Up the ranks: Wan Ezrin joins TIME Dotcom as CPO

Wan Ezrin joined TIME Dotcom in the role of chief people officer, effective January 2017, moving away from his previous role as the head of people at AirAsia and AirAsia X where he was accountable for various people functions.

Based in Malaysia, as the chief people officer of TIME Dotcom, Ezrin reports to the group CEO/ commander-in-chief.

His core responsibilities in this role include finding ways to combine people's energies together to produce great results and let them feel great about it. Speaking to Human Resources, he added that it is also in essence his personal definition of leadership.

"I've also been asked to create programmes that will make employees of TIME really enjoy and cherish their careers at TIME," Ezrin said, adding that "employer branding will be big so we will focus on that too."

"Overall - my job is to make HR relevant and helpful to everyone in the organisation."

Ezrin revealed that his number one priority for this year is a great working culture and high competencies. "We're going to make sure that we have the right people and attract the right people," he explained.

Apart from that, Ezrin's priorities include centralisation and streamlining of processes across various businesses, and unity - by design, by function and by behaviour, as he considers these vital for business expansion and future success.

Commenting on how his new role differs from his previous one, Ezrin said: "First and foremost - my previous company in aviation has a super strong brand. This is very good - but it comes with its own challenges e.g. all Toms, Dicks and Harrys will want to work there. So filtering and managing volume was an important thing."

"Now in TIME, it's almost the opposite. I think it's a great company too - which is why I decided to make the move - but there's more work in attracting and retaining the right talent in the organisation," he opined.

"There's plenty of potential in the people front, and I can say that on my first day at TIME I had the best onboarding experience I have ever had in my career so far," Ezrin  added. "So there are good people doing good work here. We just need to get our priorities right, have good discipline and focus."

A graduate of the University College London, Ezrin has worked with DiGi Telecommunications, Petronas, Weatherford and Mouchel.

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While speaking to Human Resources, Ezrin shed light on the top talent concerns in Malaysia at the moment.

"I think it's about finding truly competent people who carry a positive working culture across ALL levels. And what I mean by ALL levels is that - nowadays - there are common cases whereby the team is good, but the senior managers and heads are not that good," he said.

"So people who deserve the job should get the job; and people who don't deserve the job should be removed," he added.

He pointed out that though the interview process in hiring across industries has improved across the past decade, it's still not fool proof. "We need to find away that we spend our energies with the right people," Ezrin said.

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