Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp) yesterday announced the appointment of Shareen Shariza Abdul Ghani as its new chief executive officer (CEO) with effect from June 1, 2016. Shareen is currently the chief operating officer of TalentCorp.

Shareen replaces Johan Mahmood Merican, whose secondment to TalentCorp ends on May 30, 2016, after more than five years as CEO. Johan will be returning to the Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department to take up a new role as a deputy director-general, where his portfolio will include human capital.

Under Johan’s leadership, TalentCorp has spearheaded public-private partnerships to connect leading employers with talent that Malaysia needs, driving greater industry-academia collaboration to improve graduate employability and leveraging on the Returning Expert Programme (REP) to support employer efforts to match global Malaysian talent with job opportunities in Malaysia.

Johan also led public-private collaborations to improve employers’ access to highly-skilled expatriate talent through the Malaysia Expatriate Talent Service Centre (MYXpats Centre) and encourage employers to optimise on Malaysian professionals by promoting diversity and inclusion.

Shareen brings with her over 20 years of experience in a wide range of industries including retail, capital markets, social and humanitarian sector as well as in the corporate sustainability space. Before joining TalentCorp, she was the director of corporate responsibility at Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Khazanah), where she helped shape the sovereign fund’s corporate responsibility strategy and implemented a number of key national programmes.

Prior to that, she was chief operations officer at Mercy Malaysia, where she served in humanitarian missions to Darfur, Sri Lanka, Iran, Aceh and remote areas throughout Malaysia.

Shareen has been part of TalentCorp since its early years, in her capacity as Khazanah’s representative on the board of directors of GEMS Malaysia Sdn Bhd, the TalentCorp subsidiary responsible for upskilling Malaysian graduates through the Graduate Employability Management Scheme (GEMS).

TalentCorp was established on Jan 1, 2011 under the Prime Minister’s Department to formulate and facilitate initiatives to address the availability of talent in line with the needs of the country’s economic transformation. Collaborating closely with relevant government agencies and employers in priority economic sectors, TalentCorp develops demand-driven initiatives to enhance graduate employability, optimise Malaysian professionals, engage Malaysians abroad and facilitate foreign talent.

- Bernama