The conservative banker
Maybank CEO Abdul Farid Alias explains why 'humanising financial services' best describes the bank's DNA.
MAYBANK'S group president and CEO, Abdul Farid Alias, does not come across as your typical boss of a big bank. The 49-year-old's boyish demeanour - further reinforced by a backpack slung over his shoulder as he walks into the room at The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore for this interview - signals an easy manner.
Heading Malaysia's biggest bank (and the fourth largest in Asean) cannot be easy; still Mr Farid is earnest and relaxed, and his comments about his approach to banking do surprise somewhat.
He will tell you that Maybank is a conservative institution and although he's spent more than half of his working life as an investment banker, he is, in his own words, "very conservative".
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