Nothing keeps Jennie Chua down

Straits Times: Sun, Aug 12

Jennie Chua remembers the day when she was unceremoniously booted out of her bed by a couple of strange men. "I was just 10 years old. I was asleep in my bed when they woke me up, asked me to get out of it and carried it away," she says. The Tanglin Road bungalow she grew up in was in foreclosure and the men were employed by the bank to seize the assets within. The traumatic episode taught her never to take things for granted. "One is never sure what will happen, if good and stable times will last. I tell myself I need to be active and take care of things for myself and loved ones on an ongoing basis," says Ms Chua, 68. Active she certainly has been. The little girl who was born in the lap of luxury but later had to attend Singapore Chinese Girls' School in a patched-up uniform grew up to become a world-famous hotelier, leading corporate figure and power broker. She retired from her executive role as CapitaLand's chief corporate officer last month. However, she continues to sit on several of the real estate group's boards as well as the boards of more than 20 other organisations. We are in Raffles Hotel, where she held court - first as general manager and later as chief executive officer of Raffles Holdings - for nearly 20 years from 1990. The old-world charm of the Tif-fin Room is an apt backdrop as the skilful raconteur takes us back to the Singapore of her childhood nearly 70 years ago. Her father Chua Kok Kuan, now 90, was a nutmeg and clove businessman with two wives, who gave him six children. The eldest child, Ms Chua, was born on Batam island in Indonesia in 1944. "On Chinese New Year's Eve in 1942, my grandfather put my father, my aunts and two grandmothers in a sampan with supplies and money to sail to Batam," she says. The plan was to escape the Japanese who apparently had her grandfather, one of the biggest nutmeg towkays during that time, on a hit list. He had donated money to rebels in Nanjing during the second Sino-Japanese war in the 1930s. Also on the boat was a Hainanese caterer's daughter, who married Ms Chua's father on the island. "I was born a year later," says Ms Chua. "My folks dared not even register me with the authorities as a Chua." So they asked a 19-year-old neighbour if they could name him as the father in her birth certificate. He was the late Mr Wong Heck Sing, former deputy director of the Public Service Commission. The family returned to Singapore after the war to live in a big bungalow along Tanglin Road, now the site of Grace Assembly of God church. Ms Chua's memories are vivid: the main hall where ballroom dancing parties were held, the servants' quarters, the car porch where her father's grey Chevrolet and black Austin were parked and a garden with two flights of stairs leading to a tennis court where men dressed in white would play. Chauffeured to school and cared for by several amahs, her pampered lifestyle came to an end after her father lost his business when she was 10. They let go of their servants and downgraded, first to a rented two- room flat in Zion Road, and later, a three-room flat in Queenstown. She remembers the day she went with her mother to borrow money from an uncle and later took a bus to a government building near City Hall to settle an overdue utility bill. After that, they stood crying by the road because they did not know how to cross it to get the bus home. "Somebody helped us in the end but it just showed how helpless we were; we didn't know how to cope." The episode taught her that there is no problem a person cannot solve. "I realised that we sometimes need to cross the road. You cannot get stuck or you would get killed. You have to move on," she says. "That's why I seldom blame people for things I don't get. You may lose but you can build up again. Life is like that." She got on with life. She made do with pocket money which let her either have lunch or take the bus home. She sewed her own clothes, worked part-time as a typist in her teens and gave tuition to earn a little more. After her O levels, she went to Anglo-Chinese School for her A levels. She did well enough to enter the University of Singapore but dropped out during her first year in the arts faculty when her parents told her to start working and help support the family. She became a teacher at St Margaret's Secondary School and handed over half her monthly pay packet of $199 to her mother. In 1968, aged 24, she married Mr Goh Kian Chee, son of former deputy prime minister, the late Dr Goh Keng Swee. "We were introduced by common friends. I've known him since he was 16," she says. Shortly after, she accompanied him to Cornell University in the United States where he did his master's in political science. She enrolled in its famed School of Hotel Administration and completed the four-year programme in just two- and-a-half years. "It was quite a difficult time. I had to study, keep house and work part-time," says Ms Chua, who did stints as a waitress at a truck stop and as a hotel receptionist. Upon their return, she became a management trainee at the Mandarin Hotel and worked her way up to become its assistant general manager. Their son Ken-Yi, now a banker, was born in 1972. He was three years old when she took up an invitation to lecture at the Asian Institute of Tourism in Manila. "I often had to fly back to see Ken-Yi, at my own expense," says Ms Chua, who has another son, Yang Peng, 34, a property executive. She came back after a year and joined the Singapore Tourism Promotion Board as general manager of the Handicraft Centre. Two years later, she was made director of the board's convention and exhibition bureau. The 1980s were heady times "We worked with local professional associations like doctors, architects, dentists to bid for conventions at a time when people didn't even know where Singapore was or what it was about. We had a very strong sense of purpose." With a team of about 10, she helped to position Singapore among the top 10 convention cities in the world. Ms Chua got divorced after less than 10 years of marriage but her ex-husband remains one of her best friends. She declines to go into details of the split but lets on: "My alimony, by choice, was $1 a month. When