Foreward
Dedicated by Zach Ho
(Loving Husband)
Annie was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and was raised in a town called Kajang, about 24km away from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is the eldest of three children in her family with two other younger brothers. Annie grew up living in a coffee shop which belongs to her maternal grandparents. Her mom and aunt manage the coffee shop. Annie’s father is a civil servant with the Department of Road Works.
Annie attended Kajang Convent Girl School for both her primary and secondary school. She was very active in Girl Guide, Interact Club, and Math & Science Club. During her years in school, she was also very active in fund raising projects.
Although Annie came from a low-middle income family, it has never stopped her from achieving her dream of going to US to pursue her education. Understanding her parents’ financial condition then, she knew it was not feasible for her complete her entire undergraduate program in US, thus after Form 5 (senior high), she went around searching for a twinning program. To ease her parents’ financial burden, she found an American program in a local college which allowed her to complete the first two years of the program in Malaysia and the last two years in America.
During Annie’s first two years in American degree program (in Malaysia), she excelled in her class and was on the Dean’s Honor List every semester. Upon completion, Annie applied to the Accountancy School of the University of Missouri-Columbia for her Accounting degree, a school which was ranked among the Top 20 in the United States. While pursuing her degree there, Annie worked at the dormitory and university bookstore to pay for own living expenses. Annie was also awarded several scholarships during her time at her Alma mater. She was awarded the Roswell Messing Junior Memorial Service Award, Ernst & Young Accounting Scholarship, Grant-in-Aid Scholarship, and Mary E. and Martha J. Briegel Scholarship, which assisted her financially in completing her studies. After completing her degree, Annie continued to pursue her MBA at the same university and was awarded a position of Research Assistant which allowed her to study for free, and in addition, being paid for working with a Professor at the Business School. Annie completed her Masters being awarded the Top student in MIS.
Apart from academic achievements, Annie was very active in clubs and associations. During her college years in Malaysia, Annie was the Secretary of the American Program Studies Committee at Kolej Damansara Utama during Fall Semester 1990, and when she was at the University of Columbia, Annie was a member of the Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity – Membership and Service Committees (1992-1993), member of the Beta Alpha Psi National Accounting Fraternity (1992-1993), the Vice President of the Association of Malaysian Students (August 1992-August 1993), and the Vice President of Community Affairs for the MBA Association Graduate Student Organization during Fall Semester 1994. And as far as Annie’s academic achievement is concerned, Annie was on the Dean’s Honor List (min 3.5 Semester GPA and 3.0 CGPA) for all the semesters, Golden Key National Honor Society and Beta Gamma Sigma Business Honorary Society.
When she returned to Malaysia (after an awesome backpacking adventure with her cousin sister, Natalie throughout Europe), she was immediately offered several job opportunities with the Big Six Accounting companies. It has been Annie’s dream to work for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and true enough, she started her career as an Associate Consultant with Andersen Consulting. Annie was sent to US for 3 weeks training and was assigned to Interpol database project immediately upon her return. During her time at Andersen Consulting, she worked on a charity Internet project, KLIA and Regional reporting system.
Annie later moved on to Coopers and Lybrand as a consultant in the Foreign Investment Advisory Division. Then after, she went on to work for Lotus Consulting (now part of IBM). During her time at Lotus Consulting, Annie worked in Thailand on the Inland Revenue project.
Annie later on moved on to lecturing after delivering her first baby boy, Josiah. As she wanted more time with her baby, she lectured at Metropolitan College for the Curtin University Programs. This gave her flexible hours, in which it also started her journey on her PhD. She was awarded a full scholarship to complete her PhD in the field of Entrepreneurship.
After working as a lecturer for 2 years, Annie and her husband started their own training and consulting company. Both Zach and Annie started making their six figure income from their own bedroom connecting trainers to corporate clients. Then after, they proceeded on to creating Teddybearland.com, as the name speaks for itself, an online teddy bear store. Why teddy bears? because Annie is a teddy bear collector. This “hobby-turned-business” venture had Annie featured in various national newspapers, magazines, prime news and TV programs. Teddybearland.com was listed in the Malaysian Book of Records for having the largest teddy bear gathering in Malaysia. Through all these, she has learnt how to organize large scale events, to liaise with VVIPs and to handle public relations with the press. She was also invited to be the columnist on The Sun Daily. The title of her column together with her husband was “On The NET with Zach & Annie”.
Two years down the road, Zach went on to pursue his business in the wellness industry. Annie supported Zach in the area of system creation, strategic planning, and trainings and workshops development, Annie was the event director and trainer for all the trainings and workshops events (which was second in nature to Annie as she has had 3 consecutive years of experience in organizing ‘Record Breaking’ events such as the Teddy Bears Picnic). Their business grew and now, they have residual income from their wellness business. Annie’s passion grew for personal transformation work, she has developed and led trainings such as Achievers Conference, ICAN Business Builder Academy, Leadership Boot Camp, Nutrition and Talks and Fitness Workshops. She also organized several major events such as Achievers’ Nite and she is also developed and started the Top Achievers Club Program (a success life coaching and mentoring program). She was also a coach in the TeenStreet Malaysia program.
Currently, Annie is an Instructor-in-Training for the Money & You program (www.excellerated.com). She is a proud graduate of Money & You, ITP and Business School for Entrepreneurs (BSE), which she speaks passionately of. She is also the CEO of Dakota Warriors, a training company using the Excellerated-Learning methodology.
Apart from being an over achiever, Annie is also someone fun, kind-hearted and caring. She is extremely passionate about community work. She has been actively involved in many charity projects since her high-school years. She has done fund-raising projects for Big Brother Big Sister, Rumah Faith, House of Joy, Rumah Shalom, Compassionate Home, Harvest Centre and many more through events such as Teddy Bear Picnics, Dinners, Movie-screenings and so on. Annie also started an annual event, the ICAN Charity Dinner “With A Difference” and ICAN Movie Charity “With A Difference”. Annie loves to work with children. In her heart, there is always a special place for children. Currently, she has started a project called “Golden Navigator” to coach retirees or soon-to-be retirees to use the internet with the intention to enrich their life.
We hope her journey has inspired you in some ways, this is not the end but rather the beginning of Annie’s journey in toucing lives and inspiring people, do visit this blog form time to time for more adventures to come.
Dr Annie Lim – Subang Flying Club
