Making a big impact with small gestures

For Nabilah, vice-president of finance at ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc, giving back to the community doesn’t have to cause a big splash. She has found even making small ripples can cause big waves.

Nabilah started her career in accounting. “The beauty of accounting is that all companies need an accountant,” she says. Studying in the U.S. in the 1990s, she faced her first big challenge. One that would lay a path for her to help others: Learning to speak English.

“Most people took the easy classes for their electives, but I took the hardest. I even learned binary code - zeros and ones. Without realizing it, I had taken enough credit hours to graduate with two degrees!”

“I did well in high school and received a government scholarship to study in the U.S. But I could hardly form proper sentences in English,” Nabilah says. “I realized no one was going to help me, so I had to help myself.”

After a lot of study and English practice, Nabilah graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in accounting and a minor degree in computer science, the only one in her class to do so.

“Companies went to the U.S. to recruit returning Malaysians before they even graduated. I accepted ExxonMobil’s offer because it meant I could give back to the people in my state, which was one of the poorest in my country at the time.

I did get ‘better’ offers from other companies, but I preferred to stay with ExxonMobil and work in my home state.”

Heading for home

Nabilah says she didn’t plan to join the energy industry. But ExxonMobil made her an offer she could not refuse: A chance to work in her own home state of Terengganu in Malaysia.

It was an opportunity to build a career, while giving back to the community to give them chances she didn’t have.