WE LOVE YCM

It's been 4 months since my team and I came in to lead YCM now, and I have nothing but only great things to say about these amazing teammates of mine :)

I’ve always wanted to be very involved in the Corporate world but at the same time in the non-Corporate world as well – which explains my Dreamgirls involvement back in 2011 as well as most of the sports at work. It’s the little added happiness that makes it more interesting to wake up everyday, really! So when I took on the Chairman position at YCM earlier this year, as much as I know we are Young CORPORATE Malaysians, I thought how can I run this organization differently from the past Chairman? Make it less structured and more fun! Yup, it’s rewarding to be a little different sometimes :)

So the first thing I did was to get the committee’s buy-in to have a @youngcorporatemalaysians Instagram account up and running the day I report full time at YCM. We live in a society that relies so much on Social Media to get through our everyday life, it’s only right for us to get in touch with the targeted audience. Plus, Instagram gives me this ‘fun’ feeling to it and who in this world don’t like to see pictures! Our account is barely 3 months old and we've blot close to 600 amazing followers! So a little added fun, CHECKED!

Next thing was once you get their attention, how do I maintain it and stay in touch with my members (we currently have about 6000++ members). Constant communication! I made it a point to make sure my awesome teammates were active with the emails, always helpful in providing any sort of questions people may have. So we make it a point to by hook or by crook plan an event every month and at the same time sought for interesting networking opportunities with Corporates out there. This I believe goes two ways; one is we can allow our members to have the opportunity to participate in Corporate events representing YCM and secondly allow Corporates to get to know these young full-of-potential future leaders! This gave us a huge reason to blast emails and be in touch with our members every month! Thankfully, we’ve been blessed with multiple networking opportunities that were out of our business as usuals (ie: CEO Series). 

That said, we've got a dedicated team to run the YCM EDITS where we publish write ups on all our sessions for the benefit of those who could not make it. You can find it on www.ycm.org.my :)

And then there’s trying to do the impossible (ok, maybe impossible is too great a word) by getting very influential leaders to speak at YCM. Working to get the ‘best of the best’ in town I believe would harness the confidence of our members to believe in our cause and objective and there’s nothing more we need than the support of our members.  Truthfully, when I first started, I felt a little pressured only because I’ve been living and working in London for a while that I don’t know exactly the who’s who in Malaysia. True, BUT starting from scratch and building up the relationship WILL allow you to get to know people, slowly but surely. Plus, you get to learn from your mistakes and this allows you to improve. Just as long as you believe in the idea you’re about to sell to them, it’s done! 

Love it like it’s yours. It’s a very powerful tool, it helps a great deal because when you love something, you’d do anything to make people accept and love it just as much as you if not more.

Keeping in touch with your Sponsors is very important because clearly without them YCM wouldn’t be where it is today. All our events are free for public, and it’s only through our goals and objectives can we get the support of the big boys and corporates out there. Win their hearts and not only will you get the support, but also a priceless experience working with them. These people have been in the corporate world well before many of us :))

There's a lot more I wished I could do for YCM, but I realised that sometimes having a hectic full time job to do on top of this YCM volunteering can be very very challenging. For that, I'm forever grateful that I have amazing colleagues who knows and are very supportive about YCM (yes, our Group CEO made it clear to the entire Bank about supporting YCM). It helps a great great deal, soooooo sayang them MasyaAllah. 

That said, another thing that went very well a couple of days ago was out 52nd CEO Series.

I’m sure most of us know FashionValet - more known as FV. Back in the earlier days when FV launched, I mentioned it to Vivy that it would be great if we can do cross branding between the 2, since you know YCM, FV...2 different target audience. She agreed but we never pursued further until I came back onboard this year and I thought "this would be the perfect time to!"

Branding FV across the young corporates industry and branding YCM across the fashion non-corporate industry!  Vivy, Fadza and I personally had fun doing FV for YCM that night and Alhamdulillah, we thought branding of both went well, as planned :) It was an even greater turnout because Fadza was an amazing honest speaker himself! Post event, Vivy and I thought, let's go on to make both our target audience excited, and how did we do it?

If you're reading this: Everyone gets a RM50 voucher (with a minimum purchase of RM100) when you shop at fashionvalet.com. Just make sure to check out with the code "WELOVEYCM" before paying and walah! 

Stay tuned for more events from Young Corporate Malaysians :)