Personality profile
COO of Bernama Radio 24
Sheikh Raffie Abd Rahman walking towards success, his way.
Sheikh Raffie talks to CHALLENGES about parking and his insanely quick climb up the corporate ladder.
“My biggest grouse is disabled parking,” growled Sheikh Raffie Abdul Rahman, CEO of Bernama Radio 24. He once had to argue for disabled parking in JPM, even though his car had a disabled sticker.
He feels that it is due to a lack of awareness. “Though it’s less now, but most able bodied people think the disabled don’t exist. Look at Tesco – the disabled parking is full of bikes. Where are their brains?” he demands, hitting his calliper against the floor in annoyance.
“The disabled are VIPs – Virtually Invisible Persons,” he says sarcastically.
Clearly, Sheikh is not a man to mess with. The fact that he contracted Polio at two and has been wearing callipers or leg braces since he was three has not hampered him from walking the road of success.
Even with callipers, he walked a lot most of the time, especially during his university days in UK. “Of course, I was much thinner at that time,” he laughed.
With good SPM results, he was eligible to study law in UK. However, having decided it was not for him, in his second year he switched to International Political Science and Strategic Studies. In 1996 he even represented Malaysia in the ASEAN Young Leaders Forum.
“I wanted to travel the world, so I thought, diplomat! A close friend of mine during my A-levels studied architecture. He is a diplomat now. I should have studied architecture,” joked Sheikh good naturedly.
When he isn’t being fearsome, Sheikh can be quite a jovial guy. Every inch of him radiates strength which stems from acceptance.
In secondary school he came to terms with the fact that he was disabled. “I was good with teachers, had good friends, was in the debating team and was even a prefect. I was the only prefect that was disabled. When I was called to take my tie and badge everybody clapped,” he recalled with a huge grin.
Upon graduation from UK he started working in Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia. Much to his disappointment, there was no opening for diplomat positions.
Born in KL and bred in Johor, Sheikh’s parents who were working in Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) never encouraged him to get into broadcasting. However, at his insistence, his father informed him of an audition for news reader.
“Over 400 people went for that audition, and I got it.” He smiled smugly. “I had a fairly good voice, clear enunciation. Got it the lazy way, by watching TV.”
Thus started his career in the broadcasting industry. Sheikh started reading the prime time English news part time. He also did voiceovers for documentaries.
“That was in 1996 where I had to take two buses and a taxi from my house in Subang to go to work at ISIS. That was for six months.”
Sheikh then auditioned for a radio DJ position in Radio 4 and got it. After one year in ISIS, he resigned. In his hunger for more achievement, he did part time sub-editing in RTM.
“I came to work at 12 noon, prepared the news, read news from eight to nine. At 12 midnight I had my radio show until 3am. At four in morning I went home to sleep, then go to work again at 12.” He shook his head in disbelief at the memory.
In 1997 when NTV7 was launched, Sheikh was head hunted to be a newscastor and was sent to U.S. for training. “It was the height of my careeer. Journalism moves the world. I could change the way people think. I never liked journalism but I learnt to like it,” he confessed.
Sheikh climbed the career ladder rapidly. Due to his ability to read Malay and English news, he became the main anchor. Six months later he was promoted to senior news castor. One year later, he was appointed acting Head of News.
“I had no experience but had the drive. At that time I was still reading news and was going for meetings with Tun Mahathir. Then, I got a call from Channel News Asia Singapore,” he paused dramatically.
Turns out CNA was looking for an anchor from Malaysia. Later on he had a political talk show called Between The Lines where he got to talk to politicians live around the world.
“The money in Singapore was good, but I came back slightly less than two years. I was depressed because I was alone.” Sheikh declared himself a people person, who must have people around him. “Furthermore my girlfriend was in KL that time,” he wriggled his eyebrows mischievously.
Sheikh acknowledged that it was a crazy life, coming back to Malaysia to spend every weekend. So when the CEO of NTV7 contacted him about coming back, he was ready to talk business.
“I had a three year contract with CNA at that time, but they agreed to release me and NTV7 paid off my contract when they took me.” he disclosed.
As faith would have it, on his last day at CNA the September 11 event occurred. Thanks to Sheikh’s contacts in CNA, NTV7 was the first station in Malaysia to release the September 11 news.
Subsequently he was promoted to News Manager of NTV7 News. Then he moved up to Vice President of News. With strategic thinking and excellent planning, Sheikh put himself in the good books by provding NTV7 with an edge over competitors. He was only 32 years old at that time.
He proudly states that he was the creator of the Edisi Siasat programme. “There were no strong investigative news programmes in Malaysia at that time. It was all fluff,” he explained.
Due to his refusal to get involved in internal politics, Sheikh jumped jobs. He then became an independant consultant for broadcasting stations. In 2007 he was brought in as consultant for Bernama.
The rest, they say,is history.
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