MaGIC CEO Cheryl Yeoh is stepping down

(Note: We’ve updated this story with additional information from a source and a statement from Warren Leow.)

There’s a changing of the guard taking place at the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Center (MaGIC).

CEO Cheryl Yeoh will leave the Malaysian government-funded agency next month, barely two years after assuming the role, she said in a statement given to Digital News Asia.

She didn’t state a reason, only that it was a “mutual agreement” with Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance (MoF).

“My contract will end on January 14, 2016, after one year and nine months of service. However, I’ll also be clearing a lot of my annual leave before my last day of service, so I will be in and out of the office toward the end of my contract,” she said in the statement.

“MoF has given me a wonderful opportunity to set up MaGIC and steer it in the right direction where it will benefit entrepreneurs not only within Malaysia, but the larger Southeast Asia, and to truly put Malaysia on the map for the right reasons because we have so much untapped potential,” she added.

Digital News Asia said Cheryl’s tenure was reportedly “cut short” from “two-plus-one years,” with the extra year at the discretion of the Malaysian government. It added that Cheryl’s leaving supposedly comes after “months of mounting pressure on MaGIC to adhere to its original mandate of reaching out to entrepreneurs of all types, and not just technology-based ones.”

However, a source privy to the goings-on at MaGIC told Tech in Asia that isn’t exactly the case. Cheryl is leaving within the agreed timeframe and given that all major programs have been delivered. “She left on mutually agreed terms and in a cordial and amiable way.”

It’s also not true that the MaGIC team was under mounting pressure, the source added. “It was not really pressure, to be honest. There might have been some differences in opinions on certain areas of focus for MaGIC amongst certain stakeholders, but the team still succeeded in hitting all the required KPIs.”

We’ve reached out to Cheryl to get her comments, and we’ll update this story when we hear back.

In the meantime, Cheryl’s second-in-command, Warren Leow, has also left his post as MaGIC executive director for entrepreneurship development. We’ve asked Warren what his reason was and this is what he said: “I am moving on to pursue my next steps – whether it is to start something big on my own or to join someone else in building a world-class startup in Southeast Asia.”

A startup founder herself

Cheryl took the helm at MaGIC in April 2014 after MoF Secretary General of Treasury Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah convinced her to move back to Malaysia and turn the country into a startup hub for Southeast Asia. She was said to have been selected for the job because of her entrepreneurial background and her Silicon Valley connections.

At the time, she had been based in the US where she ran two startups – one of which was Reclip.It, a personalized shopping list app she sold to Walmart Labs in 2013.

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