ICT CEO

Michael Lai

P1 CEO Awarded ICT Personality of the Year in 2012 PIKOM Leadership Awards

Kuala Lumpur, (13 Nov 2012) – CEO of South-East Asia’s 4G broadband pioneer Packet One Networks Sdn. Bhd. (P1), Michael Lai was recently named the ICT Personalityof the Year at the 2012 PIKOM Leadership Awards.

 

The PIKOM Leadership Awards is an annual event that recognises achievements of individuals in the ICT industry with the following categories – ICT Personality of the Year, ICT Organisation of the Year, Member Excellence Awards, and CIO Excellence Awards.

Individuals conferred for this award has to demonstrate exemplary growth and performance in the ICT industry. They must also have a history of serving the industry and show prominent contribution to the ICT industry in the country.

“I share this award with my team members in P1, as well as our business partners who believed in our “Broadband for All” mission. This award is the result of a strong team believing in the same dream, works hard and never gives up. My heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of our team members who has walked alongside with P1 in the last four years,” said Lai.

Michael has been contributing to the ICT industry in Malaysia for the last 20 years. Among some of his key milestones include major involvement during the golden days of Internet. In addition, he was among the pioneers leading the launch of 3G services and later pushed the adoption of fixed broadband in Malaysia. In 2008, Lai led P1 and launched the first 4G provider in Malaysia and South East Asia. With his in-depth knowledge in the industry, Michael is also the first Malaysian to be appointed as the WiMAX Forum Board Member and a Member of the 4G Global TD-LTE Initiative Steering Committee, representing the South East Asia region.

 

Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft's 30th employee, the first business manager hired by Gates.

Ballmer was initially offered a salary of $50,000 as well as a percentage of ownership of the company. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8 percent of the company. In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company. The same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program.

During the subsequent 20 years, Ballmer headed several Microsoft divisions, including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. From February 1992 onwards he was Executive Vice President, Sales and Support. He was then President of Microsoft from July 1998 to February 2001. Ballmer led Microsoft's development of the .NET Framework.

In January 2000, Ballmer was officially named Chief Executive Officer.[4] As CEO, Ballmer handled company finances, however Gates remained chairman of the board and still retained control of the "technological vision" as chief software architect. Gates relinquished day-to-day activities when he stepped down as chief software architect in 2006, while staying on as chairman, and that gave Ballmer the autonomy needed to make major management changes at Microsoft.

In 2009, and for the first time since Bill Gates resigned from day-to-day management at Microsoft, Ballmer made the opening keynote at CES.

Under Ballmer's tenure as CEO, Microsoft’s annual revenue surged from $25 billion to $70 billion, while its net income has increased 215 percent to $23 billion. Although these gains have come from the existing Windows and Office franchises, Ballmer also built new businesses such as the data centers division ($6.6 billion in profit for 2011) and the Xbox entertainment and devices division ($8.9 billion). In terms of leading their company's total annual profit growth, Ballmer’s tenure at Microsoft (16.4 percent) has surpassed the performances of other well-known CEOs such as General Electric’s Jack Welch (11.2 percent) and IBM's Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. (2 percent). This diversified product mix has helped to offset the company's reliance on PCs and mobile computing devices; in reporting quarterly results during April 2013, while Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 have not managed to increase their market share above single digits, the company increased its profit 19 percent over the previous quarter in 2012, as the Microsoft Business Division (including Office 365) and Server and Tools division are each larger than the Windows division.

Since Bill Gates' retirement, Ballmer oversaw a "dramatic shift away from the company’s PC-first heritage", replacing most major division heads in order to break down the "talent-hoarding fiefdoms", and Businessweek said that the company now had "arguably now has the best product lineup in its history". Ballmer has been instrumental in driving Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy, with acquisitions such as Skype.[4] In addition, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that just under half of 853 respondents between the age of 18 and 29 believed that Microsoft is cooler now than it was last year, due to a coordinated marketing blitz around its Surface tablets advertising its Modern UI interface.

