Director of Corporate Strategy & Performance
Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (KWAP)

Ismail Zakaria is the Director of Corporate Strategy and Performance Department of Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) [KWAP], Malaysia’s largest public sector pension fund.

Ismail served several corporate entities throughout his career with his last stint being with the Group Strategy Dept, Sime Darby Berhad prior to joining KWAP. Ismail brings 18 years of professional experience to the pension fund, from his key roles in corporate strategy, business development and merger integration as well as corporate finance.

In KWAP, he is instrumental in spearheading the fund’s Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda which includes:

• Establishing Responsible Investment function to forefront the fund’ shareholders engagement agenda and initiatives, as well as to influence and encourage the Malaysian capital market players to embrace good ESG practices.
• Providing the platform for discourse, engagement and awareness creation on ESG for local and international capital market players by organizing the KWAP Inspire: 2018 Environmental Conference and hosting the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) Annual Conference 2017, among others.
• Leading the effort for KWAP to become a signatory of the United Nation supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2018, cementing KWAP’s commitment to embrace and incorporate ESG practices in its investment decision making processes.

Ismail was appointed as the first Chairman of Governance and Policy Working Group of Institutional Investors Council Malaysia (IICM) where he served for 3 years. In this role, he was instrumental in driving the execution of various initiatives to meet the Council’s objectives during its formative years.

A graduate of the University of New South Wales, Australia, he holds a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Accounting and Finance from the institution.