CEO, Sunway FutureX DI · Kuala Lumpur
Builder first.
Twenty years across the edit suite, the airwaves and the classroom. Today he runs the platforms that turn people into talent: Malaysia's zero-fee coding school and its corporate AI academy.
Talent in this country is not scarce. Access is.
I am a builder first. I have no traditional pedigree for the rooms I now sit in, and I have stopped treating that as a gap.
My work has been to build the platforms, partnerships and proof that let people with potential, and not just credentials, step into the digital economy.
Jeff SandhuChief Executive Officer, Sunway FutureX DI
First employee at 42 Malaysia. Comfortable building before the org chart exists.
Employers, completion rates and placements. Impact is reported like revenue: audited, dated, repeatable.
Government, GLICs, industry and community, aligned on one talent pipeline instead of five.
02 · Key figures
As at November 2026. Figures are Jeff's own reporting, rounded down.
03 · Twenty-year track record
Three careers that look unrelated until you see what they share: craft, deadlines and the second question.
VFX artist · Post-production studios
With a Diploma in Multimedia Design, Jeff spends four years making visual effects for television and commercials. He calls it a grounding in craft, storytelling and hard deadlines.
Executive Producer · BFM 89.9, The Business Station
More than 5,000 interviews with founders, policymakers and executives. He creates the Tech Talk podcast and co-hosts Geeks Squawk, which signs off with episode 439, "Bon Voyage", in July 2020. Listeners come to know him as the station's resident tech voice: the producer who rode in a self-driving Volvo truck in Sweden and met IBM's Watson in 2015, years before AI was dinner-table talk.
Recognition abroad
Jeff is Malaysia's first representative at the ASEF Young Leaders Summit in Luxembourg, where the subject is youth unemployment and entrepreneurship. In 2019 the U.S. Department of State selects him for its International Visitor Leadership Program.
Head, FutureX Talent · First employee, 42 Kuala Lumpur
42 Kuala Lumpur launches in July 2020, the first campus of its kind in Malaysia. The first Piscine, the 26-day selection bootcamp, cannot happen in person, so it runs online with cadets grouped into "villages" on Discord.
Although failure is most often punished in any situation, at 42KL we expect students to fail almost daily. This is how we encourage them to embrace failure as part of the process.
Chief Operating Officer · 42 Malaysia
For World Refugee Day, 42KL runs Code4TheFuture: more than 35 refugee students aged 10 to 14 learn to code with Scratch, in a programme with Fugee School that has continued since. That same year Penang announces that a 42 campus is coming to George Town.
Every student should have equal access to quality education, regardless of their background.
Chief Operating Officer · 42 Malaysia
42 Iskandar Puteri runs its free 26-day bootcamp, and Jeff puts a target on the record. On BFM, the station he once produced for, he is now the guest, explaining how a joint venture between Sunway Education Group and Khazanah Nasional plans to close the tech skills gap.
Our goal is to develop 10,000 tech talents in the next 10 years.
Chief Executive Officer · Sunway FutureX DI
Jeff now leads both 42 Malaysia and FutureX Digital Skills, reporting to a five-person board representing Sunway and Khazanah. In March AmBank Group commits RM3 million over three years to 42 Malaysia's free tech education. On 29 April the 42 Penang campus opens in George Town, officiated by Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow with Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo in attendance. Its first Piscine runs from 8 September to 3 October, on 150 computers with round-the-clock access.
Welcoming our first Piscine participants is more than just opening the doors of a school. It is about opening opportunities for Penangites of all walks of life.
Present
Fireside moderator at the Sunway-PAIR Forum at Sunway University. Speaker at Level Up KL. Founder and host of the 42 Penang Speaker Series. Two campuses are active today, Kuala Lumpur and Penang, and the count of people trained has passed 700.
04 · What he runs
Sunway FutureX DI Sdn Bhd is owned by Sunway Education Group and Khazanah Nasional, through Dana Impak. Jeff is its chief executive.
Segment A
A zero-fee, peer-to-peer coding school, part of the global 42 Network. Co-founded in 2020 with Jeff as first employee and COO, and scaled from one campus in Kuala Lumpur to a national operation.
Tracks span AI, cybersecurity and network engineering. Every cadet who graduated from 42KL, Jeff told Sunway Stories, went on to a coding-related role at a salary above the national median.
Segment B
The corporate AI and digital upskilling academy: AI literacy and strategy labs, designed, delivered and assessed end to end. An HRD Corp registered provider.
| Education | 850 | |
|---|---|---|
| Banking & finance | 450 | |
| Telco, retail, logistics | 175 | |
| Investment | 150 | |
| Energy & utilities | 75 |
In his words
A decade in the producer's chair taught me to ask the second question, and to find the story inside the numbers.
05 · Media, stage and recognition
06 · Contact
Jeff is based in Kuala Lumpur and available for keynotes, moderation, board roles and advisory work on talent ecosystems, AI upskilling, EdTech and media.