Post event, Vivy and I thought, let's go on to make both our target audience excited, and how did we do it?

If you're reading this: Everyone gets a RM50 voucher (with a minimum purchase of RM100) when you shop at fashionvalet.com. Just make sure to check out with the code "WELOVEYCM" before paying and walah! 


Stay tuned for more events from Young Corporate Malaysians :)

Sunday 22 June 2014

short

"Now I remember who you look like sayang!"
"Who?"
"My ex-girlfried. She's tall and has short hair like you, just that her hair is blonde"
"Huh? Who? (halfway thinking he meant me, since you know, he's my ex boyfriend because he's now my fiancé and I used to have coloured hair before)"

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"A malay Taylor Swift!"

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Long-hair days begone!! 

#mamaandpapamademechopmyhairoff
#justbeingagooddaughter
#aimanstalkedme
#aimanthinksilooklikeamalaytaylorswift

Friday 20 June 2014

KL Fashion Week


KL Fashion Week in town yo!

Sadly though, I could not make it for most of the invites due to work and timing and I was looking forward to make it for Alia Bastamam. Nonetheless, I managed to make it for Innai's show and MasyaAllah, all the dresses were gorgeous! Well done Izrin and Yanie and thanks for the invitation! Of course Sara and I had this baru-balik-kerja look and it was so obvious when you're around beautiful fashionable fashionistas! 

Dresses at KLFW, Breathtaking. Period :)

Watching it live for Innai and getting live updates for Alia Bastamam, I believe I've made the right choices for both my Nikah and Wedding dresses, InsyaAllah. Well work has been hectic, and it's only getting busier by the day. However, a break from work to go see beautiful dresses made up for it :)

Tuesday 17 June 2014

That bad

You know that feeling when you want something so badly? I swear it can kill a person! :D

Like a kid having a whole long wish list during birthday. I have one on my wish list right now.

Monday 16 June 2014

Is it normal?

The closer I get to the wedding day, the more I feel the need to achieve even more before I get married. Achieve in my definition does not mean money or position. I'm not too sure what is it that the system is chasing, but there is this drive to gain as much experience as I could, get through professional qualifications as soon as possible (although some allow you up to 6 years to complete it) and just have as much busy-time as I could. Truthfully, the thought of wedding itself is not in my head...yet! (Don't worry, I do think about it, just not all the time. In case Aiman reads this!) :D

To be fair, I'm not sure what marriage life is like or what and how things would change thereafter, but just in case drive, motivation and priorities change post marriage who knows. I was brought up in a family where my parents were workaholics when I was younger, and they're really good at what they do. So naturally, I grew up wanting to achieve just as much as them. Thankfully, I also grew up loving my job, so that makes it so much easier :)

There are times when I think about the future and wonder whether I would be able to provide like how mum and dad did for both abang and I. I used to have mama planning our family holidays every year, arranging my daily schedule for sports and extra curricular and papa who wakes me up every morning for school and he who would make sure warm water was running in the shower before laying down my uniform on the bed for when I get out of the shower. Lucky girl I am, Alhamdulillah :)

I just hope that one day, God willing I would be able to give my own family the greatest love I could and provide them with the best things life has got to offer! One thing I've already found at the moment is a very understanding future-husband who surely wants the same for our future, so we're set to experience everything together as a team InsyaAllah :)
Post Invest Malaysia KL 2014 :)

Friday 13 June 2014

New Job

I think I saw the amount of time required for this new job, but my body didn't.

I have to be honest, it's a lot of hard work but although my body is tired, I'm actually really enjoying this new experience I'm getting. It's a whole different game altogether - what you are required to know, what sort of economic and banking knowledge you should have top of your head and the level of ad-hoc activity you are needed to be ready for. It's like a combination of Networking + Download of Banking knowledge on a whole new level (if you get what I mean)!
Over the weekend, we had a gathering for all our leaders and I've never felt so so thankful and privileged to be able to communicate with regional leaders from my very own firm. They had so much to share - from valuable experience to what I should look out for in order to make the most out of my career. Sit with your leaders when you can and be open with your questions, believe me it's one of life's greatest experience you could ever ask for!
I left the place feeling so grateful and what made a great working weekend an even better one was when I headed out to join my Equities and Coverage guys to prepare for Invest Malaysia the next day. It's amazing just working alongside my very awesome colleagues who never fail to teach me something new every single day, bless them!
On top of the new job, there's the wedding preparation (haha! Actually I'm not doing anything about it just yet apart from little errands on and off) and YCM that I am continuously learning from and finding ways to make it more connected with the corporate world. My body feels like it's running a non-stop marathon, and it's nowhere close to stopping. The adrenaline rush, the new job requirement and the priceless takeaway, it's an amazing feeling! Alhamdulillah :)
Nothing beats waking up excited to go to work everyday, feeling just right and comfortable around your colleagues. It's like a little family of colleagues in the office, and it feels...nice :))))

Monday 2 June 2014

Big Eyes!

Oh baby Raul!
....and I used to think no one could beat my big eyes! I look shocked in almost all formal pictures really. But of course if I have kids in the future, I prefer for them to have my eyes instead of Aiman's. Haha! :D