MUIS deputy CEO Khairul Anwar reads biographies to examine the road not taken

Who: Mr Khairul Anwar, 41, deputy chief executive of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) since 2023. He previously led Enterprise Singapore’s work in Southeast Asia and was an urban planner at the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

- Shawn Hoo

Mr Khairul Anwar, deputy chief executive of MUIS, enjoys audiobooks while driving. ST PHOTO: ONG WEE JIN

(ST PHOTO: ONG WEE JIN)

“I read a lot of biographies and memoirs because there is a bit of wanderlust in exploring the road not taken. You read about other people’s lives - interesting roads that you have decided not to take, cannot take or are not open to you coming from Singapore.

James Rebanks’ English Pastoral: An Inheritance (2020) fits into this because I will never be a farmer, but I have always been curious about what it’d be like to do it. There is a certain spirituality to working with the land which is very interesting and as far removed from our lives in Singapore as I can imagine.

Another one that caught my attention was My Life In Full: Work, Family, And Our Future (2020) by former PepsiCo chief executive and chairman Indra Nooyi. She is the last person you would imagine making it to be the chief executive of Pepsi.

I am also halfway through Nobel Prizewinning economist Amartya Sen’s memoir Home In The World (2021).