theceomagazine.com | 147Boasting excellent relationships with its suppliers
and deep expertise in petrochemicals, PETRONAS
Chemicals Group is expanding into the lucrative
specialty chemical sector.WORDS DANIEL HERBORN • IMAGES YEW KWANGS
azali Hamzah’s career with PETRONAS Chemicals Group
(PCG) began as a process technologist back in 1990. He went
on to work in operation engineering, refinery production
management, technical management, and running plants. One
common thread in his career at the Group is his affinity for
reshaping and transforming the organisation; he has shown
a real ability to identify and resolve inefficiencies as he has progressed to
the upper tiers of the company’s management.
Itself a subsidiary of PETRONAS, PCG comprises a network
of subsidiaries and joint ventures, collectively producing a range of
chemicals, including methanol, urea, fertilisers, plastics and various
olefins and derivatives. It has significant market penetration in more
than 30 countries across South East Asia, Asia–Pacific and Oceania,
and is proud of its multicultural workforce that includes staff from
around the globe.
Leading such a well-established multinational is a long way from
Sazali’s early days as a shy boy in the villages of Malaysia. Encouraged
by his family, he ventured to Texas to study a Bachelor of Chemical
Engineering degree from Lamar University. He credits his time spent
in the Lone Star State, as well as further studies in London and
Pennsylvania, with broadening his horizons. It also developed his passion
for working with petrochemicals, and, on his return to Malaysia in »Interview | INVEST