Who is Anwar's new comms adviser, Shazalli Ramly?

Editor’s Note: The article was amended to correct the date of appointment and the period in which Mohammed Shazalli Ramly served as Boustead Holdings Bhd managing director.

Effective yesterday, corporate man Mohammed Shazalli Ramly was appointed as the media and strategic communications adviser to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

The appointment was to replace Rozaid Abdul Rahman who passed away on Aug 18.

According to the official announcement, Shazalli will continue serving as Khazanah Nasional Bhd media adviser, while also monitoring Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s media and communications affairs.

But who is Shazalli?

If you think you recognise him from somewhere, it could be because you saw him playing percussion in the 2018 “Hebatnya Negaraku” election music video, featuring heads of government-linked companies (GLCs).

“Hebatnya Negaraku” was BN’s slogan for the 14th general election, in which the coalition was toppled for the first time in history.

At the time, Shazalli was the managing director and CEO of Telekom Malaysia Bhd.

In 2018, the financial newspaper The Edge Malaysia referred to him as Najib’s “image guru” who “played a pivotal role in BN’s branding in GE14”.

Shazalli has had an illustrious career in GLCs and the corporate world in general.

Before joining national sovereign fund Khazanah as its media adviser, he was managing director of Boustead Holdings Bhd, a firm owned by the Armed Forces Fund Bhd (LTAT), from 2020 to December 2022.

At the time, Boustead described him as a “turnaround specialist”, with then chairperson Mohamed Khaled Nordin expressing confidence in Shazalli’s “proven track record in corporate transformation”.

Last year, he was appointed director of the airline company AirAsia X Bhd.

CEO of NTV7

He joined Telekom Malaysia after a long stint as CEO of telco firm Celcom Axiata from 2005 to 2016.

Celcom is a subsidiary of the Axiata Group. Once an arm of Telekom Malaysia, it became its own company in 2018.

Although he is now filling the position of media and communications adviser, Shazalli’s last stint in a media company was almost two decades ago, as CEO of TV channel NTV7, from 1998 to August 2005.

Then Umno-owned Media Prima acquired the TV station in October 2005.

Before that, Shazalli was marketing director of Astro from 1996 to 1997.

His training was also in marketing. A Bachelor of Science (Marketing) graduate from Indiana University Bloomington, he started his career in Unilever and British American Tobacco Company.

PMO announces new media and strategic communications adviser

PMO's media and strategic communications director dies