Mohd Haris Mohd Arshad, 52, a Malaysian, was appointed as Group Chief Operating Officer of SD Guthrie Berhad on 1 January 2024. He was the Managing Director of SD Guthrie International (SDGI) from March 2019 to August 2024, a position he relinquished following the appointment of the Chief Executive Officer of SDGI. He joined the Group in 2014 and prior to the demerger of the Sime Darby Group, led the then Sime Darby’s Global Trading & Marketing unit and Plantation Division’s Downstream Manufacturing division.
As the Group Chief Operating Officer, he oversees SD Guthrie Berhad's (formerly known as Sime Darby Plantation Berhad) upstream operations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea & Solomon Islands, SD Guthrie International (formerly known as Sime Darby Oils), and SD Guthrie’s Research & Development. He also spearheads key transformation programmes, and various corporate exercises for the Group towards operational excellence, environmental stewardship, and innovation. Mohd Haris chairs the Operations Leadership Team in SD Guthrie, which team is instrumental in ensuring seamless alignment and coordination of SD Guthrie’s strategic efforts. During his tenure as Managing Director of SD Guthrie International, he led initiatives in market expansion and revenue growth, focusing on bulk trading, differentiated product offerings for industrial customers also known as Business-to-Business and high-quality end-consumer products for its Business-to-Consumer segment.
He began his career in 1995 as a trader with Cargill in Malaysia, where he was involved in the trading of palm oil and palm products and ensuring uninterrupted supply of feedstock to the refineries. He relocated to the Philippines in 1999 to join Cargill’s copra crushing operation where he was involved in sourcing of copra across the Philippines and merchandising coconut oil in Europe. In 2001, he moved to Nestle Malaysia and was subsequently transferred to London to join its global cocoa procurement and price risk management desk. In 2006, he was relocated to Singapore to establish Nestle’s Commodity Procurement Centre for Asia, Oceania and Africa Regions and was appointed General Manager & Head of Global Oils and Fats. In these roles, he was responsible in leading supplier development works as well as regional oils and fats procurement initiatives. In 2010, he moved on to Unilever in Singapore, as Director of Commodity Risk Management and headed a team of price risk managers based in the USA, Switzerland, and Singapore. The team was responsible in managing Unilever’s global oils and fats price exposure within its annual spend budget, while developing market analysis and price forecasting.
Mohd Haris is currently the Chairman of the Palm Oil Refiners Association of Malaysia, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil. He is also a member of the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, and is a Non-Independent, Non-Executive Director of Duopharma Biotech Berhad.
Mohd Haris graduated from the University of Arizona, in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration. In 2019, he attended the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.