Senator Tunku Abdul Aziz is best known for his robust advocacy of good governance. Tunku Aziz established the United Nations Ethics Office in New York during his tenure as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General. He was for some years a vice-chairman of the Board of Transparency International and was responsible for setting up its Malaysian chapter.

Executive Director Teh Chi-Chang has plenty of paper qualifications, thanks to the once-proud Malaysian education system and good parenting. He holds degrees from the Universities of Warwick and Cambridge, the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) charter and is a CELTA-qualified teacher. He spent 16 years at the fore-front of capitalism, in investment research and corporate finance during which he managed highly-rated teams in addition to being a top-ranked analyst himself. He joined REFSA because he believes Malaysia will succeed if more of us stop whining about all that is wrong and  instead use the time to work productively on making things better.

Sandra Rajoo spent more than 20 years as an educator and believes there is no substitute for education. It unlocks doors, including that of the mind. Knowledge also empowers us to make informed decisions. Sandra holds a Bachelor’s degree in  English from the University of Malaya and a Master’s from the University of Reading. She also studied at Regional Language Centre, Singapore and completed a ‘Critical Thinking Skills’ course with the University of Oregon. She has high hopes for Malaysia and believes that the threads of justice, equality and democracy help bind a community together.

Foong Li Mei pledged her loyalty to the exciting sea of journalism and was rather surprised to find herself behind a desk making sense of numbers for REFSA. She was even more surprised that numbers do make sense. Better yet, some make adventures. Li Mei also keeps REFSA’s flag flying high in the capricious digital oceans of Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds. When situations call for it, she is notorious for shooting out the regular email blast to subscribers. For those who consider history important, Li Mei has regularly contributed to print publications since 2005, and her work has been spotted in the likes of theSun Daily, Malaysian Today and Female magazine.

Wai Kuan helped blue-chips, GLCs and private entrepreneurs raise hundreds of millions of ringgit when she was a financier. She is now striving to convince Malaysians that investing in REFSA will yield a finer return. As our Chief of Everything Else, she manages the office and finances, coordinates events, does research and figures out ways for REFSA to create more awareness of and raise public participation in the process of government policy-making.

When not working for REFSA, this Chartered Accountant, ICAEW also unties other knots as a RYT500-hour qualified yoga teacher.

Ong Kian Ming is a lecturer and political analyst at UCSI University. He holds a PhD in political science from Duke University, an MPhil in Economics from Cambridge University and a Bachelors in Economics from the London School of Economics. He is a regular contributor to Malaysiakini and the Edge Financial Daily. He can be reached at im.ok.man[at]gmail.com

Independent contributor James T. Cherian is an active advocate for water conservation and is a member of Academy of Science Malaysia’s Taskforce on Water Demand Management. In 2009, he served as the lead author of the multi-stakeholder proposal for a Water Demand Management Plan that was presented to SPAN, the national water authority. Previously, he was an environmental consultant in Singapore and then in Australia where, on the merit of introducing Life Cycle Assessment to Queensland industry, received an Australian permanent residency. He has also worked as a Chemical Engineer in Goodyear Canada and in Philips Singapore where he developed the first non-disposable anti-scaling device in steam irons. He holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto and an MSc in Environmental Engineering from the National University of Singapore.