Zainal has been with the company since 1982. His consulting experience spans the full spectrum of actuarial services including life and general insurance consulting, family and general takaful consulting, retirement and employee benefit consulting and investment consulting. He was among the first five Malaysians to qualify as a Fellow of an actuarial professional body.

With the benefit of a long and diverse career in actuarial consulting he currently specializes in the strategic aspects of takaful, insurance and retirement consulting. He is a firm believer that the best solutions are those that consider the long term needs of all stakeholders. This requires looking at problems on a holistic basis and recognizing the limitations of solutions that overly rely on laws to regulate behaviors.
He was the lead consultant in a team of international consultants which undertook a recent review of pension, social security and health care systems in Malaysia. He has also consulted to insurance regulators, most recently to insurance regulators in the Middle East.

Zainal’s has written many articles and spoken at conferences globally on his experiences with the development of takaful. He was the first actuary in Takaful in Malaysia. He has also been involved in strategic analysis and the setup of takaful and retakaful operators in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Zainal started his career as a pension actuary and remains active in retirement consulting. He is currently a member of the International Accounting Standards Board Working Group in London which is reviewing proposed changes to IAS 19, accounting for pensions and other retirement benefits.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of the UK,a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of Malaysia, Fellow of the Singapore Actuarial Society and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries in the USA. He graduated in 1978 from City University in London with a First Class Honors degree in Actuarial Science.
He is a past President of the Actuarial Society of Malaysia.