First : Al-Fatihah

Al-Fatihah for Allahyarham Tan Sri Azizan Zainul Abidin, who passed away, early yesterday morning.

He has to be one of the nicest men to interview and would surely be missed by all, including all the business reporters who had the privelege to speak to him in the course of their work, and came to know, even in those brief encounters, a man who was fair, had a passion for service and above all, extremely kind.

Journalists out there would know that covering Petronas was not a job for the clueless or the weak-kneed - although sometimes I do get sent in, dazed and scared shitless, of course. Tan Sri Azizan always endeavoured to make things easier for vermins like us. If you didn't understand something during a press conference, you could always ask Tan Sri Azizan to explain, and he would do so in the most affable manner. The CEO of Petronas, Tan Sri Hassan Marican is brilliant and strangely charismatic (I say strange because I find him intriguingly attractive even though he is loathsome to interview) and certainly suffers no fools. (Fools like me suffer)Tan Sri Azizan, the consummate gentleman, was the perfect foil, an oasis of calm in the usually highly strung affair that is characteristic of any Petronas event. Semoga Allah swt mencucuri Rahmat ke atas rohnya.


(If any Petronas PR person reads this and is seething - okay, I admit, things may be different now - I covered Petronas in the 90's and early early noughties. However, I do think the Petronas strategy is to keep things impenetrable, and while that protects the company somewhat, it's hard on reporters)



mokciknab muttered at 12:32 pm ~ ~