Our experience of Asian Development Bank's Twinning Program, with Lina Ong Chiew Yin, Corporate Planning, Indah Water Konsortium

[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange 15 minute podcast, in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, educate, and inform other water sector leaders from around the globe. My name is Piers Clark and my guest today is Lina Ong Chiew Yin, the senior manager in corporate planning at Indah Water Konsortium in Malaysia.
[00:00:19] Piers Clark: Lina, wonderful to have you join me.
[00:00:21] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Thank you, Piers. Pleasure to be here as well.
[00:00:24] Piers Clark: We always start by trying to learn a little bit about our interviewee. So tell me, how did you get into the role you are in today? Where did your journey start?
[00:00:33] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Okay. One thing unique about me, I studied the Malay language, graduated in Malay language. But throughout my career, I started with change management and strategy in Malaysia airports. I was with Malaysia airports in aviation industry. And then I moved on to water sector with Ranhill Utilities, and then I moved on to Indah Water. So, my journey with the water industry has been about five to seven years. And change management for the past 10 years.
[00:01:00] Piers Clark: Excellent. So there's two questions that I have to ask. You studied languages and then at some stage went that's not for me. How old were you when you went "that's not for me, I'm gonna do something different. "
[00:01:10] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: I graduated when I was 23. I thought I'm gonna be an editor. But I didn't, I landed a job with DHL and was in customer service, and then I moved on to a different role. So that's where I am right now.
[00:01:21] Piers Clark: You went into infrastructure with airports. And you stayed in infrastructure 'cause water and wastewater is obviously infrastructure. Did you consciously make that decision?
[00:01:29] Piers Clark: Was it I want to stay in infrastructure, I'm gonna go from airports to water? Or was it simply that the opportunity came up?
[00:01:35] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: The opportunity came up and the role that was offered to me was a new role. I started to be involved with sustainability, so I think that's a u nique role that I want to be in. So here I'm today.
[00:01:47] Piers Clark: Excellent. Alright. Now, Indah Water Konsortium, IWK, the Konsortium spelt with a K , is the only wastewater provider in Malaysia. Have I got that right?
[00:01:58] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Yes. Indah Water is the monopoly in a way. We manage the West Malaysia Labuan except for Sabah and Sarawk. So we serve a connected population equivalent of about 32 million and 1.4 million septic tanks.
[00:02:12] Piers Clark: Now for people who aren't familiar with the geography of Malaysia just give me a bit of color as to those bits that you said you didn't serve. Where are they?
[00:02:19] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: On the Borneo site.
[00:02:20] Piers Clark: On the Borneo site? And it's just wastewater, is it drinking water as well?
[00:02:24] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: No, just wastewater.
[00:02:25] Piers Clark: 32 million people. The main, maybe not quite national, but you are the main supplier of wastewater services to Malaysia. Wonderful. Now, the main topic we're talking about today is the fact that through the Asian Development Bank's Water Operators Partnership Program ,IWK has been a mentor which means that you have been acting as the grownup, the parent, the teacher in a relationship with another utility. Now I'd like you to share with me. What you were doing? What it is that you were supporting and teaching around, and who it was that you were teaching.
[00:02:57] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Okay, we were given the opportunity to mentor Baguio City Environmental Parks and Management Office. They're located in Philippines. They're more famously known as the City of Pines, if you will like to Google that up. They're on the highland side,
[00:03:11] Piers Clark: Pines as in pine trees?
[00:03:12] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Yes. Very good area if you would like to go there one day, Piers for your holiday. We were given the opportunity to actually share in terms of capacity building management in terms of enhancing their capacity and knowledge in terms of wastewater and septage management.
[00:03:28] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: We had an opportunity to meet them, had comprehensive diagnostic visit with them a session or one week.
[00:03:33] Piers Clark: So you went to them or they came to you?
[00:03:35] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: The approach is we go to them first and they do have a reciprocal visit to Malaysia. The program last about three times of visit. It's a one year program, very intensive.
[00:03:45] Piers Clark: Okay. So there's two visits. You going to them one time, you go to them first then they come to you to build upon it. And the marriage between the two of you was facilitated by the Asian Development Bank?
[00:03:55] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Yes.
[00:03:56] Piers Clark: And so what does that mean? Does that mean that they went to the Asian Development Bank saying, these are our problems. Can you connect us with an appropriate utility, or had you already got a dialogue going?
[00:04:06] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: We were approached by the Asian Development Bank. The match meeting was done by the Asian Development Bank.
[00:04:11] Piers Clark: Talk me through these visits. So when people turn up, how structured is it? How do you get down to actually providing meaningful support? How do you make sure that those visits are going to provide something that really changes people's lives?
[00:04:25] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: That's a good question, Piers, because we wanted to go beyond papers. So when this partnership started, the diagnostic visit was the key. We went there, spent a lot of time on the ground with them and all that. So after one week we established five focus areas that is really gonna bring impact to them. The five focus areas are basically the Development of SOP , standard operating plans, for their network and also process monitoring because they do not have that in place.
