The Elevator Pitch !

On Jan 20th, the day before the GEW Malaysia 2009 Launch, I was invited to a very unique and special event.

It was the launch of a book titled "New Politics - Towards A Mature Malaysian Democracy" by none other than the Deputy Minister of Entrepreneur & Cooperative Development, Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah.

I say unique because as one reviewer said in the book " it is rare in Malaysia, as far as I know, for a Member of Parliament and Deputy Minister, while in office, to write a book critical of the very people in the group that he himself belongs and depends on and the practices which, normally, he might be a party to".

But Dato' Saifuddin is no ordinary MP. The man's intellectual courage is astounding ! His vision is not incremental, but quite revolutionary.

Dato', requested to meet me 2 days before his book launch to brief him about the GEW Launch.

During this meeting, he gave me an autographed book of his and invited me for the launch.

For a man with his stature to extend a personal invitation, I was honoured.

The launch ceremony was at the Shangri'la Putrajaya. The book was launched by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

After the launch there was lunch and some networking.

After the lunch, as the Deputy Prime Minister was leaving, I was standing with another friend at the pathway. We planned to greet the DPM and congratulate Dato Saifuddin.

As they were walking on the red carpet, Dato Saifuddin spotted my friend and I.

I heard Dato' saying to the DPM, "you have to meet these guys" and he went on to introduce me as the guy who is the host for GEW Malaysia.

I had to give an elevator pitch to the DPM and I did that as best as I could - I had less than a minute. The DPM was quick and grasped the key points and said, "good". He then moved on to have a quick word with Michael.

This was one of the most swift elevator pitches I must have attempted.

Thank you Dato for the introduction. You are a good man.

Cheers - looking forward to your support in GEW 2009.