Tan Sri Datuk Dr Rebecca Fatima Sta. Maria

Tan Sri Datuk Dr Rebecca Fatima Sta. Maria was appointed to the Board as Independent Non-Executive Director on 23 August 2016 and re-designated as the Senior Independent Non-Executive Director with effect from 15 May 2018. She sits on the Audit Committee, Remuneration Committee, Nomination Committee and Risk Management Committee.

Tan Sri Datuk Dr Rebecca was the Secretary-General of the Malaysian Ministry of International Trade and Investment from 2010 to 2016, where she oversaw the formulation of Malaysia’s international trade policies and positions and often took the lead in their implementation as chief negotiator for bilateral and regional free trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. She played an integral role in Malaysia’s participation in multilateral forums such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), where she often represented her economy during the APEC Ministers’ Responsible for Trade Meetings and the Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Meetings. In the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), She chaired the body that drafted the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 Blueprint as well as the ASEAN Economic Community 2025 Blueprint. An accomplished academic and writer, her scholarship has been recognized through awards from the American Academy of Human Resource Development and from the University of Georgia. In 2017, she authored a book about her personal slice of Malaysian heritage and cuisine, called The Smell of Home. She is currently the executive director of the APEC Secretariat based in Singapore, which serves as advisory body, implementation arm and custodian of institutional memory for the 21 member economies that make up the APEC forum. She is the first woman executive director of the APEC Secretariat.

She also currently serves as Non-Executive Director on the Boards of RHB Bank Berhad, Eco World International Berhad and Sunway Berhad.