Dato’ Sri Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir is Group Managing Director for Dagang NeXchange Berhad and its group of companies with effect from 1 October 2020. He was previously appointed as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Dagang NeXchange Berhad on 1 July 2020.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from University of Maryland, United States of America.

Prior to this appointment, he was a Non-Independent Non-Executive Director of Petronas Dagangan Bhd, a position he retired from on 10 June 2020.

Dato’ Sri Syed Zainal began his career as a Project Engineer with Petronas Gas Sdn Bhd in 1987, before joining Petroliam Nasional Berhad in 1992 as the Senior Executive of the company’s Corporate Planning & International Business Development unit. He then left to join HICOM Holdings Berhad in 1995, where he assumed various senior positions in the company. Dato’ Sri Syed Zainal lent his expertise to PERODUA when he was appointed Senior General Manager in 1999. Subsequently, he was appointed Executive Director of PERODUA Auto Corporation Sdn. Bhd. in 2002, and later promoted to Deputy Managing Director of PERODUA in October 2005. In July 2018, he was appointed as the Chairman of Universiti Teknology MARA until January 2021.

Thereafter, Dato’ Sri Syed Zainal also held various key positions in established corporation including Proton Holdings Berhad as Group Managing Director, RHB Bank Berhad and RHB Islamic Bank Berhad as Independent Non-Executive Director and Petronas Dagangan Bhd as Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director to name a few. He is currently the Chairman of Dagang Net Technologies Sdn. Bhd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dagang NeXchange Berhad. Dato' Sri Syed Zainal is also presently the Chairman of Pan Asian E-Commerce Alliance, the first regional e-Commerce alliance in Asia that aims to promote and provide secure and value-adding IT infrastructure and facilities for efficient global trade and logistics