INTHEBLACK February 2022 - Magazine - Page 28
MEMBER PROFILE
// T H E S T R AT E G I S T
Below: Max Loh FCPA visits
the recently expanded
Global Innovation Center
of board meeting solutions
provider BoardPAC in
Colombo, Sri Lanka.
“We knew just about everyone in the organisation,”
Loh recalls. “We’d all be involved in financial and
internal audit work, IPOs, due diligence work,
corporate finance, feasibility studies and even corporate
restructuring and insolvencies.
I always thought that if you want to be a complete
professional, depth and breadth are imperative, and
you should have the skills to do all these things
comprehensively.
“We worked really hard, and the years passed by
very quickly, because you never had time to look back.”
TEAM WORK
Loh built a strong client base with a team he felt
comfortable with. Midway through the 1990s, he
became a partner and then financial audit leader – until
Arthur Andersen’s fall from grace in the early 2000s.
When other firms came calling, Loh knew exactly
what he wanted – if he came to work for them, they’d
have to hire his entire team, not just him. It was EY that
eventually took on most of the Andersen team, and Loh
became assurance partner.
28 ITB February 2022
In 2011, EY asked Loh to take on the role of
managing partner Asean and Singapore. Initially, he
hesitated – he was confident enough, but felt the role
was several steps higher, whereas he had always been
trained to take things one step at a time.
“Why not first make me head of audit? I can do that,”
Loh jokingly told his boss at the time. “They were more
ambitious for me than I was for myself,” he laughs.
Loh took the job, where he remained for eight years,
also wearing a second hat as Singapore managing
partner. At first, this was a real challenge.
“I had to quickly get up to speed with the business
across the region, as well as navigate between
the assurance part of the business, which I was
intimately familiar with, and everything else in our
multidisciplinary professional services firm.
“It helped immensely that all my country leadership
and partners were experienced and seasoned
professionals. My role was to execute on our strategy,
connect the dots as seamlessly as possible, so as to ensure
we bring the best of EY to every stakeholder.”
STRATEGIC INSIGHTS
Loh stepped down from his Asean role in 2019 to
ensure good stewardship and leadership succession.
With his focus now solely on his role as the EY