Anita Esa

Country: Malaysia

Most Significant Contribution/Involvement in Islamic Economy:

1. Initiating and Facilitating Breakthroughs to Create Awareness and Buy-in for Halal Pharmaceuticals in the Prescription Medicines Segment
2. Introducing Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Concept to Halal Pharmaceuticals

Started In The Year: 2006

Significant Position(s):     

1. Head Group Risk Management (2016-2023)
2. Senior Manager Marketing (2006-2013)

Personal Introduction

Ms. Anita Esa is a Faculty Member of the Institute of Enterprise Risk Practitioners (IERP®). She graduated with a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Biology from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in 1990. She pursued the Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) in 2006 and successfully earned it in 2008.

Ms. Anita was honoured to have been recognised as “2021 Diligent Modern Governance 100 Recipient Risk & Compliance Visionary” by Diligent Corporation, the global leader in modern governance providing Software as a Service (SaaS) headquartered in New York City, New York, United States of America, whose products are used by 40 percent of all Fortune 1000 companies. The company serves more than one million users from over 25,000 organisations around the globe. She was also privileged to be exclusively invited to attend the “2022 Modern Governance Summit” in person, the premier governance, risk, compliance (GRC) event held in Austin, Texas, United States of America. The event is designed to elevate GRC practices across organisations worldwide and brings together thousands of governance, risk, compliance, audit, and ESG professionals across all industries.

Ms. Anita has profound passion in matters and activities that can continuously enhance her skills and knowledge, which would, in turn, further increase and strengthen her faith in Islam. In her career, she embraces challenges and willingly accepts new roles given to her. She would attend series of training and obtain as much guidance to capture knowledge and skills to excel at work.

Professional Introduction

Ms. Anita Esa has amassed over 30 years of experience in sales, marketing, strategy development, project management, and risk management within the pharmaceutical industry.

Upon becoming the Head, Group Risk Management, Ms. Anita introduced a new angle towards risk management for Halal in CCM.

She started as a Sales Representative in Eisai, a leading global research-based pharmaceutical company, in 1991. She then spent 7 years in Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, a British multinational pharmaceutical company, prior to the company’s merging exercise with the Sweden-based pharmaceutical company Astra AB to form AstraZeneca plc (a multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company). She enriched her experience further with a few short stints as Product Manager in Novartis (a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical corporation) and Novo Nordisk (a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company) before joining Bayer (a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company) as Senior Product Manager in 2000. She was Bayer’s National Sales Manager when she left the company to join Chemical Company of Malaysia Berhad (CCM) to be its Senior Manager Marketing for its Pharmaceuticals Division in 2006. CCM was then a government-linked company (GLC), listed on the Main Board of the Bursa Malaysia, the stock exchange of Malaysia. The majority of CCM’s share then was owned by Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), a Federal Government-owned investment company and one of Malaysia’s largest fund management companies.

Ms. Anita’s timing in joining CCM was fortuitous and beneficial because it was during that period that CCM decided to embark more aggressively in pioneering the Halal Pharmaceuticals initiatives. The vast sales and marketing experiences she gained from the multinational companies she had worked for were instrumental in creating awareness and buy-in for Halal Pharmaceutical products. One of her breakthrough initiatives was to allocate a speaker presentation slot to explain Halal Pharmaceuticals in most of the conventional pharmaceutical events organised or sponsored by her department.

Upon becoming the Head, Group Risk Management, Ms. Anita introduced a new angle towards risk management for Halal in CCM. The various teams who were responsible for Halal in CCM Group of Companies were challenged not to look merely at the risk of contamination or cross-contamination with non-Halal materials, but to assess any event or uncertainty that may prevent them from achieving CCM’s ultimate objective of being the renowned global leader of Halal Pharmaceuticals.

With the demerger of the Pharmaceutical Division from CCM by having the company’s shares directly owned by PNB, the entity subsequently operates under the name Duopharma Biotech Berhad (DBB) with effect from 2018. DBB continues driving the Halal Pharmaceutical journey from CCM’s legacy.

Halal was the answer, and there was massive potential for marketing promotion. That started my journey in the halal pharmaceutical industry.

Ms. Anita continues her role as Head, Group Risk Management in DBB but has opted for an early retirement in March 2023. One of her parting contributions towards DBB’s Halal Pharmaceutical initiatives is to jointly conduct the lecture and workshop on “Halal Pharmapreneur Risk Management 101” for the Professional Certificate of Halal Pharmapreneur offered by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and supported by DBB.

Interview Questions:

What inspired you to start your career in the Halal pharmaceutical industry?

At that point in time when I was the new Head of Marketing of a pharmaceutical company that produces off- patent products, I needed to find something that would differentiate us from other companies. Halal was the real deal and the answer I was looking for. There was huge potential for marketing promotion and that kickstarted my journey in the halal pharmaceutical industry.

What were the challenges you had to overcome in the initial stages of starting your career?

There was a great deal of concerns that labelling a medicine as halal might influence patients’ compliance with their treatment. Pharmaceutical and Islamic experts needed to reach a consensus in promoting and managing Halal pharmaceutical products.

What is the most important thing you feel anyone needs to do to build a successful career in the Islamic Economy?

Full knowledge of the impact of those initiatives on all stakeholders. The impact is to be managed through effective risk management.

What were the most important learning experiences you would like to share?

It can be hard to gain other people’s understanding and support on new initiatives but support and understanding do come at the most unexpected moment and people. It may be difficult, but it is also a dynamic skill to master as one needs to keep changing, adapting, and innovating.

What advice would you give aspiring leaders in the Islamic Economy?

Competing in mass, overloaded industries is no way to sustain high performance. The real opportunity is to find the Blue Ocean in the Islamic Economy- one should look for new market space and ways to reinvent the industry because the only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.