Chermaine Poo, one of Malaysia’s rising young stars, is a Chartered Accountant (CA) by profession with three accountancy qualifications. At the age of 19, she graduated with a double major degree, BA (Hons) in Accounting & Finance, UK, and subsequently qualified as a CA. She has worked with the largest investment bank in Malaysia and a Big Five accounting firm in corporate finance services.

Dubbed by the media as “The Beauty with Brains”, she shot to prominence in the Miss Malaysia/ Universe 2005. A winner of the runner up and three subsidiary titles, namely Miss Beautiful, Miss Natural Beauty and Miss Crowning Glory, the following year, she was voted as one of the FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2006.

In mid of 2006, she turned full-time as an actress, emcee, tv host and commercial talent.

Experience

Since then, she has acted in a few movies, notably a big budget movie entiltled ‘Lust, Caution’ which was directed by Oscar-winning Director, Ang Lee and starred top Hong Kong movie star Tony Leung, leading American/Taiwanese singer Wang Lee-Hom and Hollywood actress Joan Chen. Other movies include ‘Dukun’ which is based on the story of Mona Fandey the bomoh and ‘Orange for Mama’. Her drama experiences include ‘The Beginning’, a popular mandarin tv series and Anak Pontianak.

Last year, she was selected to act in a top-seller theater production, ‘The Odd Couple’ after she completed her advanced acting course under Joe Hasham and Dato’ Faridah Merican, the directors of Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre.

The natural beauty was spotted at the age of four. To date, she has appeared in numerous advertising campaigns in television commercials, billboards and print advertisements for international brands. Since last year, there have been many media write-ups and magazine covers featuring her.

In addition, she is sought after as special guest for appearances and an emcee as she speaks English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese (namely, Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkein), Japanese and Thai.

In the Pipeline

Currently, she is the Lead Actress and Producer for a movie production shot in Malaysia and UK. At the same time, she is in pre-production to produce and host two TV programmes.

In addition, she has signed on to play the female lead role opposite M. Nasir in an English/Malay/Chinese movie to be produced for the international market, entitled ‘Taiko’ at a budget in excess of RM3.5 million, scheduled to commence shooting in the 1st quarter of 2008. She has also accepted two other movies written with her in the lead roles that will commence shooting at the second quarter of next year.