‘Usual Unusual Breakthroughs Conference’

July 7th 2011, with great efforts and success, &samhoud hosted its first ever major event in Malaysia and Asia.  More than 60 delegates representing some of Malaysia’s biggest and most prominent companies attended the ‘Usual Unusual Breakthroughs Conference’. The conference was held at the former British Governor’s mansion, Carcosa Seri Negara, in Kuala Lumpur, and cantered on the themes of Connected Leadership and Creating Sustainable Value.

Delegates were first welcomed by mimes and walked through a two storey waterfall of cascading bubbles as school children played traditional gamelan music in the background. The historic setting of the conference was livened up with hundreds of blue soccer balls, the company’s symbol of connection. The line up of speakers included:

- Dato’ Sri Idris Jala, CEO of Pemandu and former CEO of Malaysia Airlines
- Dato Sri Shazalli bin Ramly, CEO of CELCOM
- Yvonne Chia, CEO and MD of Hong Leong Bank
- Leslie Hayward, HR Director of Shell Malaysia
- Salem Samhoud, Founder of &samhoud

The day also included various workshops on the themes of leadership, customer journey as well as strategy and implementation. The Value Profit Chain which was developed at Harvard Business School, served as the core philosophy to the approach to each of the workshop themes.

‘I truly enjoyed myself at the conference; hearing these top leaders share their life journey, understanding their value creation, rhythm and tempo etc. Also learning more about the need to draw from one’s core which will then lead everyone to overcome the boundaries to success.  A round of applause to &samhoud for being a great organiser!’ - Nur Farina, Business Development Executive at Sime Darby.

‘Thank you very much for such a wonderful conference and I must confess that I am mesmerised by Idris Jala and Shazalli. I am looking forward to attend similar sessions in the future.’ – Zainudin Ishak, CEO of HSBC Amanah Takaful Malaysia.
As mentioned earlier, Carcosa Seri Negara was filled with hundreds of the ‘blue ball of connection’. If you are wondering where they all went, the &samhoud team and Chef Moshik had lots of fun distributing them at a local orphanage the following day. 

Since January 1st 2011, &samhoud has made its journey and expansion into the Asia Pacific region with Kuala Lumpur as its regional base.