WHAT CLIENTS SAY
Accounts from those who have
engaged with the practice.
All testimonials reproduced with consent. Identifying details modified where requested. Dates are within the past month.
David Lim
Managing Director, Kuala Lumpur
I came with a strategy document I had been circling for three months. What I got back was not a rewritten version — it was annotations that made me see what the document was actually doing versus what I thought it was doing. That gap turned out to be the important thing. The three-week engagement was enough to change how I approached the work.
Marginal Reading · April 2025
Nabilah Syed
Chief Executive, Petaling Jaya
The Year of Notes arrangement suited how I work. I am not someone who benefits from scheduled coaching calls — I think best when I have something to write. Having a partner who reads carefully and responds thoughtfully made the correspondence feel useful rather than obligatory. The quarterly meetings were unstructured, which I appreciated.
Year of Notes · March 2025
K. Thiruchelvam
Family Enterprise Owner, Ipoh
Our engagement has been running for two years. I came because of succession questions I had been carrying alone. What I found is that putting those questions in writing — even badly at first — and having them received seriously changes how I hold them. Not every exchange has been equally useful, but the engagement as a whole has been.
Stewardship Engagement · Ongoing
Yvonne Chan
Managing Partner, Kuala Lumpur
The Marginal Reading slowed me down. The annotations asked questions I had skipped over. Some were uncomfortable — that was the point. I went into the engagement wanting validation for a particular direction. What I received was a more honest account of what I had written, which was more useful.
Marginal Reading · February 2025
Reza Abdullah
Senior Director, Shah Alam
I was in the first year of a new role and used the Year of Notes to write out what I was observing — about the organisation, my own reactions, decisions I was not sure I was reading correctly. Having a careful reader at the other end made the writing more serious. I was not just venting; I was thinking.
Year of Notes · January 2025
Eleanor Wong
Trustee, Penang
The Stewardship Engagement has been running for eighteen months. Some periods active, some quiet — that variability is the nature of the questions. The firm has never pushed for contact, which is what I needed. The correspondence has helped me think about purpose and continuity that I had been putting aside for years.
Stewardship Engagement · April 2025
CASE ACCOUNTS
Three engagements described
with more context.
Identifying details modified where requested.
CASE · 01 · MARGINAL READING
A senior executive preparing a ten-year strategy document for the board.
THE SITUATION
A managing director had been working on a ten-year strategic plan for twelve months. The document was substantive but the client felt it was circling something without naming it. A board presentation was scheduled.
THE ENGAGEMENT
A Marginal Reading. The partner read the full document across ten days and returned annotations noting where stated ambitions and operational logic were in tension, and raising questions about assumptions present but unacknowledged.
WHAT FOLLOWED
The client revised substantially before the board meeting — not to change the strategy but to make the document more honest about what it was actually proposing. The board received it differently. The client has since engaged for a Year of Notes.
CASE · 02 · YEAR OF NOTES
A chief executive navigating an unexpected transition in the organisation's leadership structure.
THE SITUATION
A chief executive had taken over under difficult circumstances. In the second year, questions became more complex — about direction, which relationships in the organisation were functioning, and what kind of leader they were becoming.
THE ENGAGEMENT
Year of Notes. The correspondence was intensive in the first quarter — three or four exchanges a week — and quieter through the middle of the year. Quarterly meetings provided a way of taking stock of what the written exchange had traced.
WHAT FOLLOWED
The client renewed for a second year. In their account, the most valuable function was the existence of a correspondent who had read everything they had written across twelve months and could hold the arc of the year. That context was not available elsewhere.
CASE · 03 · STEWARDSHIP ENGAGEMENT
A family enterprise owner thinking through succession and governance over several years.
THE SITUATION
A second-generation owner of a manufacturing enterprise had been thinking about succession for years without a useful interlocutor. Professional advisors focused on legal and financial structures; family conversations were too freighted.
THE ENGAGEMENT
Stewardship Engagement, now in its third year. Correspondence has been irregular — periods of sustained exchange around significant decisions, and longer quiet periods. Three formal meetings have taken place.
WHERE THINGS STAND
The succession questions remain open. What the client describes as valuable is the quality of thinking the exchange has produced, and the ability to return to the correspondence as a record of how their thinking has moved. The engagement continues.
REACH THE PRACTICE
How to write to us.
TELEPHONE
+60 3-2078 6234ADDRESS
Suite 9-3, Menara See Hoy ChanJalan Raja Chulan
50200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
OFFICE HOURS
Monday — Friday, 9:00 am — 5:30 pm
Correspondence received at any time
A note to us does not commit you to anything. We reply within two working days.
If unsure which engagement suits your situation, describe it and we will offer our reading.
13
YEARS IN PRACTICE
2 days
RESPONSE COMMITMENT
MY · SG · HK
CLIENT GEOGRAPHIES
PDPA
DATA COMPLIANCE (MY 2010)
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