Azleena was a Deputy Director at Central Bank of Malaysia since 2005 until April this year. During her nearly 12 years of service, she was instrumental in several key national and international initiatives including positioning Malaysia as an International Islamic Financial Centre (MIFC) and devising Islamic finance initiatives in the Financial Sector Master Plan 2010-2020. She was also responsible for the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013, development of Islamic finance-related provisions in the Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009, liberalization of the Malaysian legal profession, operationalization of International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation including its Sukuk issuance programme and implementation of GST for the financial sector under Central Bank of Malaysia. She was instrumental in the establishment of Islamic Finance Tax Neutrality Committee and Islamic Finance Law Harmonization Committee. Prior to that, she was with the RHB Group for nearly a decade where her last position was Assistant General Manager, Group Legal and Compliance. Apart from her responsibilities in legal and compliance matters of the Group, she was involved in the operations of the group as an Exco and Credit Committee member of several capital markets related subsidiaries and was joint Group Company Secretary. During her tenure, she was instrumental in most of the merger and acquisition exercises involving the RHB Group beginning with the acquisition of Kwong Yik Bank Berhad and restructuring of the Group to create RHB Bank Berhad and ending with the creation of RHB Islamic Bank Berhad. Trained and qualified as a lawyer, she read law at Manchester Law School, United Kingdom and after graduation, obtained Certificate of Legal Practice (Hons) from the Malaysian Legal Profession Qualifying Board, both on federal scholarship. She is also a graduate of the prestigious TRIUM Global Executive MBA from London School of Economics and Political Science, New York University Stern Business School and HEC Business School Paris, ranked 1st Executive MBA in the world by Financial Times in 2014 which enabled her to gain valuable insights on technology disruption, digital economy, entrepreneurship, globalization, sustainability and digital media marketing. Azleena has advised governments on their Islamic banking, Sukuk, Takaful, taxation, legal and regulatory framework as well as strategies and is a regular speaker on Islamic finance developments, new growth areas, strategies, innovation and developmental laws and regulations. She is now a Managing Director andHead of ASEAN with SHAPE®.
Dr. Ken Baldwin is Chief Executive Officer of Islamic Financial Analytics Limited, which provides training and advisory services in quantitative finance and risk management to the Islamic banking and finance industries. Ken has worked as a practitioner in banking and finance for over 25 years in senior finance and risk management positions. Having graduated from Oxford University with a first class honors degree in Physics, he qualified as a chartered accountant before joining UBS, and then later Credit Suisse, in derivatives risk and control functions based in London. He gained a PhD in the microeconomic theory of risk sharing in Islamic contracts and worked in the GCC for 15 years in Islamic retail and Islamic investment banks. Ken built an ALM analytic technology platform for Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, was MENA Regional Head of Quantitative Analysis for Citigroup, and has worked in risk management roles for both conventional and Islamic private equity and venture capital institutions. Ken was most recently employed by the Islamic Development Bank in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where he was responsible for establishing the bank’s financial strategy and policies function, which provides risk-based financial strategy and balance sheet structuring to preserve the Bank’s AAA rating, as well as risk management and product pricing analytics support. Ken has published quantitative finance articles in peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Risk and has taught CFA and FRM.
With a 16-year career in markets, Pavan’s expertise primarily covers providing hedging and investment solutions for government linked companies as well as local and foreign corporate clients. In her current role she has been instrumental in setting up the Islamic global markets sales desk to provide comprehensive solutions to clients across various underlying assets classes. Prior to joining her current role, Pavan gained experience in derivatives and structured products working for HSBC Bank Berhad and CIMB Investment Bank Berhad over a period of 6 years. Her earlier experience as Fixed Income Manager with ING Investment Berhad saw her involvement in managing fixed income portfolios for insurance and unit linked funds, in accordance with investment mandates. Pavan started her career with Rating Agency Malaysia Berhad as a credit analyst evaluating credit profiles and assigning ratings based on risk profile for both banks and local companies interested in raising debt via capital markets. Pavan holds a Bachelor degree in Law with Honours from University of London, and a MBA Degree from Griffith University Queensland Australia.
