Puan Sarimah Talib, Head of Sustainability – UEM Sunrise Berhad
SARIMAH TALIB graduated as a Chemical & Process Engineer and obtained her Masters in Environmental Engineering in 2007. She started her career at ICI Group and her first role started as a Technical Development Engineer working in a national water treatment project with the Government of Malaysia. In 1996, she left ICI and joined Sime Darby Group where she developed her career for more than 18 years in diverse fields including Business Development, Internal Audit, Total Quality Management (TQM), and sustainability. In 2013, she was appointed as the first CEO of Yayasan Hijau reporting to the Minister of Green Technology, Water and Energy where she played a pivotal role to promote sustainability at the national grassroots level. In 2014, she was appointed as the first Chief Sustainability Officer at Vale where she was assuming the role of the “face of Vale in Malaysia”. In 2019, she left Vale to join PETRONAS as the first Head of Sustainable Development Management where she was responsible to set up a new department with a new role and function to drive corporate sustainability and was key in setting the net zero carbon ambition for the national oil company of Malaysia. Currently, in her new role as the newly appointed Head of Sustainability at UEM Sunrise, she is responsible for setting up the inaugural sustainability framework for the organization. Sarimah’s motto of life is always, “If there’s a will, there is always a way” which drives her to strive towards excellence and bringing benefits to others so that she will be able to leave a positive legacy behind.