The Breakfast Grille

Jim Bujold, President of Honeywell South East Asia comes on the Breakfast Grille to talk about growing its presence in this part of the world. Honeywell, which made its name in thermostats, is in present day a well-known conglomerate in US with headquarters based in New Jersey. For Honeywell Malaysia, the company is chiefly involved in the aerospace, avionics and automation services. We talk about...

The falling oil prices have had a huge impact on the already struggling Venezuela economy, as oil accounts for more than 95% of its exports and 50% of the Goverment’s fiscal revenue. Analysts say for every $1 drop in oil prices, Venezuela will lose $700 million in export revenue. His Excellency Manuel Guzman, the Venezuelan ambassador to Malaysia, is on the Breakfast Grille. He talks about,...

Both lifestyle aspirations and concern for fitness have expressed themselves into to the growth of gym memberships. Fitness First taps into both nicely with their comprehensive and premium offering. They have aggressive expansion plans which need funding. There is also at the margins rising competition no-frills concepts. But Simon Flint believes that the enlargement of the fitness pie is good for...

Eg Kah Yee, founder and chairman of Palette Multimedia Bhd comes on the Breakfast Grille to talk about the company's turnaround plan. Palette's business is as a solution provider of broadband, wireless and networking products and services. However, this ACE-listed market has been loss-making for the past six years, and now is banking its hopes on its mobile healthcare cloud system. So we ask him a...

A career diplomat, Ajit Singh become Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, at a time of double-digit growth and tremendous optimism. He was the first to have a ministerial rank, unlike his predecessors with ambassadorial status; a development championed by Malaysia’s foreign minister. We speak to Ajit about the challenges that presented themselves during his tenure...

Despite what we know about online-disrupting businesses and budget travel, the low-cost revolution actually began in the 70s when John Bogle conceptualised and pioneered the index fund. Today Vanguard has funds that charge only 0.05% as management fee with no sales cost and provide decent market returns to investors made possible by the passive investment philosophy. This is a stark contrast to hi...

E-commerce is set to take off given that it is currently only a small portion of the US$500b retail spending in Asean. How are online shopping websites going to emulate the trust and touch and feel aspects of brick and mortar shopping especially in an environment of high cybercrime and fraud? Enter websites like trustedcompany.com which seek to plug the online reputational gap. See omnystudio.com/...

Mark Chang, the founder and CEO of Jobstreet comes on the Breakfast Grille to talk about life for the company after it sold its online employment business to Australian-based Seek Ltd. Last year Seek, which is Australia's biggest online jobs ads company, said it would buy the remaining shares it did not own in Jobstreet's core business for RM1.73 billion. We ask Mark what is the latest concerning...

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis, talks to us about how well the idea of happiness sits in this competitive world. Related to that are questions of whether capitalism is ethical when seen in the light of grave inequalities. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Top diplomat Professor Mahbubani is renowned among intellectual and inner circles having served as President of the United Nations Security Council. He shares his views of the potential for Asean as an economic bloc and the creeping extremism we see in the region today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bank Simpanan Nasional, set up by an Act of Parliament in 1974, continues with the social objective of raising savings rates and savings awareness among schoolchildren and the young. A system of registered banking agents has also been launched for a few years to bring banking services to rural areas. These created a win-win situation which allowed BSN to raise deposits cheaply, fulfil social objec...

Datuk Abdul Hak Amin, managing director of EA Technique (M) Bhd comes on the Breakfast Grille to discuss the future of his company post-listing. EA, which went, public just over a month ago, is mainly an owner and operator of marine vessels. The group has an orderbook of around RM1.2 billion, but the share price has been sluggish since its debut on concerns of oil. So we ask about EA saying that i...

Datuk Dr Chin Yew Sin, in his capacity as Secretary General of ASEAN-China Economic and Trade Promotion Association comes on the Breakfast Grille to talk about the relationship between the two parties and how it could develop. Established in 2010, the main aim of the Association is to extend the economic and trade cooperation between ASEAN and China and build a platform for interaction between the...

Melisa Idris speaks to Dato’ Charon Mokhzani, Managing Director of Khazanah Research Institute, as they dissect the institute’s State of Households report, which sets out some of the most pressing issues regarding household income, wages, housing, and debt. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster, Dr David Suzuki, breaks down in tears, as he talks about his fears over the future of the planet for his grandchildren. Suzuki also voices his long-time frustration at the obsession for economic growth at the sacrifice of nature, while urging us all to strive for better quality of life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Masers finds itself in the almost utopic situation of being in the business of renewable energy and ultra high broadband speeds. All this being done at reasonable pricing which for all intents and purposes is disruptive. We look into the viability of these businesses especially since the oil price crash makes renewables less competitive as an energy source. Also, will the availability of cheap and...

Matt Chin, the group executive director for Minetech Resources Bhd comes on the Breakfast Grille to talk about the company's prospects as it attempts to streamline its business. Minetech is in the business of mining and civil engineering, but has been loss-making for the past two financial years. We ask Matt about the the return path to profitability and query him about the active trading surround...

WordPress which powers 22 percent of the world’s top 10 million websites is one of the world market leader in the web-publishing industry. Matt Mullenweg shares how the group is making the web a better place and his idea for an independent web making each site unique and original See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reckless bank activity leading up to the global financial crisis of 2008 resulted in great hardships that affected lives of ordinary people. Too-big-to-fail banks, by now cliches, that held the economy at ransom put the spotlight on the adequacy of the regulatory framework and indeed capitalism itself. In Lord Turner's words, "the financial crisis had challenged the intellectual assumptions on whi...

Headquartered in Singapore, Milaap is changing how social enterprise works through crowd-funding with its online fund-raising platform that enables people around the world to fund and impact communities that they care about. Sourabh Sharma shares the missions of the organisation and how its contributions is channelled directly to those in need whilst keeping its operations self-sustaining.  S...

In the final episode of our Breakfast Grille round-up for 2014, we look into tech-related and new economy grilles that we have done for the year. Most memorably, we have seen tech players like Uber riling up the industry and even drawing the eye of our local transport regulators SPAD. We also dissect concepts like crowd funding which is no longer the domain of Silicon Valley. See omnystudio.com/li...

In the second episode of our Breakfast Grille round-up for 2014, we look into oil & gas related grilles that we have done for the year. Current oil prices is pushing the industry to the brink and corporations are feeling the pain. Liaw Thong Jung shares his insights how long the nation can sustain the rout. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the first episode of our Breakfast Grille round-up for 2014, we look into property-related grilles that we have done for the year. The property industry was laden with government measures and policies as issues like affordable housing and curbing speculation come to the fore. Siva Shanker shares his insights of how the industry has performed for the year and its outlook. See omnystudio.com/list...

Tan Yew Sing, first vice president of the Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce comes on the Breakfast Grille to talk about the ups and downs of the Malaysia-China relationship. The MCCC aims to promote interaction, cooperation and investment, among others, between Malaysia and China. Currently MCCC's membership stands at 1,400 corporate members. Given that China is Malaysia's largest trading partner...

Today CEOs are are increasingly likened to national leaders as their organisations command a sizeable part of the global economy with a GDP contribution of tiny nations. Linda shares the leadership challenges in the Asian context and also contrast it against local Malaysia power structures with your titles and honorifics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.