However, Ballmer has attracted criticism for Microsoft's share price which has been stagnant during his tenure, as well as failing to capitalize on several new consumer technologies.[6] In May 2012, hedge fund manager David Einhorn called on Ballmer to step down as CEO of Microsoft. "His continued presence is the biggest overhang on Microsoft's stock," Einhorn said in reference to Ballmer.[15] In a May 2012 column in Forbes magazine, Adam Hartung described Ballmer as "the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company", saying he had "steered Microsoft out of some of the fastest growing and most lucrative tech markets (mobile music, handsets and tablets)".

On June 19, 2012 Ballmer revealed Microsoft's new tablet device called Microsoft Surface at an event held in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

There has been a list of potential successors to Ballmer as Microsoft CEO, however all have departed the company: Jim Allchin, Brad Silverberg, Paul Maritz, Nathan Myhrvold, Greg Maffei, Pete Higgins, Jeff Raikes, J. Allard, Robbie Bach, Bill Veghte, Ray Ozzie, Bob Muglia and Steve Sinofsky.

Ballmer has also served as director of Accenture Ltd. and a general partner of Accenture SCA since October 2001.

John Thompson

Chairman of the Board/Director, Symantec Corp

Director, United Parcel Service Inc (UPS)

Director, Seagate Technology PLC

Age: 62

Mr. Thompson has served as Chairman of the Board since April 1999. He has been Chief Executive Officer of Virtual Instruments, a virtual infrastructure optimization company, since May 2010. Mr. Thompson served as our Chief Executive Officer from April 1999 to April 2009 and as President from April 1999 to January 2002. Mr. Thompson joined Symantec after 28 years at International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), a global information technology company, where he held senior executive positions in sales, marketing and software development. He last served as a general manager of IBM Americas and a member of the company's Worldwide Management Council. Mr. Thompson is a member of the board of directors of Seagate Technology, Inc. and United Parcel Service, Inc. He has previously served as a director of a variety of companies, including NiSource, Inc. Mr. Thompson holds a bachelor's degree from Florida A&M University and a master's degree from MIT's Sloan School of Management. On July 26, 2011, John W. Thompson notified us that he will not stand for re-election as a director when his term expires immediately prior to our Annual Meeting.

Satoru Iwata

Born  December 6, 1959
Sapporo, Japan 
First game  Super Billiards 

Satoru Iwata is the current president of Nintendo. He became president in 2002. Satoru used to work at HAL as a programmer and helped create major games such as Kirby's Dream Land. In 1993, Satoru was promoted as the president of HAL Laboratory. On April 24, 2013, Iwata announced at the year end shareholders meeting that he was taking the role of CEO of Nintendo of America, alongside his duties and Global President. Former NoA CEO Tatsumi Kimishima was given the roll of Nintendo Corporate Ltd. Managing Director.

 Christopher Chan Hooi Guan

In 1996 Christopher Chan along with two partners set upthe software solutions company: The Media Shoppe (TMS).TMS started out producing web-based solutions for small and medium sized industries. Today, it has grown into one of Malaysia’s leading companies in developing world-class homegrown internet and mobile based applications andsolutions for more than 180 clients in 10 countries.TMS received the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) status in 1999 and was also listed on the MESDAQ market of BursaMalaysia. As a visionary CEO, Chris Chan is involved in theoverall management and the development of strategic directions of TMS Group. He was awarded the PIKOM Computimes ICT Award for ICT Entrepreneur of the Year in2001. He was also the finalist at the 2004 Ernst & Young ICT Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Tengku Farith Rithauddeen

 

Technopreneur Tengku Farith Rithauddeen is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of SKALI, a pioneer in e-business and e-government services. SKALI burst onto the scene in the mid nineties when it successfully launched the Asian-based mirror website for the search engine Alta Vista, the world’s most popular search engine before the emergence of Yahoo and Google. SKALI was among the first nine companies to be awarded MSC Status and today has a workforce of more than 400.Guided by Tengku Farith, SKALI successfully negotiated the challenges posed by the dotcom bubble and managed to overcome it by sheer resilience and persistence. In 2002,Tengku Farith was selected as one of the 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow (GLT) by the World Economic Forum. He became the first recipient of the Young Entrepreneur Award by theMalay Chamber of Commerce in 2004 and was awarded Most Outstanding Entrepreneur for2008 by the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurs Award (APEA) Organisation.