58-65 As We See It, by HBS Professors Harvard MBA Alumnus Tan Sri Lee Oi Hian

Preamble | Tan Sri Lee Oi Hian is the Chief Executive Officer of Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad (KLK). He is the second generation of the Lee family. KLK was built by his late father, Tan Sri Dato’ Lee Loy Seng. The company traced its roots to some 114 years ago as a rubber and oil palm planter.

How has Harvard MBA changed my life?

I did my education all the way in Malaysia. In a way, we were quite insular. I graduated in 1974 from the University of Malaya. I was encouraged by my parents to apply for the MBA. I was very lucky, I got accepted there. Harvard opened a whole new world to us. From functional teaching mainly in agriculture, suddenly it opened up to the new world of business, corporations, and different skillsets that we didn’t have, such as accounting, marketing and production. MBA is a very rounded education. Initially it was a shock because we had to adapt to a foreign land with an international group of friends. Harvard helped develop your thinking process besides exposing you to the wider world of business.

Your view on HBSACM?

The Club has done very well. It has been able to hold the group together for 43 years. The program is consistent. (eds: Only three HBS alumni clubs are allowed to run the program – Malaysia, Australia and India.) The strongest part of Harvard Business School is the alumni. You can approach another alumnus in the same business for help. You have access to the whole directory of people, and they are ever willing to help you and to share with you. I hope through the Club, we can strengthen our alumni and that will enable the whole Malaysian industry to open doors. And I hope the government can spend some money and send its candidates to Harvard. RM5 million a year will be enough to enable secretaries-general and up-and-coming civil servants to attend and expose them to the three-month program as we used to do.

How about the HBSACM program in Malaysia?

In the past, the Malaysian government had a very deliberate programme of sending secretaries-general and senior government officers to the HBS Advanced Management Program (AMP) in Boston. It was a fantastic program. It gave them confidence. The Club’s SMDP has benefited a lot of people. The biggest class was 180 people. It was 90 last year. In Malaysia, we have not been exposed to case studies before. Some 14 or 15 KL Kepong staff have attended the SMDP. Their (career) development is much faster. You are able to answer the question why. Sometimes, we tend to be more focused on how, not the why.

TAN SRI LEE OI HIAN

Co-founding member