As EUROCHAM Malaysia welcomes a new chapter in its leadership, our new chairman Peter Lenhardt sat down for a conversation with our new CEO Karl Godderis.
With nearly 30 years of experience across Southeast Asia in management consulting and foreign investment advisory, Mr. Godderis brings a wealth of expertise that will further strengthen the Chamber’s role in facilitating EU-Malaysia trade and investment. In this exclusive interview, our Chairman, Mr. Peter Lenhardt, sits down with Mr. Godderis about his professional journey, his vision for EUROCHAM Malaysia, and key initiatives that will drive the Chamber’s advocacy and engagement in the year ahead.
Read on to gain valuable insights into how EUROCHAM Malaysia is positioning itself for the future under his leadership.
Peter Lenhardt: It is with great pleasure that I can announce a key transition in our leadership, with the start of our new CEO Karl Godderis. This change in leadership reflects our continued commitment to excellence and collaboration. Especially in times where we need to further strengthen our efforts to navigate global and regional challenges, enhance EU-Malaysia economic ties, and advocate for the successful implementation of a targeted Free Trade Agreement between Malaysia and the EU. Welcome Karl !
Maybe to kick off, can you tell us something more about yourself and your professional background.
Karl Godderis: Thank you Peter. I am of Belgian origin but spent almost 30 years or the main part of my professional career in this part of the world. Back in 1995 I came to Malaysia first for an internship with a Belgian company which at the time already had its South East Asian HQ in Kuala Lumpur. Talking about forward thinking! This was followed by a professional period in Indonesia, which spanned the best part of 20 years. Then, after working several years in Australia I came back to Malaysia, now about 5 years ago.
For a large part of that period I worked in the management consulting industry, both with large global players like PWC and Kearney, as well as with boutique advisory companies and even my own firm. So I experienced the consulting work through the lens of the large corporate advisors as well as from a more entrepreneurial, closer to the ground perspective. Over those years the focus of my advisory work was mainly with Foreign Investors moving into South East Asia on topics ranging from regional or country specific business strategies, M&A and Post-Merger Integration, Supply chain optimisation and Business Transformation. Initially a significant part of that work was in Financial Services, but especially in the last 8 years I worked across Food& Agri, FMCG, Natural resources and industrial activities such as the EV supply chain. In most recent times, a fair bit of that work was in the context of the “Chine +1” phenomenon. Advising mainly European companies on market entry into Malaysia as a preferred option for a parallel operation or supply chain vis-à-vis their Chinese market presence.
Peter Lenhardt: What makes you excited about a role with Eurocham Malaysia, after such an extensive career in consulting?
Karl Godderis: Thank you for that question Peter. All those years I have been in Asia, Chambers of Commerce have always been close to my heart. It felt like an ideal meeting point for the respective foreign business communities together with local, say Malaysian, business partners or companies with strong interest in those overseas markets. These discussions and business platforms always felt like a privileged channel to calibrate and crystallise common business topics and challenges, and offered a unique and collaborative process to engage with the relevant government agencies, in my case Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as with the respective European and country embassies and their trade representatives.
While still in Indonesia, for about 7 years I sat on the board of the BENELUX Chamber of Commerce including some time as its Treasurer, since I came back to Malaysia, I have been very active in BeLuxcham Malaysia, the Belgian Luxembourg Chamber, both as board member and president, and last year I also joined the board of Eurocham Malaysia.
Peter Lenhardt: And how does this positive past experience with Chamber engagement project into the immediate future of Eurocham?
Karl Godderis: It’s all about timing. You already mentioned the resumption of trade negotiations between Malaysia and the EU. There is the further tightening of the geo-political and Global trade context, especially with the arrival of a new US administration. Malaysia’s presidency of Asean throughout 2025 and its further alignment with BRICS, the further efforts made by the EU to deliver on the ambition for its Global Gateway project in South East Asia.
These are very critical developments which foremost one needs to study from various angles. Building on that, and this is my positive challenge, we can then work out business, regulatory or other solutions which benefit both the European business community in Malaysia and its local private and public sector partners.
I feel actually privileged to be in Malaysia at this point in time, while looking back at close to 30 years of working experience in South East Asia. Primarily because I am convinced that in the current global economic climate, this region has a very important role to play. It is already a critical global destination for FDI, and with a regional GDP approaching 4 trillion USD Asean and by extension Malaysia, also offers an attractive local market.
From my humble position as CEO of Eurocham, I am excited to support anyone or any process that facilitates trade and investment, especially with Malaysia.
Peter Lenhardt: Can you share some specific initiatives that you already work on in support of the above aspirations?
Karl Godderis: Of course, and I must admit that the seeds for some of these initiatives were planted by my predecessor. But our 2025 agenda is mainly as follows.
In alignment with the various Bilateral European Chambers, with the team at Eurocham at the first place we will double down strongly on our advocacy committee initiatives. As we speak we have already 5 committees actively functioning around the topics of Healthcare, Automotive, Intellectual Property Rights, Construction and Wines & Spirits. By end of Q1 we are scheduled to have a few other topical committees operational in the areas of Logistics, Sustainability, Digital Economy, Education & HR. The latest by mid year, we aim that for all of these committees there is an active engagement process with specific Malaysian government agencies on industry topics that are both relevant and opening up a win-win outcome for both the European business community and their Malaysian counterparts.
Secondly, building on the success we had last year in Kuching, and in close collaboration with the EU Delegation in KL, we are organising EU Business Days. The first one already takes place on February 13th in Penang. We aim to bring together 200-300 European companies active in the Penang region or with interest in that region as well as respective government agencies, like Invest Penang. Objective is again to table common challenges but especially opportunities and showcase our presence in that region. For the second half of the year a similar event in scheduled in Johor Bahru.
Next and in close harmony and collaboration with the respective bilateral chambers, we want to contribute to the deepening of the sense of a “European business community” in Malaysia. To that effect we working on a first Eurocham golf tournament as well as later in the year a Eurocham Galanight. In between we will support as much as possible, both events organised by individual bilateral chambers, but especially the growing trend of inter-chamber initiatives.
Finally an important part of our focus will be on a EU Delegation initiated project, called the “EU footprint project”. Essentially Eurocham is contributing quite significantly to a project that aims to establish a detailed understanding of the combined economic contribution of all European companies operating in Malaysia. Once completed, and especially in the current geo-political climate, this is something all of us Europeans should be proud of, and hopefully it will further enhance the positive perception of Europe here in Malaysia.
Peter Lenhardt: With such a heavy agenda will you still have some spare time for yourself?
Karl Godderis: I certainly hope so. We all carry a special memory or experience related to the pandemic and the various lock downs and travel bans. I spent mine here in Malaysia, which I will remember forever. If only, because during that time I managed to write and publish two spy-novels.
I had a third one planned for 2025, but that project will have to be pushed back. So all I hope is that my new year’s resolution to live a bit healthier will find its way to realisation.