Sunway Group Wins Big at Putra Brand Awards 2022

Sunway Group dominated the Putra Brands Awards 2022, sweeping five accolades including the prestigious Putra Brand of the Year and Putra Brand Personality titles.

These awards exemplify Sunway Group’s continuous product innovation and commitment to brand-building via communication, anchored by a strong sense of corporate social responsibility in line with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

Sunway Group also went home with three category awards. Sunway University bagged the top platinum award in the Education and Learning category, Sunway Berhad won bronze in Property, and Sunway Lagoon also bronze in Entertainment.

Sunway Group founder and chairman Tan Sri Dr Jeffrey Cheah received the Putra Brand Personality Award 2022, which celebrates him as an outstanding individual with creativity, perseverance and persuasion.

This brings Sunway Group’s total Putra Brand Awards tally to 32 since it first took part in 2010. The awards won in 2022 are its biggest haul.

Cheah’s win follows his lifelong commitment to advancing the nation through education; building a more progressive, sustainable and inclusive future for all; philanthropy work; and his deftness in running one of South-East Asia’s leading conglomerates.

In his own words “To inspire before I expire”, Cheah believes in achieving a higher purpose in life from his early years surrounded by poverty in Pusing, Perak, where he grew up.

“It has been a long journey, with many ups and downs since the brand’s founding in 1974. I would like to pay tribute to the hard work, dedication and resilience of the entire Sunway family, who shaped the Group into a brand that is here to stay.

“On behalf of everyone at Sunway, thank you Malaysia for standing by us and placing your trust in us all these years.

“With integrity as our guide, humility as our virtue and excellence as our choice, Sunway is committed to nation-building through quality education, healthcare and sustainable development,” said Cheah, who has received Asia’s Lifetime Achievement Award 2019 by Fortune Times and included four times in Forbes’ Asia’s Heroes of Philanthropy, among other accolades.

He is founder and trustee of the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation which has awarded over RM618mil worth of scholarship and grants to thousands of deserving students as of 2022.

Besides actively providing quality education, the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation also plays a large and active role in hastening the advancement of the region’s sustainable development agenda by adopting the UN SDGs.

“I owe a great debt to my country for the opportunities it has given me. The success and growth of Sunway enabled me to set up a foundation dedicated to nation-building and giving back to society in an impactful manner. Everything we do now is for the future generation.

“It is my hope that what we are doing at Sunway and the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation will inspire others to join us in our mission to build a more progressive, sustainable and inclusive future for all,” said Cheah.

The foundation has so far gifted a total of US$20mil to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) headed by the renowned Prof Jeffrey Sachs.

Cheah’s latest efforts in championing the UN SDGs include funding the global headquarters of the SDG Academy – the educational arm of the SDSN.

He has also established and is funding operations of the Asia headquarters of the SDSN, making it one of only three such global centres globally tasked with continent-wide sustainability initiatives. This ranks Sunway City Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia alongside Paris overseeing Europe and Africa, and New York City overseeing the Americas.

Founded in 1974, the Sunway brand has grown as one of the largest Malaysian conglomerates operating across 50 locations worldwide.

The Putra Brand Awards organised by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia (4As) since 2010 is endorsed by the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (Matrade) and supported by the Malaysian Advertisers Association, the Media Specialists Association and the Malaysian Digital Association.

Winners of the Putra Brand Awards are voted by Malaysian consumers. In 2022, over 25,000 responses were received during the eight-week period from end September to mid-November from consumers who responded to invitations to participate in the survey that were published on 60 websites.

This article was published in The Star, 14 Jan 2023.