Tawau-born executive thankful for national transformation initiatives
SHAH ALAM: Coming from a middle-income family, Tawau-born oil company executive Anniza Soh is thankful to the government for its national transformation initiatives.
Anniza, 31, who works in Schlumberger as a fields service manager, in charge of its testing and process department operations in Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, said the country’s transformation programmes had contributed towards making her a successful career woman.
The youngest of six siblings studied Civil Engineering at Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) under a Petronas scholarship, before securing a job with the world’s largest oil field services company in 2008.
“I’m thankful for the scholarship. As someone coming from a middle-income family, I could not afford to further my studies overseas, and the scholarship came as a blessing to me.
“It helped me to pursue my dream without having to burden my parents on the study fees,” she said after the launch of National Transformation Programme (NTP) 2016 annual report at Dewan Agong Tuanku Canselor in Universiti Teknologi Mara here on Tuesday.
Anniza said she spent the first eight years with Schlumberger overseas, where she worked in Qatar for 3½ years, before being posted to Brazil and later France.
She said the NTP again helped her last year, where she returned to Malaysia under the Returning Expert Programme (REP). The REP is an initiative introduced in 2001 by the Federal Government to encourage Malaysians abroad with expertise in selected priority sectors to return and contribute towards the country’s development.
Anniza said her father, 72, worked as a farmer while her mother, 71, is a retired school principal.
Her parents hail from Melaka and Penang respectively, but Anniza was born and raised in Tawau where her mother was posted.
Her success story was cited by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak when he launched the NTP 2016 report on Tuesday, as an example of a successful Malaysian who returned to serve the country.