Wow, it's Bow Bow

After 10 years in the retail industry, Choon Bow Bow, marketing director of World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia, tells SOFIANNI SUBKI why she's glad she joined a non-governmental organisation.

WHEN she introduces herself as Bow, you can’t help but wonder if she gets teased for her name. “Yes, a lot,” says Choon Bow Bow, the marketing director of World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia.

“When I joined the company, everyone told me I had a suitable name because it repeated a Chinese character and many Chinese names for pandas were the same.”

For those who don’t already know, WWF is a non-governmental organisation known worldwide for its panda logo. But why is that?

“It’s a Chinese practice for girls to have pet names in addition to given names. Pet names usually repeat a character like Ling-Ling, for example,” says Choon, 42. “Similar pet names are given to pandas as a term of endearment.”

Her own name, Bow Bow, means precious. “My father named me that because I’m his only daughter,” adds Choon, who has four brothers.

Not sure about her name being panda-like but she definitely lives up to its meaning by being an asset at work.

She leads a team of 10 who come up with fund-raising strategies and activities. Under her leadership, the department’s contribution to WWF-Malaysia’s total income increased by more than 30 per cent.

She’s also credited for partnerships forged with Honda Malaysia, Boh Plantations, HSBC Bank Malaysia, Nokia Malaysia and Nestle Products.

Before joining WWF in Dec 1999, she worked in the retail industry for 10 years, starting as a sales assistant for Polo Ralph Lauren before leaving for the US, where she worked and studied fashion merchandising. After seven years there, she returned to KL and worked with apparel brand British India for three years.

Wanting to do something different, she quit and spent a year travelling with husband David Lee, a consultant with Sirim.

When they came back in 1998, WWF was hiring, so she applied and got the job as a fund-raising manager. She was promoted to director of marketing in 2004.

She has no regrets about leaving the retail industry. “In retail, the money you bring in goes into someone’s pocket,” she says. “At WWF, you raise income as well but it goes back to society.”

When she first joined, WWF was raising about RM8 annually. This year, it expects to raise about RM30m.

Choon explains that in Malaysia, half of the funds come from foreign aid agencies and the WWF network, which is a world fund. The rest is raised here.

On WWF’s success stories, she talks about minimising conflict between tiger and humans in Terengganu by studying the ecology of the tiger and advising farmers to have better cattle husbandry.

“People who live on the fringe of the forest face the problem of having tigers come to their farms or plantations to hunt,” she says.

“But if farmers kept their cattle better by having them fenced at certain times, tiger attacks on livestock reduced tremendously.”

Other key projects include attaching a transmitter on three hawksbill turtles so they can be tracked, and an active trans-boundary marine life programme.

Encompassing marine sites in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, the programme is also linked to what is known as the market factor, which is related to consumption of seafood.

“We’re not just talking about protecting pristine areas, we’re also talking about consumption patterns. For example, how would consumption of fish in Hong Kong and China have an impact on our fisheries?”

Born in KL and raised in Subang, she has fond memories of helping her parents run a sundry shop in Kampung Subang.

“My brothers and I pitched in to help, whether it was selling newspapers or looking after the shop,” she says.

“So, at a young age, we were independent and knew the value of money, which can’t be said of many spoiled children today.”

This why she sent her sons, Ethan, six, and Aaron, nearing three, to nursery and play school at an early age. Ethan was seven months old when he went and Aaron, two months old. “I wanted them to learn to be independent and sociable,” she says.

Two months ago, her family took time off for a beach holiday at Pangkor. At the end of the trip, her elder son, Ethan kicked up a fuss about wanting to take some seashells home.

Choon had to explain to him, at length, why it wasn’t the right thing to do as the seashells belong to the beach and should be left there.

“That night, when I tucked him in bed, he told me that best part of the holiday was my telling him why the beach must be preserved,” she says.

“It’s never too early to teach children a big issue like protecting the environment.”

She practises an open door policy when it comes to management style. Her staff are encouraged to come and talk about anything. She also likes spending time with them on a social basis outside of the office, something she considers important in her line of work.

“Shared values run deep here, it’s not like any commercial job,” she says. “Your reward is knowing that whatever you bring in is going to a good cause.”

She adds that people have come up to her and asked how their RM1 a day donation can possibly make a difference. “Your RM1 a day donation contributes to the 34 per cent of the work that we do and that’s significant percentage,” she says.

WWF works closely with the wildlife government’s departments of forestry and fishery as they are the agencies that are entrusted to look after the natural resources.

“Often time, we’re engaged by the government to do a specific job like consultancy work,” she explains. “We are asked to write policy papers.”

She hopes that the environment cause will go mainstream soon and points out that we don’t even have an environment education policy.

WWF has officers tackling policy issues and working with teachers as well as the Education Ministry. It recently did a national survey on environment education sectors.

“It’s still being compiled,” she says. “It’s a survey on everyone’s views about how we, as a country, should take on environment education.

“It’s entirely funded by the public. It is our hope and goal that environment education will taught in schools across the country in the near future.”

Choon will present a paper at the International Corporate Social Responsibility Conference, which will take place from July 29 to 31 at Hilton Hotel, KL.

The first conference of its kind in Malaysia, she hopes that the event will encourage more companies to support and participate in environment-related CSR.