Suhana Dewi Selamat was appointed UDA Holdings Berhad Board Director on 27 June 2023. With over 25 years of experience, she has acquired a mastery of legal principles and practices, particularly in the financial industry, with a focus on equities trading and compliance, as well as sustainable capitalism, and environmental, social and governance (ESG). Armed with a comprehensive understanding of and experience in anti-corruption practices, compliance frameworks and the importance of integrity within organisations, she develops and implements policies and programmes that align with legal requirements and ethical aspirations, and monitors the organisation’s compliance with internal policies, laws and industry-specific regulations and standards.
She obtained an LLB (Hons) degree from the London School of Economics in 1994, followed by a Certificate in Legal Practice from Universiti Malaya in 1996. In 2007, she completed the Licensing Modules 6, 7 and 11, designed for equities dealers and compliance officers, through the Securities Industry Development Corporation. She further obtained a Certificate in Business Continuity (CBCI) from the Business Continuity Institute (UK) in 2018 and was granted the Certified Integrity Officer (CeIO) certification from MACC's Anti-Corruption Academy in 2019. In 2022, she completed the Certificate in Sustainable Capitalism & ESG from UC Berkeley (Berkeley Law).
Suhana Dewi started as a Legal Assistant at Messrs. Cheang & Ariff in 1995, where she focused primarily on commercial, corporate, and intellectual property law. She joined RHB Bank Berhad’s Legal Department and was later appointed its Acting Head. Her key responsibilities included reviewing and updating standard loan documents, and she was involved in operationalising the mergers with Sime Bank and Bank Utama. She left in 2003 to join the Securities Commission as a Project Manager in the Bond Market Department. She was responsible for formulating policies and regulations for the bond market, jointly producing working the issuance guidelines for sukuk and for structured products, and the regulations for bond trustees.
In 2007, she joined Credit Suisse in Malaysia, serving as its Country Head of Compliance. She oversaw compliance for business dealings and interactions between Credit Suisse's offshore entities and Malaysian clients and became the registered compliance (and AML) officer for Credit Suisse's stockbroking, research and corporate advisory businesses in Malaysia.
From 2012 to 2017, Suhana Dewi worked at Khazanah Nasional Berhad to establish the business-embedded compliance function within the Investments Division. She was appointed the Chief Risk Officer in February 2017, and is now Executive Director and Head of the Governance, Risk and Compliance Division. Currently, she oversees all governance and risk management functions, global compliance and integrity (anti-bribery and corruption) functions; and also has administrative oversight for investigations and assurance.
In 2022, Suhana Dewi retired from the Board of Trustees of WWF Malaysia, having served on the board for 8 years as their Honorary Legal Adviser, ran the EXCO in an interim period between CEOs, and served on their Advisory Committee for the WWF Malaysia Report on Net Zero Pathways for Malaysia.
