Mohamed Sharil Bin Mohamed Tarmizi was appointed as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (SKMM) on 16 June 2008. Sharil brings with him a considerable number of years of experience in the legal field, communications and multimedia industry, as well as experience in the financial advisory and strategy consulting areas.

Sharil was the Executive Director and Head of Strategy in BinaFikir Sdn Bhd1, a financial advisory and strategy consulting firm, immediately prior to being invited to return to SKMM as the COO. He first joined SKMM in May 2000 to take up the challenge of ‘boldly going where no one had ever gone before’ to help the country implement the world’s first convergent legislation, the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (including the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Act 1998) after having practiced law in a leading law firm in the country.

He left for BinaFikir after serving SKMM for a period of six years. In his first tour of duty with SKMM, his last position was General Manager and Senior Advisor in the Office of the Chairman. In the international arena, Sharil has worked closely with the main international organizations in the Internet field, such as the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers2 (ICANN), where he was the second past Chairman of the Government Advisory Committee3 (GAC) and a board member of ICANN4 for 4 years from 2003 to 2007. He successfully navigated the GAC and assisted ICANN through the challenging early years of the debates surrounding Internet Governance at two United Nations World Summits on the Information Society in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005).

At the end of his tenure, he was honoured5 by the GAC, the ICANN Board and the global internet community6. He has also worked with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the areas of capacity building and helping countries undergo regulatory reform in preparation for globalization. In particular, he was involved in the further development of the T elecoms Reference Paper for the Telecommunications Sector as well as the drafting of the Postal Services Reference Paper for the Postal and Express Delivery Sector. He was also one of Malaysia’s lead negotiators for the telecoms sector in various rounds of WTO negotiations as well was the various Trade or Economic Cooperation agreements that Malaysia has had, namely Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Sharil is also a part time consultant to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in the area of regulatory reform and is also a part time consultant/contributor to the World Bank having helped in the creation of the ICT Development Toolkit and is presently assisting the World Bank in the development of the Broadband Toolkit. Sharil also has authored numerous papers published internationally for organizations like the ITU, and UNDP. One of his key contributions is a chapter in the UN APDIP publication on Internet Governance: Asia Pacific Perspectives7.

He has taught and trained regulators extensively throughout the world with some focus in China, Bhutan, Mongolia8, Australia910 and Hong Kong including several other Asia Pacific countries and the Pacific Islands as well as spoken at numerous international meetings and conferences throughout the world. Sharil was given the special honour of appearing on the cover page of the Australian Regulator’s industry magazine in April 201011.

Sharil was also recently elected the Vice Chairman of the ITU Council’s Child Online Protection initiative12, an initiative to address the ills of cyberspace particularly against young persons and children. In recognition of his in-depth knowledge of the communications and multimedia sector both locally and globally, immediately after he left SKMM as a staff member) he was appointed a Commission Member of SKMM by Tun Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, (the Minister then) from 1 May 2006 and he served for two terms on the Commission. His term ended on 30 April 2010.

Sharil also served as Acting Chairman for SKMM from 1 May 2009 (arising from the retirement of Dato’ Dr Halim Shafie) to 15 October 2009 when the 5th Chairman and CEO of SKMM, Tan Sri Khalid Ramli was appointed on 16 October 2009.

It is noteworthy to mention that during his tenure as Acting Chairman, Fitch (a rating agency) conducted a study of 14 countries/economies in South Asia and at the end of 2009 published a report of the study. The outcome of the study accorded Malaysia the honour of being the country with the lowest telecoms regulatory risk13 in a survey of 14 countries in South Asia, beating Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand, to name a few.

Sharil also sits on the Board of Trustee of the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (IMPACT) and he was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Multimedia Development Corporation14 by Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Razak. 7http://www.apdip.net/news/igovperspectives. A publication by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP). Chapter 3- Strengthening the Voice and Participation of Developing Countries in Internet Policy-making .

Sharil holds a Bachelor's Degree in Law from University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and qualified as a Barrister from Gray's Inn, England and Wales (UK).