KUCHING: Being one of the nation’s most established hair salons, A Cut Above has been making fashion headlines over the past several years, with several branches in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. The company has been brought to fame through its involvement in high-profile fashion events.
BSC GRAND LAUNCH: (from left) William San, Winnie Loo, Angel Wong, Ming and Xavier Mah.
The success of these big shows could be attributed to the innovation and dedication of its marketing and public relations manager Xavier Mah, who was generous enough to share his experience during a recent interview with The Borneo Post.
‘Confidence without arrogance’ has been Mah’s tagline since young. Coming from a single parent family, he understood the need to work hard towards achieving his dreams. He strongly believes that nothing is impossible if one strives towards success.
Throughout such journey, many people have given him help and he has never forgotten anyone of them.
The ambitious 26-year-old has always wanted to be involved in the media field since high school.
“As I know how to manage my time, I can do well in both academic and extra co-curricular activities,” he mused.
His inspiration has been Hong Ju Khee, a former anchorwoman from ntv7. A versatile personality, she was known as being the only newscaster who had excellent command in English, Malay and Mandarin languages.
In turn, this had convinced Mah to take these language subjects in his STPM as he realised that being multi-lingual would be a very useful skill for him with regards to his career’s choice. Additionally, he participated in many university activities like the Student Representative Council, the School of Communication 35th anniversary and Pesta Tanglung.
Through these activities, he learnt different communicative skills with different people, as well as the tip-trick on event organisation.
On the coverage front, Mah had the opportunity to chat with a few local media personalities from 8TV, ntv7, Astro, My FM, 988 FM, Red FM, Suria FM and Hot FM.
Mah also revealed that he always learned from his mistakes and strived to be a better person.
For every event, he would conduct a post-mortem session to get feedbacks from participants, from whom he would find that it was vital towards enhancing his communication skills and avoiding making the same mistakes.
After graduation, he was offered by ntv7 to work as an assistant producer for the ‘Top 10 Malaysian Hainan Chicken Rice’ programme.
This programme had enabled him to travel to Hainan, China and all around Malaysia to meet people from diverse background and culture.
Notably, he was able to draw sponsors for the programme such as Timberland for the wardrobes, The Zone for accommodation and DXN Comfort Travel for air travels.
Undoubtedly, experience obtained from his previous university activities had helped him towards this.
Although it was only a four-month programme, he had learned the ropes on how to conduct single-camera production work and gained valuable insights within the media line.
After this, he moved forward to join gua.com.my as an assistant producer from which he learned how to approach the urban entertainment scene as
well as establish contacts with local celebrities and clients.
A year of hard-work later, he was finally offered his current position, in which he was given a vital role in developing and maintaining the branding for A Cut Above.
On top of that, his role requires the planning and organising large-scale brand events to promote the company, among which were A Cut Above’s 30th Anniversary Fashion Party, BSC Grand Launch, A Cut Above’s Christmas Soiree 2009 and others.
“First time being an organiser, I had to ask my friend on how to write letters for press coverage, arrange the show programmes and so on,” he reminisced.
He attributed his achievements to A Cut Above’s founder Winnie Loo, as she had the confidence to take him in when he was still a fresh graduate lacking in real work experience.
“To earn other’s respect, you need to have non-stop learning ability and perform to your best in every step you take,” he added.
Mah’s reputation always precede him, especially among local celebrities.
Former Miss Malaysia-World’s first runner-up and actress Dawn Jeremiah related, “The first time I met Xavier was when I hosted for Gua TV, in which he was among the producers. He was fresh out of USM and passionate to learn the ropes of this business.
“In three-year’s time, I have seen Xavier grow into a skillful individual who doesn’t beat around the bush and gets the job done. His persistence, intuition and honesty have brought him to where he is today, carving a niche for himself as a capable event planner as well as a hardworking public relations practitioner.”
Mah disclosed that his purpose in life has always been to do his very best wherever he is at any moment, by thinking about what he can do to improve the lives of those around him.
“I want to fill each day with a sense of exhilaration and a purpose, a sense of tasks accomplishment as well as deep fulfillment. I believe that each person has their own path in life, a unique mission that only the individual can fulfill.”