Abdul Sani Abdul Murad is here to inspire and be inspired

Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, the Group Chief Marketing Officer of RHB Banking Group, won the Gold award for ‘Best Marketer in Influencer Marketing’ for the fourth consecutive time at the Malaysian CMO Awards 2021.

As the Group Chief Marketing Officer at RHB, Abdul Sani has helped in the restructuring of the marketing team to support the growth of the Banking Group’s businesses. To date, he has overseen the brand’s refreshment to achieve greater brand appeal, especially among the younger and more affluent segments. This has resulted in RHB moving up the ranks to become Malaysia’s 14th most valuable brand (Source: Brand Finance).

The marketing innovations introduced for RHB by Abdul Sani and his team have won the bank a multitude of recognition locally, regionally and globally as a key challenger brand in digital banking. Recently RHB was also awarded ‘Marketer of the Year’ at the Marketing Excellence Awards 2021.

On top of that, the marketing team has helped the bank gain market share for its core businesses consistently, resulting in RHB achieving its best financial performance in history. As a result, RHB was, and for the first time ever, voted by Malaysians as their preferred brand for banking, investment and insurance for 4 consecutive years at the Putra Brand Award since 2018.

In addition to the many awards he has received, Abdul Sani was recently recognized by Campaign Asia-Pacific and Twitter as one of Asia Pacific’s Top 50 Most Influential & Purposeful Marketers in 2021.

A true-blue marketer who has been in the business from the ground up, Abdul Sani started at one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, Unilever, where he managed various business categories rising to Senior Marketing Manager. During his 10 years tenure at Unilever, Sani helped the brand’s hair and deodorant business category gain market leadership and turned around its Laundry business to be profitable.

In 2008, Abdul Sani moved to HSBC as their Marketing Chief, and helped launch their first Islamic Bank franchise globally by introducing HSBC Amanah, thus making it Malaysia’s first Islamic bank launched by a foreign bank. He has also been instrumental in establishing digital as a new acquisition channel for the bank that contributed significantly to its sales revenue growth, which in part, made HSBC the most profitable foreign bank in Malaysia.

During a quick chat, Abdul Sani told MARKETING Magazine, “I’m humbled and extremely honoured to receive the Malaysian CMO Awards from MARKETING Magazine for the fourth consecutive year. A great record of acknowledgement and testament for delivering meaningful work to the people we serve and I can only attribute this mammoth recognition to the team at RHB and our business partners for living our brand faithfully and fulfilling its purpose consistently and passionately.”

“I’m a strong believer that Marketing is a force for good. As marketers, we can deliver significant and positive impact to the world beyond just making products or providing service to our customers. With marketers having such influence, it comes with great responsibility that we always aim to service people that supersedes their existing conditions. When this is done right, we could certainly help business to thrive”, added Sani.