Mohd Effendi Norwawi

Tan Sri Datuk Seri Mohd Effendi Norwawi (born 1 February 1948) is a Malaysian businessman, administrator and politician. He has previously served as a Sarawak State Assemblyman (1991–1999), the Minister of Agriculture (1999–2004) and a Senator for the Upper House of Parliament or Dewan Negara (2006–2011).

Effendi attended the prestigious Malay College Kuala Kangsar from 1961 to 1967. He then furthered his education in Australia under a Federal Government scholarship.

He founded the private TV channel ntv7 in 1998, which he has divested years since. Effendi’s reputation in media made him the obvious choice to collaborate with Bloomberg L.P. to launch Bloomberg TV in Malaysia. Effendi was also previously the Chairman of Bank Utama (now part of the RHB Banking Group) from 1990 to 1995 during which he led its turnaround into becoming one of Malaysia's more prominent major banks.

Effendi served as Executive Chairman of Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) for 15 years from 1981 to 1995, where his numerous successes was recognized and he was awarded the Chief Secretary to the Government's Quality Award and the prestigious Malaysian Prime Minister's Quality Award in 1994.

He initiated the modernization and commercialization of agriculture when he was appointed as the Minister of Agriculture, thereby ensuring the long-term growth of the crucial sector in the country.

He was then invited by former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Badawi to head up the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) as the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department. During his tenure as the Minister of EPU from 2006 to 2008, Effendi initiated the National Implementation Task Force, the National Implementation Directorate and National Economic Action Council to accelerate the implementation of high impact national projects. He was principally involved in coordinating the master planning of the five corridor developments in the country. He was also appointed as Joint-Chairman with Singaporean Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan for the Malaysia–Singapore Coordination Committee to facilitate the development of the Johor Corridor, on the Iskandar Regional Development Authority.

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