Ashran leaving MaGic to join Dattel as CEO

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) CEO Ashran Ghazi is resigning from the organisation.

He said his last day would be on Dec 12, adding that he would be joining a regional consumer intelligence company based in Malaysia, Dattel, as the CEO.

As to a successor, Ashran said “there is no visibility on that”.

MaGIC’s executive director, finance & corporate services, Amiruddin Abdul Shukor, will be the interim CEO.

“I have been delaying the resignation for quite some time, and only tendered my resignation when MaGIC was safe in the hands of another ministry,” said Ashran.

He added that he sent his resignation letter last month.

The Cyberjaya-based MaGIC with a work force of around 70 people was originally under the Finance Ministry but it has been moved under the Entrepreneur Development Ministry.

And it would now get its funding from this ministry, he said, adding that it would get about the same amount as in past years.

Since its inception, MaGIC has received about RM50mil in funding annually – in the last four years, it was allocated nearly RM197mil.

In a previous interview, Ashran said though the organisation didn’t generate revenue it contributed to the economy by growing startups through its accelerator programmes.

The first batch of startups from GAP (Global Accelerator Programme) raised US$11.03mil (RM46.28mil) and had a valuation of US$275.78mil (RM1.16bil).