Guiding Sabah’s young business leaders

MANY of Sabah’s successful business started from scratch and had to navigate challenges along the way through a combination of ingenuity, skill and determination.

Some survived and some didn’t but we can all agree that the success rate would have been better if only those pioneers who faltered had mentors to guide them.

Which is what an organisation that aims to build a corps of successful entrepreneurs in Sabah in various fields aim to do.

It is called Sybil (Sabah Young Business and Industry Leaders) and formed early last year with the support of Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) State Government.

Today, Sybil boasts a growing database and network of nearly 200 young industry players who manage successful businesses across Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, Tawau and Keningau. “We aim to expand these connections even further,” said its President Datuk James Wong.

Sybil delegation visiting the Chief Minister’s office.

Mid last year, the organisation successfully mobilised nearly 600 Sabahan entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs and management leaders for their Masterclass 2024 event. This networking and nurturing is possible because Sybil’s key members are prominent individuals representing a wide range of industries.

“We also maintain strong ties with professors from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), research institutions and young government servants within our network,” Wong added.

He believes building successful industries requires collaboration across diverse specialisations, with cooperation between businesses, research institutions, and the government being essential for driving growth and success.

DE: What is Sybil’s mission, and how can your organisation help Sabah youngsters?

Wong: Sybil’s mission is to mobilize young Sabahan Industry Leaders to work alongside the government to build a stronger Sabah Future Economy. We comprise a wide network of nearly 200 established business owners and professionals from all industries who are incredibly capable, action-oriented executors, running successful business on the ground, un-afraid to work hard, and most importantly have the heart to serve and see Sabah grow and prosper.

We aim to create a mindset that the younger generation are stakeholders of the future of Sabah for the next 30 years, and to develop a culture where our objective is not on what we can get for ourselves or benefit personally, but our focus is on what we can get for ourselves or benefit personally, but our focus is on what we can give back to the society and help be a part of building up our future Sabah.

That’s why we have the objectives of:

Building a platform – to allow these incredibly smart and capable industry players to voice their innovative ideas and solutions to the right people, work alongside the government to help solve real world issues, and not just complain but on the other hand, be part of the solution.
Learning – to develop a Learning Ecosystem for young business owners, professionals, and industry players to build successful Sabah and companies, which will in turn build a stronger Sabah Future Economy.
Network – surround ourselves with the top minds of Sabah, future leaders, industry players top grow together in an environment of service and learning. By doing so we believe that is where the real; magic happens, where great ideas are developed, partnerships among capable individuals to execute those ideas are developed, and real results happen!

DE: How many SYBIL members are currently playing mentors promising entrepreneurs?

Wong: In Sybil, we all have a peer-to-peer learning culture where no matter how established we are – we all still have much to learn from each other on this journey.

We also have a giving and sharing culture, where we value the lessons and learnings each and every one of us has to share from our personal experiences in running our business or career and industry.

With 200 entrepreneurs in our network, if we could learn one lesson from each of them, imagine the powerful and life-long learnings we can apply to all our businesses!

DE: What are the constraints or challenges SYBIL is facing?

Wong: Since Sybil was only formed early this year, we started the organization with absolutely no funding or support. All our events and value we have been providing to the business community and state of Sabah has been fully self-funded by our passionate committee members, using our own money, staff, time, resources, office premises, overhead expenses which has not been east journey to sustain.

Yet, even though we starting with nothing, we have still been able to achieve so much for Sabah and so efficiently! This is Entrepreneurship mindset and mentality! We are grateful for the support from our sponsors for all our events so far.

We are in process of trying to become a self-sustaining organization which is an ongoing challenge, however, we have the confidence that we can achieve it successfully. These challenges only motivate us more, to provide an ever greater impact to the community.

DE: How is Sybil making their efforts known? Apart from the media.

Wong: Despite having only started this year with little support or resources, Sybil has grown exponentially both in size and in reputation partly because the Committee has been fully focused and working hard just to provide good value to the wider business community, various industries, and even contributing ideas and constructive solutions to the State Government.

SYBIL’s network has so far grown mainly through recommendations, relationships, reviews, and word-of mouth. SYBIL also has social media accounts on Facebook (SYBIL Sabah), Instagram (@sybilsabah), YouTube (Sybil Sabah) and website: https://sybilnetwork.com/ where we actively post all our updates, latest press articles and interviews with young Sabahan industry players.

DE: Are SYBIL members volunteering or do they depends on any allocations from the state govt?

Wong: Sybil members, leaders, and organizing committee are 100pc volunteering and not receiving any allocations from the State Government for on-going operations and expenditure.

These passionate leaders have been sacrificing their own time, money, and effort because they believe in the vision and impact young people can make in Sabah for the next 30 years.

