Madam Chair

Dato Seri Rafidah Aziz launched the latest Berita Publishing magazine Madam Chair, at Istana Hotel, 17th August.


It was certainly launched with much pomp and pageant. There was the fabulous visual presentation as to how the magazine was conceptualized. We had Sharizan Borhan crooning some romantic english songs. Oh believe me some people I know swooned! Duh!


The emcee that day was the professional and smooth, Suhaimi Sulaiman. At last we met. We were connected to do some work on TKCOGA-MCOBA platform, before.




As usual, for such a function, the guest list was out-of-charts. There were the beautiful set, captains of industry, gang of journalists extraodinaire, entrepreuners, socialites, professionals, the works. Normally one sees stars from up above, not that afternoon, stars were at Istana Hotel.




We even had the energetic performance by Philip Wain. Hmm..if we could dance that way daily, we’d get such divine silhouette too in no time.



Dato Seri Rafidah spoke after the opening speech by the Senior General Manager, Zaini Zainuddin. Dato Paduka Rafidah urged us women to believe in ourselves. She said ‘we are what we think’. She insisted that there is no gender divide to SUCCESS! We must not believe there is any ceiling, if there were any we are capable of breaking it, even a concrete ceiling for that matter.



Liberated successful men, are men, who are able to celebrate successes of women. Men need successful women and vise versa and we should work together. Women should endeavour to be firm yet feminine. We must embrace our ladylike traits and not be apologetic about it.


She felt amused how women are being celebrated and pampered these days. There are now cars specially dedicated to women right down to colours. Phones too. I immediately cast my mind to the Vertu Ascent, the Pink Edition. Hmm…so we should enjoy our status as women.



Aah...a digression, come to think of it, I read a few days ago, that Dubai will be rolling out 50 pink taxis for women, driven by women for women. Awww...dunno what to say about this really (the driven by women bit..)? But there you go...pink taxis.




She believes we must be the driver, but not necessarily be driving. Oh I had to ponder over that for a moment! Maybe what she meant was we must have ideas and concepts in our heads and lead the way. We must stand firm with our beliefs and ideas that people look up to us as exemplars. Whoa! I must say this lady minister who walks fast, talks fast and yup thinks fast too. I even heard she cooks fast too..that someone saw her on a culinary program before and she said, 'Saya suka masakan yang ringkas dan cepat dimasak', in other words, FAST! To be honest I enjoyed being up close and personal with this tough lady that afternoon.



I was talking with some people, that Malaysia has no gender issues. We should perpetuate this healthy environment where both genders network and connect so brillianlty well. We are lucky indeed.



It was, all in all, a good afternoon meeting many old friends and meeting new people. I met Hisham Harun the director Of Madam Chair, whom I knew from way back his Nst days. There was the ever elegant Datin Rose Ismail (Salt media) whom I met at a friend's house sometime back. I also met some other dear old friends, like Aishah Ali also former Nst writer, Dato Hafsah Hashim, the CEO of Smidec, (my ex-classmate, OG), Mariam Tun Suleiman (OG), Intaan Tun Suleman (knew her during Peniagawati days), Datin Mavis Masri Azman (MD Holiday Villa, used to be a client of her boutique at Holliday Villa then), Hazimah Zainuddin (President Peniagawati), Azlin Shaharbi (VP Peniagawati), and many more. Made new friends in Sopiah Suid, Ross Kamaruddin and Chan Siew Lian all from CIMA. Wonderful indeed.















Pix 1: seated, Dato Paduka Rafidah Aziz, Aishah Ali (Writer)
Standing, Muhaiyani (In Black, writer), Ruby Ahmad
Pix 2: Ruby Ahmad, DP Rafidah, Mariam Tun Suleiman
Pix 3: Dato Hafsah Hashim CEO Smidec), Ruby Ahmad
Pix 4: Ruby Ahmad, Suhaimi Sulaiman (Emcee)
Pix 5: Hazimah Zainuddin (President Peniagawati), Dato Kalsom Abd Rahman (Chairman Smidec)
Pix 6: Ruby Ahmad, Hisham Harun (Director of Madam Chair)
Pix 7: Philip Wain performers


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