Nor Mohamed Yakcop

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Yang Berhormat Menteri Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop
As Second Finance Minister of Malaysia, Nor Mohamed Yakcop has met with prominent financial personalities such as George Soros
Malaysian Second Finance Minister
Incumbent
Assumed office 2004
Preceded by	post created
Member of Parliament for Tasek Gelugor
Incumbent
Assumed office 8 March 2008
Preceded by	Unknown

Political party	United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) part of Barisan Nasional
Spouse	Puan Sri Fawziah Begum
Occupation	Economist
Religion	Islam

Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop is currently the Second Finance Minister of Malaysia, a post he has held since 2004; the First Finance Minister is Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Action Council.

He was a member of the Dewan Negara, the upper house of the Parliament of Malaysia, for two terms before stepping down to run for the Tasek Gelugor parliamentary constituency in Penang in the Malaysian elections on March 8, 2008.

He is a former student of St. Xavier's Institution in Penang and had served as a prefect during his student days.

He is married to Puan Sri Fawziah Begum, a former welfare officer and has natural people skills. He has three grandchildren.

[edit] Career

Previously, he served with Bank Negara, the Malaysian central bank, from 1968 to 2000. During his time in Bank Negara, he was responsible for the implementation of a number of major projects, including

the implementation of Islamic banking in Malaysia
the setting-up of the bilateral payments mechanism between Bank Negara Malaysia and Central Banks of South-South countries
the setting-up of the Rating Agency Malaysia Berhad.

He was also involved in a currency speculation scandal in the early 1990s, where Bank Negara lost up to RM30 billion.^[1]

He was the Special Economic Adviser to former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad. His advise to the Prime Minister on how to beat the foreign currency speculators at their game during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 proved invaluable.

In 2002 he was appointed the director of Khazanah Nasional. He played a major role in Government-Linked Companies (GLCs) like United Engineers Malaysia Berhad and Malaysia Airlines. The transformation of the government-linked companies (GLCs) is another feather in his cap. Following the Asian financial crisis, many of the GLCs were mired in debt and rudderless. In retrospect, his solution to their problems was simple.

First, he restored their balance sheets using the Government’s sovereign guarantee when necessary as this guarantee cut down their cost of funds. Then he got young, bright professionals to manage these GLCs, giving them wide latitude to run these huge corporations but with the proviso that they did not line their own pockets. To ensure that they delivered, he introduced key performance indicators and service contracts. The GLC transformation is now into its third phase – and delivering results.