Now everyone can fly!

lunch with tony fernandes, originally uploaded by mincaye.

Standing from L-R, minus cabin crew: Ameer, Alice, Weng Kit, Tony Fernandes, Phak Hoe, Li-Shia

Kneeling from L-R: Ken Ming, Chun Hong, Kian Ti, me


Had lunch with Tony Fernandes, CEO of Air Asia, last Wednesday at the JW Marriott. It was a luncheon organised by the Victoria Institution Old Boys' Association (VIOBA), part of their Leadership Series Talks.

There were some 160 persons present, and each paid RM100 for the lunch. But ten presidents of clubs and societies in school were offered free seats, and indeed it was a great lunch!

The ten of us were:

Kian Ti, Board of Monitors
Phak Hoe, Form Six Council
Chun Hong, Science & Mathematics Society
Li-Shia, Consumer Club
Alice, Chinese Language Union
Akmal, Society for the Prevention of Crime
Ameer, Bowling Club
Ken Ming, Music Society
Weng Kit, Horticulture Club
yours truly, Victorian Editorial Board


The subject of the talk was:

"Perfecting leadership to get extroardinary results out of ordinary people."

It was an exciting talk punctuated with jabs at Singapore, the biggest of which came at the end with the slide shown above, heheheh...

But jokes aside, I found it inspirational, and several ideas/thoughts that particularly stuck with me include:

"My job is internal branding: selling an idea to the staff."

"During crises like SARS, other airlines cut advertising costs; we tripled it. I knew Malaysians very well: cost low enough, they'll risk their lives for it. RM800, SARS; RM88, who cares about SARS?"


There were some pointers on fostering teamwork that I feel are applicable to the editorial board scenario. And we managed to get Mr Fernandes' handphone number and e-mail!