you are a couple, you should financially support each other but when you are divorced, you should not look at your ex as a money tree if you have the capability of earning your own keep. "He didn't pay me the $1 every month but he was there for me financially during the first 10 years of our divorce, whenever I needed it." She juggled career and parenting with the help of her late mother and a part-time maid. She left the tourism board after 11 years, in search of change. After a stint at the Westin Hotels, now Fairmont, and Swissotel, she became the first Singaporean general manager of Raffles Hotel. She was almost as iconic as the hotel, cutting an imperious figure in her colourful silk cheongsam - she had a collection of more than 200 - and was well-known for her exacting standards. "Service to guests must be like a gentle breeze; it shouldn't overwhelm, it should just comfort and make them feel good," she would tell her staff. She won a string of accolades, which she downplays. "I was the general manager of an icon and an icon makes you. If I were the successful general manager of ABC Hotel, I would not have been as celebrated or won awards even if it was really well run." She was in her 40s and her career soared. "I became chairman of Raffles International and CEO of Raffles Holdings, took it to listing, delisted it and sold it," she says, effectively summarising 20 years in one short sentence. Raffles Holdings was sold to private equity firm Colony Capital in 2005. The compacted resume does not do justice to the size and scope of the job. As CEO of Raffles Holdings, for instance, she oversaw more than 9,000 employees and 36 premium hotels across 15 countries. She travelled every month, usually for a week at a time. Her charisma is legendary. "I've seen men in high positions literally kneel to get her attention," says film-maker Eric Khoo, who sits with her on the board of NYU Tisch School of The Arts Asia. "Her mind is incredible. She can look at pages of figures, cut to the chase and ask the most probing questions." Mr G.K. Goh, chairman of The Temasek Foundation, agrees. "She can be very tough but she can also be very charming," he says of his deputy chairman. "Her contacts are legendary and span both the private and public sectors. That's why she is such an effective chairman of the Community Chest. When she asks for money, you don't say no." Since she became chairman of the Chest in 2000, the umbrella body for charities has met its fund-raising targets through good years and bad. Last year, it raised $55.7 million. Ms Chua, who since the 2000s has taken to wearing embroidered silk pantsuits designed by her good friend Allan Chai, does not dispute that she has a knack for dealing with people. "I think I was born with it. People do enjoy my story-telling and my interactions with them. But I also sense when someone is uncomfortable with me; I know when not to go into a person's space." She wanted to retire after Raffles but CapitaLand's head honcho Liew Mun Leong got her on board as president and CEO of subsidiary the Ascott Group, before becoming CapitaLand's chief corporate officer in 2009. She says her ability to cut out white noise and her pragmatism have stood her in good stead. "People have asked me what keeps me up at night. Love, personal highs and lows, the kids when they were younger, yes. But not professional worries. If I have a problem at 11pm and I can't resolve it, I'm not going to fret. I know there will be a solution and it will probably come tomorrow." She says she never planned her career. "I was ambitious and I wanted to achieve but I didn't have a timeline or goal. Maybe my generation was more opportunistic; we just took advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves." She insists she does not drive herself hard either. "If I did, I probably would not have enjoyed myself so much. I don't compare and I don't torment myself with what other people have done or achieved," she says. "I'm an optimist without being totally unrealistic about life." Her professional life, she says, is guided by several principles: be fair, do not assume, surround yourself with people cleverer than you and do not overstay. The last, she says, holds true whether you are in a minor position or a senior one. "You are in the way of people and you are not adding value. One sign that you are overstaying is when you keep repeating." She may have stepped down from her executive role at CapitaLand but she says she will still be actively engaged. Indeed, a look at the nearly 30 directorships she holds makes the head spin. She is also non-resident ambassador to Slovakia and a Justice of the Peace. But she says she only takes on appointments she enjoys. What's next for Jennie Chua? She is going into the food business. Together with a couple of partners, she will be bringing in Jollibee - the Philippines' leading fast-food chain - to Singapore later this year. Has she ever considered remarrying? "There was never an overwhelming opportunity. There were people I liked but never an 'Oh my god, what am I going to do with this' scenario," she says, with a laugh. But 14 years ago, Joseph - a Filipino businessman who was her former dance instructor - entered her life. They have been together since in a happy relationship. From the start, she decided their relationship would be an open book with her children, family, friends and employers. "There's nothing to it. You realise what you want and need and you go for it with your head held high and be completely transparent about it," says Ms Chua who has five grandchildren, aged between three-and-a-half months and 10 years old. "You cannot be ashamed of it because if you were, you would only create hardship for yourself, your relationship and your family." The avid reader also intends to carve out a lot of "me time" from now on. "I love cruises. When you sail among the great fjords and icebergs, you are overwhelmed by something very potent and powerful," she says. "You begin to know your place in the world: in history, in the time of man, your place is very minute. You ask yourself if you have lived a good life." "And you tell yourself you really shouldn't be sweating the small stuff." [e-mail] Source: The Straits Times