[00:04:54] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: And then we spoke about energy efficiency and management because in Indah Water we have an expert in that. Beyond all these technical enablers, we are looking into human in terms of competency. We realized that they do not have that in place as well. So we were looking into competency management and lastly that we find it important as well, stakeholder management. So five focus areas that we work with them across one year and we see positive result .
[00:05:21] Piers Clark: I want to just come back to this because I'm fascinated by this idea that Indah Water Konsortium you weren't being paid to do this. You were doing this out of the sort of corporate duty to help improve the water sector and you set aside some of your key experts, some senior people got on a plane and spent a week delving into another utilities problems. Have I got that right?
[00:05:40] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Yes, you're right.
[00:05:42] Piers Clark: Wonderful. Now, how long was it before they came to you for the follow-up visit?
[00:05:47] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: We went there back in September, 2023 and they came for a reciprocal visit in November, 2023. So they came and I think they gained a lot of knowledge they get to see on the ground so they understand that, hey, this is what we can do as well. They do not have that before this. It's very meaningful exchange. And Indah Water being 31 years in the industry, I believe that we have that vast knowledge that we can share with the rest, so there's no point keeping this. Let's share this across, especially around the same region, to make sure that everybody grew up together.
[00:06:23] Piers Clark: How confident are you that the things you shared with them, they will have adopted, and changed how they're behaving? How confident are you that it was meaningful?
[00:06:31] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: I think it was pretty good impact because they see the importance of having SOPs. They see the importance of having good health and safety practices.
[00:06:41] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: One incident I'd share with you, Piers, they do not have the right PPE. So we had that and we brought to them and we showed that it's very important when you manage septage, you need to have health and safety
[00:06:52] Piers Clark: Before then they, they were using gloves, I hope.
[00:06:54] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Not really actually. So it's a good practice that we went and say, oh, this is needed. So they started wearing those, even though they have guidelines and all those.
[00:07:03] Piers Clark: And was that about educational? Was that about just not having access to the right resources?
[00:07:07] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Educational. They do have, but the practice is not there.
[00:07:10] Piers Clark: And yet they must have been hungry to learn. They wanted to be part of the program means that they obviously knew that they needed to learn from a more experienced utility. Actually sharing knowledge with a utility that wants to learn is much easier than sharing one with does not want to do. Has the relationship lasted, are you still in contact with the people?
[00:07:27] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Yeah, we came in through a matchmaking and we came out being friends. Can I say close friends, because we build a very good relationship, with them. Off and on, we say, hello, how are you doing? And all those. And I believe that whatever that we have impact to them, they have been practicing it. So we help them to establish certain things that is basic. We learned that through the hard way that this is important, you know? So when we share it with them they see the importance of it and I believe that they are doing it right now because the SOPs that we built, they're following it too.
[00:07:58] Piers Clark: Excellent. Now it sounds like this was just a one way flow of learning and information. Is that right? Or did you feel that you gained anything back that would help IWK?
[00:08:08] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: As a company, we did as well. There are certain things that we share with them. For example, when we were on the ground with them, Hey, this works with us, but we have to pivot a little bit when it comes to them. So we are learning as well and how we bring whatever things that we pivot, we brought back to us, to our team and say, oh, if this situation happens this is what we can do in the future. So we are also still learning.
[00:08:29] Piers Clark: And I assume that the staff inside IWK knew that you were doing this mentoring program and it was something that made them corporately proud. It made people go, this is the sort of organization I wanna work with. I wanna work with a world leading organization that shares its learning. Is that right? Were people aware of the mentoring program?
[00:08:45] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: Yes. We've gotten a very good support from the management team and for those who came with us, the subject matter experts. They know that this is beyond their duty, not just, sharing or imparting their knowledge and expertise within the Indah Water family. It's about leaving it to the rest.
[00:09:03] Piers Clark: Brilliant. We always finish these podcast with a slightly cheeky question. If you could go back 20 years what advice would you give a young Lina?
[00:09:13] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: 20 years is a good time for a young Lina to decide. What I would say is choose the right career from the start. Younger Lina, whatever degree that you have accomplished, you can always end up changing. Like for me, I discovered sustainability at the later stage, but if I started early, then I would've done a lot more to help with the other companies and all those.
[00:09:35] Piers Clark: And do you think that's the advice your parents would've given you?
[00:09:39] Lina Ong Chiew Yin: My parents would say that just be a good person. Education is very important to them as long as I do not deviate from others.
[00:09:47] Piers Clark: Brilliant. Thank you very much. You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with me, piers Clark, and my guest today has been Lina Ong Chiew Yin from Indah Water Konsortium, and we have been talking about the Asian Development Bank's mentoring program. Hope you can join us next time. Thank you.