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| Women of Substance The Star, Monday September 8, 2003
IN A world gripped by fear and suspicion, building bridges seems a foolhardy thing to do. Yet that is what one spunky Malaysian is pouring her energies into, and she is already seeing returns. May Maniam, 42, left the security of the American financial sector and teamed up with Lina Merican, another Malaysian in the United States, to set up eBridgeMalaysia – a journal promoting Malaysian culture and business in North America. One year on, May, who is now CEO of eBridgeMalaysia, confides with a gleam in her eye that the publication has turned around. That’s no small feat for a cross-continental, fledgling journal with no big-time backers – May basically financed the start-up from her savings. May was recently back in Malaysia to celebrate eBridgeMalaysia’s first birthday with her family and friends. Says May: “eBridgeMalaysia represents a forum that operates above the US-Malaysia political fray and facilitates a meeting of the minds and hearts of the American and Malaysian people.” The journal, with the tagline “where minds and hearts meet”, offers a good mix of cultural and business articles on Malaysia and has garnered a strong North American readership. “I’ve received letters from American readers commending eBridgeMalaysia on the high quality of Malaysian journalism and the print quality of the journal,” May says with obviously pride in her team of writers, many of whom are Malaysians based in Malaysia. May herself is based in Washington, DC and communicates with her writers via e-mail and telephone. In the globally-connected world, even her webmaster is based in Petaling Jaya! The first year, May recalls, was full of business and personal challenges. But the journal was able to respond quickly to market trends and it underwent some significant changes in that short time. “For one thing, we evolved from being a community paper into a strategic communication journal serving primarily Americans with business and cultural or travel interests in Malaysia and South-East Asia. “We also streamlined the content so that every issue has a theme. “Our philosophy behind combining culture with commerce is that we see culture as a pre-requisite to commerce, and commerce as a means to nurture culture – and Malaysian culture, in particular, as a smart way to differentiate and distinguish Malaysia on the world stage,” May explains. In the May-June 2003 issue, for example, eBridgeMalaysia took its readers on a cultural excursion of Sarawak for the Gawai Dayak festival, and a business excursion through Malaysian forests to understand the sustainable logging initiative of the timber industry. “We chose Sarawak because it was requested by our readers, and timber because we had repeated inquires from a furniture outlet in Maine about the sustainability of Malaysian timber,” May says. The themes planned for the months ahead include a cultural feature on Merdeka celebrations; a round-up of businesses in the MSC; and state focuses on Penang, Johor and Sabah. “Secondly, we have changed our model from being subscription-based, to a sponsorship and advertising model,” she continues. This means her journal is funded by sponsors and advertisers, and mailed out free to readers. The idea behind this is to “nurture and invest” in Americans who already have business or cultural experiences with Malaysia, and to build a critical mass of “ambassadors for Malaysia” in the United States. Postage, however, raised costs, so May then decided to pack more content into each issue while cutting frequency down from monthly to bimonthly, and eBridgeMalaysia subsequently achieved a rather comfortable equilibrium. May, who has two Master degrees in administration, started off in a career in risk management with Citibank in the United States. In the mid-1990s, however, policy change led to a centralisation of operations, which took the “entrepreneurial fun” out of the business and May left to try her hand at other ventures. She interned at the American-Asean Council, where she had a role in event planning and writing briefs for US-Malaysia. That experience sowed the seeds of her idea for eBridgeMalaysia. But the timing was not right to strike out on her own. She then worked for two years with Fannie Mae, the largest secondary mortgage company in the United States, gaining experience in research and writing, as well as building up her capital base. Finally, a year ago eBridgeMalaysia was launched, and the rest is history. Recalling the personal challenges she had to wrestle with, May says, “One of the biggest challenges in the early stages was adjusting to decision-making based more on intuition than on data, while learning to differentiate between acting on impulse versus intuition.” The second challenge was growing into a leadership role. “It is relatively easier to be No.2 than it is to be No.1. For me it meant stepping out of my comfort zone and growing on the job without role models, to fill in the shoes of CEO.” Ultimately, May says, it was a passion for her mission that made the difference. “Lina and I love promoting Malaysia in America. When love is involved, going the extra mile is a natural thing to do – and because it’s natural, it also becomes sustainable.” Of her paper’s first year, May says, “It felt like 12 months of protracted labour, but I always had the confidence that the end result will be so rewarding that it would be worth the chronic fatigue and mental anguish! It is the opportunity that I have been dreaming of all my life, and I am giving it all I’ve got.” As she toasts the first year, May credits much of eBridgeMalaysia’s success to her writers and support team, who have since become her friends: “They are the ones grooming, fuelling and conditioning the Malaysian horse; I am just the jockey riding that Malaysian horse in an American race – with the dream of a perfect finish.”
Queries on eBridgeMalysia may be sent via e-mail to editor@eBridgeMalaysia.com |
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