Nyuk Phin Steven Chong
Professional Financial
Kota Kinabalu,Sabah
Summary
Senior financial services executive with over 25 years of progressive leadership experience spanning banking, insurance, and capital markets. Expertise centres on risk and compliance management, operational excellence, regulatory governance, and regional sales and agency force development across multi-branch and regional environments in Malaysia.
Proven track record of driving transformation during organisational change, optimising processes and cost efficiency, ensuring robust control frameworks and regulatory compliance, and consistently delivering sales and productivity targets. Strong capability in building, coaching, and scaling high-performing agency teams while maintaining rigorous operational and risk standards.
Recognised for strategic planning, team development, and public speaking, with regular invitations from Universiti Malaysia Sabah since 2009 to deliver sessions on finance, economy, investment, and leadership. Multilingual communicator (English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, and Japanese) with a practical, results-oriented leadership style suited to complex regional and multi-stakeholder environments.
Overview
1
1
Language
30
30
years of professional experience
Work History
Regional Agency Director, Sabah
Great Eastern Life Assurance (M) Berhad
01.2018 - Current
- Regional role. Develop strategic sales incentives, formulate the medium-term direction of the business, and plan the long-term success of the business. Ensure achievement of sales targets, best market coverage, realize any market segment objectives and ensure best market penetration in any specified segments.
- 1. Achieved recruitment targets for Sabah Region, enhancing agency capacity to meet market demands.
- Mentored junior staff, fostering a culture of professional development and knowledge sharing.
- Streamlined operational processes, improving efficiency and reducing turnaround times for projects.
- Identified areas of growth potential, developing innovative strategies to seize opportunities.
- Collaborated with key stakeholders to ensure alignment between agency goals and external expectations.
- Provided timely reports on agency progress to board members or other governance bodies, facilitating informed decision-making processes at higher levels.
- Operative Functions:
- 3. Plan, deploy and review the recruitment activities with agency leaders.
- 4. Assist agency leaders in interviewing and selection of quality agents.
- 5. Achieve production target of the Sabah Region
- 6. Increase the productivity of agents
- Developed and implemented client retention strategies, strengthening long-term relationships and contributing to business stability.
- 8. Achieve a minimum number of full-time agents by producing min 2 cases a month
- 9. Tracking the agents' activities & performance weekly through morning meetings
- 10. Individual monthly PEP session.
- 11. Organize a full-time club activity to drive productions
- Provided timely reports on agency progress to board members, enabling informed decision-making and strategic alignment.
Agency Development Director, Kota Kinabalu
AXA Affin Life Insurance Berhad
01.2016 - 01.2018
- Operative Functions:
- 1. Achieve recruitment target of the branch
- 2. Recruit and establish a professional agency force
- 3. Plan, deploy and review the recruitment activities with agency leaders
- Productivity:
- 1. Achieve production target of the branch
- 2. To increase the productivity of agents
- 3. Improved agent quality through training, monitoring, supervision, and guidance
- 4. Achieved minimum full-time agent count by producing two cases monthly
- 7. To organize a full-time club activity to drive productions
- 8. To develop a group of potential full-timer and groom them to become full-time with professional quality servicing agent and future agency leader
Unit Head, Regional Operations Centre Sabah. (Group Lending Ops)
AmBank (M) Berhad
01.2013 - 01.2016
- 1. Oversaw efficiency of regional operating centre, enhancing operational effectiveness.
- 2. Monitored turnaround time on documentation and disbursement to consistently meet SLA.
- 3. Planned and managed regional costs to optimize resource capabilities and streamline processes.
- 4. Collaborate and support to overall lending operations strategy with respective business unit within regions.
- 5. To ensure lending / disbursement guidelines are fully complied Provide guidance and
- 6. on the job training to staff in region
Branch Operations & Service Manager
Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia / Standard Chartered Saadiq Berhad
01.2011 - 01.2013
- 1. Manage branch operations/service activities in an efficient, responsive, and competent manner ensuring the highest quality of customer transaction processing, maintenance, and information service.
- 2. Maximized business referrals and enhanced branch image, translating into increased profit contributions to the bank.
- 3. Undertake periodic self-assessment on key controls to assess the proper functioning and adequacy of existing control.
- 4. Coordinated and promoted understanding of operational risk (OR) while implementing and managing OR within the unit.
- 5. Approve and review all SME account opening. Aid sales department to achieve their sales goal in all areas.