In fact, they don’t need this for their own businesses because they are already running successful organization in their own right. We hope to grow Sybil’s foundation to become a financially self-sustaining network, if possible, but welcome any additional support from the Government of Business community to help increase our effectiveness even further.

DE: Does SYBIL have any plans to give talks in schools on topics such as on start-ups?

Wong: Yes, Sybil is planning to support the education sector by launching an “Industry Exposure Series” next year which will be a platform for young businesses and industry leaders to host students to their respective companies or institutions and give insights and career talks to expose them earlier to the real-world working environment.

The objectives of these Industry Exposure Series will be to: supporting the education sector by providing an ‘Industry Exposure Series’ to students, equipping students with practical skillsets for the marketplace, improve our Sabahan graduate employability, offer career guidance, mentorship, and leadership development, and developing our Sabahan Human Capital to help grow industries.

DE: What are some of the success stories or achievements that shows Sybil has benefited young Sabahans? Since its establishment for almost a year.

Wong: Sybil has successfully organised many events, workshops, collaborations that has benefited and opened many doors for young Sabahans to prosper and grow.

Sybil helps to contribute new ideas, action plans and proposals to help develop our various industries. Among the values that Sybil has been able to offer are such as,

Learning opportunities
Partnership with research institutions
Creation of taskforces
Engagements with the government and established industry players
Mentorship
Build strong networks

This year Sybil has been invited to various dialogue sessions with the Chief Minister, Sabah Economic Advisory Council (SEAC), Sabah Maju Jaya Secretariat and other government, GLC’s and business leaders.

We have enabled vast learning opportunities through our events such as the CEO Masterclass where we hosted 600 CEDs, Sabahan Entrepreneurs, business owners, and young industry players to help level-up the ability of our people.

They were given the opportunity to learn from the best and experienced CEOs Imagine if every company was able to make better decisions, build more successful and profitable companies, what a cascading effect it would have on our Malaysian economy!

Sybil has also made partnerships with the UMS Institute of Biotechnology and Research exploring opportunities for developing new and exciting industries that can greatly improve Sabah’s economy Through the creation of taskforces, we are continuously gathering in many young Sabahan talents and giving them the confidence to share their ideas, proposals, and recommendations to formulate workable policies Currently the taskforces that are in full force are the Oil and Gas taskforce, Blue Economy, Education and more to be enabled soon.

Another achievement that Sybil has gained is the signing of MOU with Jiangxi companies, where these business-to-business signings were to formalise intentions between private sector companies to help Sabah businesses prosper together with Jiangxi businesses.

Sybil has also successfully stepped up to help Sabahan companies to onboard the Oil and Gas industry and shall be organizing an event in collaboration with SOGSC. Sybil acts as a robust networking resource, promoting international connections, boosting investor confidence, supporting peer-to-peer learning and growth.

Without the bridges that Sybil is building it would prove difficult for young Sabahans to gain these rare opportunities, thus Sybil is honoured help young Sabahans to improve their competitiveness to enable a brighter future for the Sabah economy.

DE: Is helping young Sabahans in start-ups among Sybil’s duties? If so, how many start-ups were created?

Wong: Sybil has created many events to help encourage entrepreneurship and also build successful long-term Sabahan companies. The CEO Masterclass for example was a powerful event for start-ups and business owners to build new and better companies. We hosted an engagement session with Sabah Credit Corporation (SCC) in helping to bring credit to new emerging start-ups.

We have been building many new taskforces like the Blue Economy Taskforce, Oil & Gas Taskforce, Food Security Taskforce, Mice Taskforce, Development & Construction Taskforce, and Tourism Taskforce which has resulted in many new start-ups, partnerships, and Sabahan companies being formed in only the last year because of our efforts.

DE: In your opinion, does Sabah need a human capital development plan?

Wong: Yes, but the reality is that we have limited resources and developing human capital is only the tool. Most importantly we need a very clear 5-10-30 year vision on what is our economic competitive advantage is in Sabah.

Once we understand that clearly, we should create a detailed roadmap and delivery plan for the state on how to execute that plan through the various sectors.

Only then will we know what resources to focus on the specific human capital development that is needed to support these downstream industries and economic development roadmap with precision, otherwise we will be wasting resources, creating unemployment, and shooting in the dark.

At Sybil we also believe that gathering the right people with the similar mindset, heart and skillsets are essential to create a better environment for the economy. Sabah needs to create pools of talent according to their respective industries or sectors and have a roadmap looking forward to attract talent back to Sabah and retain our intellectual property from leaking outside.

This development plan needs to include targeted training, development opportunities, and career progression pathways. Something that we find currently lacking in the workforce today.

