MASC PR Team and Mr. John Zinkin

 

Hello guys,

 

our PR Team had interviewed 

Mr. John Zinkin, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Securities Industry Development Corporation (SIDC).

A brief biography of Mr John Zinkin:

John Zinkin has 38 years experience in business, of which 20 have been in Asia, holding senior line management and corporate strategy/business development positions in major multinational manufacturing, marketing and consulting companies.

He is also the Deputy Chairman of Institute of Corporate Responsibility, Malaysia – a network designed to promote best practices in Corporate Social Responsibility and he has written “What CEOs must do to succeed”, published by Prentice Hall in 2003 and co-authored “Corporate Governance”, published by John Wiley in 2005.                                            

   (sources from: umcors)

Mr John has the following messages to share with accounting students.

1.      Values and motivation drive people towards success. What has inspired you to be who are you today?

The key theme in my life has always been learning. So to answer your question, what inspires me is the interest to learn new things. The day you stop learning is the day you die.  

What also drives me is doing something different, seeing it through; and where I’ve worked, helping the organizations become better than they thought they were capable of being. My biggest satisfaction derived from work is not in terms of ‘numbers’ even though that’s important. It’s being able to see the difference I‘ve made to the people who work with me—getting them to be ‘bigger’ than they thought they were in terms of capability, courage and entrepreneurship. 

2.      What were the main obstacles and challenges you faced in your journey of life and how did you overcome them?

Throughout my working life, the main obstacle I faced (and still face) is politics. Politics exist in all organizations. As time goes on, you will learn that doing a good job is not necessarily the whole answer in a workplace. Typically, when you are young, you think that as long as I do my job, meet my targets, I will be okay. Unfortunately, that is not always true in reality. Besides doing your job well, you have to be able to manage the politics in your workplace and of course, your boss.

A big challenge everyone will face is how to stand up after you’ve been knocked down. If you are aiming to be in a leadership position, you have to learn to stand up again and again each time you’re knocked down. As a leader or an employer, you have to give hope to the people who work with you. The same is true whether you are leader of a nation, a multinational company or a small organization. If you fail to give hope to the people who work under you, if you fail to give them focus, and if you fail to appear confident and certain in front of them, you will not be able to lead them. These are lessons you need to learn if you want to achieve success in life. Don’t forget to learn from your mistakes too.

Recap from committee:

Another important lesson we have learned from the interview is that the workplace is not a perfect place. We have to be able to adapt and be smart in managing situations—whether they are tasks given, problems at work or people who are working with us.