The company also expressed regret about the “confusion and inconvenience that arose with regard to the status of Dr Azizan’s qualifications.”
The issue of his academic background made headlines recently when UM issued a statement stressing that it never conferred a PhD (Hon) in Entrepreneurship to Azizan.
The statement was issued to put to rest the confusion among members of the public after the matter of Azizan’s alleged doctorate from UM surfaced on social media, UM had said.
Following that, two more universities – Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur (IUKL) – denied conferring doctorates on Azizan.
Apart from holding a doctorate from Gordon, Richworks said over the last four years, Azizan had also fulfilled the requirements for his PhD (Psychology) from the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom.
“His convocation at University of Hertfordshire is due to take place soon,” Richworks added.
On the statement issued by UM, Richworks had this to say: “With regard to the honorary doctorate from Universiti Malaya, it has come to our attention that Dr Azizan Osman had been unfortunately targeted and misled by parties who were not representatives of the university.
“We have since lodged a police report and this matter is currently under investigation.”
Apart from that, Richworks informed that it had also conducted an internal inquiry process in which they uncovered some severe shortcomings in their operating procedures.
“Regrettably, these shortcomings have also led to the inclusion of doctorates from Universiti Infrastruktur Kuala Lumpur and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in reference to Dr Azizan Osman, which he has never professed to have,” Richworks said.
The company added that it had put a comprehensive plan in place to immediately correct the situation.
On his official Twitter page, Azizan describes himself as an entrepreneur, a marketing strategist, author, trainer, coach and television celebrity.
He is known for his motivational courses which relate to starting up businesses, which several local celebrities have also attended.