Ep 27: Freda Liu (Malaysian Business Radio-TV Host, Book Author, Emcee & Moderator)

Freda Liu is one of Malaysia’s most prominent radio-television hosts, having worked at BFM 89.9 - Malaysia’s only business radio station, for over 12 years. She has conducted over 5000 interviews and some prominent names include Martin Cooper, author Stephen Covey, motivational speaker Nick Vujicic, former GE CEO Jack Welch, the Duke of York HRH Prince Andrew to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. At BFM, her show Enterprise provides the tools to help businesses succeed covering topics with the startup scene, personal development, technology to organizational development. While HerVantage talks about women of leadership and influence to showcase women representation in all strata of society from sports, the arts & sciences to entrepreneurship. Freda has authored 5 books called "PR Yourself" and “Shake & Spear Your Business: The Romeo & Juliet Way, ” and "Everybody Loves Ray" (biography) “Bursting Fixed Mindsets” and her latest “In Your Skin”. She also contributes to The Star, one of the leading English newspapers. She was recently awarded the ASEAN Rice Bowl Awards for Malaysia Startup Journalist Of The Year and a nominee for MaGIC’s Social Enterprise journalist. Freda is a member of the National Association of Women Entrepreneurs Malaysia (NAWEM) and the Malaysian Association of Professional Speakers (MAS). She started her Lean In Circle called Think and the Malaysian chapter and has over 100 members in her group. In this STIMY interview, we cover: 3:05: Growing up in Seria, Brunei & swimming in the open sea 4:55: Listening to British Forces Broadcasting Services (radio) as a child 6:30: Moving from Brunei to Kuching, Sarawak at the age of 14 9:47: Returning to Kuching after graduation to look after her father 10:21: Having the opportunity to appear on RTM’s live telecast, which launched her career in news reading 12:51: Working in PR at Edelman in Kuala Lumpur 14:00: Leading the #duakerja life (i.e. working 2 jobs at the same time) 16:41: Being headhunted to work at IBM 19:24: The Gideon test 20:57: The early days of working at a startup called BFM 89.9 22:22: Crafting BFM 89.9’s working culture of Educate, Entertain, Enlighten 24:57: A typical day as a BFM 89.9 radio host 26:29: Whether Freda’s interview process has changed after conducting over 5,000 interviews (which includes Julian Assange & HRH Prince Andrew!) 27:56: How Freda finds the unique guests she brings onto her show 28:30: Interviews she has felt she couldn’t air 29:13: How Freda got Nick Vujicic to appear on her show 31:31: Getting into book writing 33:58: Writing her book, Everybody Loves Raymond, on the life of Raymond Chew 36:04: Writing her 6th book during COVID-19 38:25: Being better, not bitter 41:43: How COVID-19 has impacted Freda 42:58: The importance of goal setting & putting it down in writing 43:57: What Freda would tell her 21-year-old self 47:30: A new story about Freda that isn’t already covered in the media! Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/27