DE: Does Sybil have any programme or plans for schools-leavers of fresh graduates?

Wong: Yes. As mentioned before, Sybil is launching the “Industry Exposure Series” which is also targeted for school-leavers, higher institution students as well as fresh graduates.

Sybil is here to help pair Industry Leaders or Corporate Organizations to host students from different colleges, universities, education institutions or even young entrepreneurs to learn various industries.

We hope that any parties interested to support, contribute, donate, host, and offer value in any way for our Sabahan graduates may contact our Secretariat at: +6012-880 2554 or drop us an email at: sybilsabah@gmail.com

DE: Will Sybil propose to the State Government to consider an allocation to help young entrepreneurs with minimum capital of no more than RM10k for selected enterprises?

Wong: Sybil does not believe in giving free handouts to enterprises, but rather focus those budgets on developing a robust ecosystem so that entrepreneurs, business owners, and industry players can flourish and scale up their companies to become formidable Sabahan companies.

We need to develop a whole pipeline of supporting these enterprises from beginning to the scaling up stage. This may include start-up funding, but it must be coupled with close partnership and mentorship program alongside other established business owners to maximize its chances for success.

DE: Many qualified Sabahan Youngsters are looking for opportunities overseas, some will even end up in trafficking syndicates such as in Myanmar & Cambodia, will Sybil be able to play a role in addressing this problem? What can Sybil do to encourage Sabahan Youths to look for opportunities in Sabah instead?

Wong: We are aware of this issue, however, we also understand that those targeted were not alert of these types of scams. Sybil’s main purpose is to bring value to the Sabah economy as a whole and more to focusing on bridging gaps between industries and the government.

Our main objectives are not leaning towards humanitarian issues such as human trafficking syndicates which we will leave to other more specialised NGOs on this subject.

However, the possible role that Sybil can play is towards educating the younger generation, either they are students, graduates, entrepreneurs, and leaders about the opportunities that are readily available in Sabah if they are willing to explore and upskill themselves, so that they may widen their horizons and be creative and innovative without the need of them searching for jobs and opportunities elsewhere

DE: How supportive is the State Government towards your organisation?

Wong: The State Government has been incredibly supportive through encouraging our work with young industry players, but also including us to have a voice in policy development workshops with Government Agencies.

Our YAB Chief Minister has been extremely supportive towards Sybil by endorsing and encouraging the work that we do by attending several engagement sessions along with the Sabah Economic Advisory Council (SEAC). He took on board many of the suggestions, policy proposals, and not just talked about it, but actually implemented it with his team, and since then Sybil has been able to contribute positively in the various ministries and industries.

DE: Sybil has drafted policies and recommendations for the State Government and certain ministries such as suggestions to improve Sabah’s Blue Economy and Oil & Gas sector, how was the response been and how receptive are they to these ideas? What other economic impacts through Sybil’s programmes?

Wong: The response has been immensely positive and fully supportive. For the Blue Economy, we initially created a taskforce to answer the State Government’s call to tap onto the opportunities offered within the blue economy.

A number of 25 young professionals from different industries then gathered and we had our first workshop and came up with ideas and proposals and since then, our latest engagement has been with the Sabah Maju Jaya (SMJ) Secretariat where they had invited us to present the findings from this workshop.

They have been extremely supportive and offer counter-active feedback for our proposals and open the doors for our ideas to be tabled to the higher management where we believe will lead to enabling our policies to be made a reality soon.

For the Oil & Gas sector, Sybil is quickly advancing ahead with our upcoming on boarding workshop event organised together with the Sabah Oil and Gas Services Council (SOGSC) on the 12th of December where a turnout of 150 participants is expected.

The response from industry players has been extremely positive and the event shall be gathering prominent speakers from Petronas, Shell, KPOC and representatives from the State Government. This workshop aims to help non-oil and gas Sabah contractors or companies to understand and register as oil and gas vendors to open new business opportunities for them.

Sybil is aiming to create an economic impact to the Sabah economy by providing partnerships with research institutions, aiming to break down the silos (or breaking down barriers) between businesses industry, research institutions as well as the government.

What Sabah needs is a good succession plan and this must start somewhere. Sybil’s programmes and efforts create huge economic impacts in terms of including Sabahans in every opportunity and industry which is in-line with the goals of the State Government which is to upskill Sabahans to be more competitive and involved in contributing towards the Sabah Economy.

Some of Sybil’s key mentors

**From left to right: Safuan, Precilla, Kevin and Roger**

**From left to right: Keith, Dr Jeremy, Kenji, Jade and Nazil**

THIS networking and nurturing is possible because Sybil’s key members are prominent individuals representing a wide range of industries. They include: