Ucapan takziah/condolences: Ahmad Fauzi Ismail

I've just received a telephone call from an old friend from my former Ban Hin Lee Bank days...Mazlan Hassan.

He phoned to tell me that a mutual friend of ours, Ahmad Fauzi b Ismail, collapsed from a heart attack and died last night. He had been on medication for quite a while but had been delaying getting a bypass.

It's a shock to hear such unpleasant news. Fauzi was one of the first people I knew when I entered the banking industry. He was my superior officer at the bank's Penang Main Branch in Beach Street, Penang and later, we also worked briefly at the bank's Prai office in Chai Leng Park on the mainland.

Fauzi was one of the most unassuming fellas I've ever met. He treated everyone as equals and we could talk openly. I told him once: you mustn't think that you have people working for you. Think of them as people working with you. I believe it must have been a revelation that hit him then and there.