- 6. AML periodical review for all the clients. Sales staff referral monitoring (Privilege banking and retail banking) All wealth products including Banca, UT and DCI
Senior Officer, Trade Finance & Current Accounts
United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Berhad
01.2009 - 01.2011
- 1. Manage Class A branch.
- 2. Proceed and advise customers on issuance of Letter of Credit (LC) to suit customer trade needs.
- 3. Review and check all Bankers Acceptance (BA) submission and advise client to maximize utilization of their BA trade line to suit their business needs.
- 4. Monitor and check all Inward and Outward remittances effectively
- 5. Book and recommend the best forex rate to customer to suit their need and maximize profit from these activities to the bank
- 6. Check of all current account opening Daily Operation monitoring to ensure smooth overall operation process flow.
- 7. Relieve Operations Manager and assist Operations Manager in all aspect.
Manager (Special Personal Assistant to Managing Director)
Innosabah Securities Berhad
01.2009 - 01.2009
- 1. Restructured the organization by assessing staffing and management levels for cost efficiency.
- 2. Advisor to MD on daily operations process flow to increase staff productivities Recommend to MD on area for improvement in all aspects.
- Led cross-functional teams to develop and implement strategic investment initiatives.
- Streamlined operations by enhancing workflow processes, resulting in improved team efficiency.
- Mentored junior staff, fostering professional development and enhancing team capabilities.
Credit Control and Supervision – Senior Associate
OSK Investment Bank (formerly known as OSK Securities Berhad)
01.2005 - 01.2009
- Controlled client exposure trading limits for margin facility accounts (individual and corporate) on equity, future, and options markets.
- 2 Monitoring Margin account facility Evaluate equity market risk Debt collection. Support Remisier and company dealer to collect long outstanding contra losses.
- 3 Stock Market risk assessment.
Operations Officer
OSK Investment Bank (formerly known as OSK Securities Berhad)
01.2003 - 01.2005
- Managed operational flow, including account openings and administration of share transactions.
- 2. Oversaw bank reconciliation for Treasury Department.
- 3. Executed bills reconciliation process.
Teller/Clerk
Maybank Berhad
01.1997 - 01.2003
- 1. Provided frontline service in operations department, assisting customers with inquiries and transactions.
- 2. Cross-sold credit card and investment products, enhancing customer financial portfolio options.
- Processed customer transactions efficiently, ensuring accuracy in cash handling and record-keeping.
- Assisted customers with inquiries, providing information on products and services to enhance satisfaction.
- Maintained compliance with banking regulations and internal policies to mitigate risk exposure.
Education
B.A. (Hons) - Finance & Banking
Universiti Malaysia Sabah
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia01.2010
Skills
Regional & Branch Leadership
Strategic Planning & Execution
Team Development & Mentoring
Sales performance management
Agency force development
Sales forecasting
Branch network expansion
Revenue growth planning
Performance management
Succession planning
Risk & Compliance Management
Operations & Process Excellence
Regulatory Governance & Audit
Branch operations management
Operational risk management
KPI reporting
Retail banking operations
Profitability analysis
Budget planning
Workforce planning
Additional Information
- Public Speaking: Invited by Universiti Malaysia Sabah (2009–present) for talks on finance, economy, investment, and career development.
- Media Feature: Published in Daily Express (2012) for Standard Chartered Saadiq branch opening event.
- Published in Daily Express on 25 February 2012 for Official branch Opening Standard Chartered Saadiq 1 Borneo branch. Guess of honor: YAB Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Haji Aman – Chief Minister of Sabah.
Timeline
Regional Agency Director, Sabah
Great Eastern Life Assurance (M) Berhad
01.2018 - Current
Agency Development Director, Kota Kinabalu
AXA Affin Life Insurance Berhad
01.2016 - 01.2018
Unit Head, Regional Operations Centre Sabah. (Group Lending Ops)
AmBank (M) Berhad
01.2013 - 01.2016
Branch Operations & Service Manager
Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia / Standard Chartered Saadiq Berhad
01.2011 - 01.2013
Senior Officer, Trade Finance & Current Accounts
United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Berhad
01.2009 - 01.2011
Manager (Special Personal Assistant to Managing Director)
Innosabah Securities Berhad
01.2009 - 01.2009
Credit Control and Supervision – Senior Associate
OSK Investment Bank (formerly known as OSK Securities Berhad)
01.2005 - 01.2009
Operations Officer
OSK Investment Bank (formerly known as OSK Securities Berhad)
01.2003 - 01.2005
Teller/Clerk
Maybank Berhad
01.1997 - 01.2003
B.A. (Hons) - Finance & Banking
Universiti Malaysia Sabah