Category: Management

V. K. Rajah: The ‘reluctant’ A-G and his ethos of fairness

Mr V. K. Rajah, who retired as Attorney-General last Saturday, hailed the work of AGC staff who work long hours in the belief of “serving a wider cause”. An AGC initiative for lawyers to work with abused foreign workers was also introduced under his watch.

Straits Times, 18 January 2017

Retired Attorney-General reviewed AGC sentencing positions to avoid ‘disproportionate’ punishments

Before he became the Attorney-General in 2014, Mr V. K. Rajah twice declined the offer in 2007 and 2013.

“I was a reluctant A-G, but once I decided to be A-G, I put my heart and soul into it,” he said in an interview with The Straits Times at his office last Friday. “I put in 110 per cent, and as long as I held office, I wanted to discharge my responsibilities to the best of my ability.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Rajah, who left the post last Saturday, said one of the changes he implemented soon after taking the job was a reporting mechanism to review the prosecution’s sentencing positions. If the position was excessive or disproportionate, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) would inform the defence counsel to go ahead and appeal, and prosecution would not object.

Mr Rajah, 60, said prior to this, prosecutors reported to the senior leadership matters that might attract media or public attention.

“I was more interested in (other) matters and our sentencing position that would affect the larger swathe of the population, from shoplifting to property, offences of any sort… and I wanted us to review our sentencing position on every possible area of criminal activity,” he said.

V. K. Rajah on two cases of significance
  • WHY AGC DID NOT PUSH FOR A HEAVIER SENTENCE FOR DAD WHO KILLED SON Banker Philippe Marcel Guy Graffart, then 42, had killed his five-year-old son last year amid a bitter custody battle.The charge was reduced from murder to culpable homicide as the Belgian national was assessed to be suffering from a major depressive disorder.

    His estranged French wife had engaged lawyers to press for a higher sentence.

    The Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), said Mr Rajah, would use the full force of law to prosecute cases that were cold-blooded and premeditated.

    “Where homicide takes place as a result of mental issues, it’s unpremeditated, where there is a momentary loss of control, we appraise the facts differently,” he said.

    He also observed that the case arose out of a bigger divorce squabble.

    This is why family law should be practised in a more collaborative and amiable way, he said.

    Mr Rajah added: “Unfortunately after reading the file – and I went through it very thoroughly – I felt that the lawyers advising the couple added fuel to the fire.”

    WHY PROSECUTION APPEALED TO REDUCE CYCLIST’S SENTENCE 

    Mr Rajah said the public might not be aware but the AGC has informed counsel to appeal when a sentence is excessive or disproportionate after reviewing the case.

    The 2015 case involving Mr Lim Choon Teck, then 35, was different as he did not have a lawyer. Mr Lim had received a jail sentence of eight weeks for knocking down an elderly pedestrian while cycling on a pavement. After a review, Deputy Public Prosecutor Prem Raj Prabakaran appealed to have the sentence reduced, arguing that the prosecution believed the original sentence was disproportionate to his culpability and the fact that he had pleaded guilty at the first reasonable opportunity.

    “If (Mr Lim) appealed, there was no certainty that the High Court judge might agree with him… So I directed my colleagues, and they were taken aback that we should appeal,” said Mr Rajah. Mr Lim’s jail term was cut to three weeks.

    Mr Rajah said: “I’m glad the case was publicised because it also assured the public that AGC was trying to do right rather than to punish people excessively.”

    Ng Huiwen

All cases that were concluded were reported in the form of a summary report and Mr Rajah would review these cases every evening.

In one unusual case, the AGC even appealed for a sentence to be reduced. The accused, a cyclist who had knocked down an elderly person, did not have his own lawyer.

Originally sentenced to eight weeks’ jail in 2015, his sentence was reduced to three weeks after the Deputy Public Prosecutor appealed to have it slashed.

Mr Rajah said his “obsessiveness for looking at things granularly” boiled down to a need to exercise the power of the prosecution carefully. Not all were on board at first with the decisions he made, including the move to appeal to have the cyclist’s sentence reduced.

Some colleagues had told him the decision would not have been possible in the AGC a decade ago, because “that’s not part of our culture”.

“But having said that, I think all of them were immediately on the same side because they realised and appreciated that this accorded with their role as ministers of justice.

“My operating ethos in every … office that I held is to ensure fairness. And fairness includes, apart from due process, proportionality. It’s in no one’s interest for individuals to be punished harshly,” he said.

Another initiative launched in his time involved lawyers in the AGC who volunteered to work with abused foreign workers. They halved the time it took to resolve cases that otherwise would require the foreign workers to stay for months or even years in Singapore to resolve their situation in court.

Mr Rajah hailed the work of AGC staff. “Many officers in the AGC and in the public service work anonymously as they should and get very little credit.

“They put in long, long hours of work over weekends, over holidays, and they do this not because they are looking for recognition, but they do this because they believe it’s the right thing and they are serving a wider cause.”

Mr Rajah spent 20 years in the private sector, becoming managing partner of law firm Rajah & Tann. In 1997, he was among the first lawyers to be appointed Senior Counsel.

V. K. RAJAH…

ON HIS ROLE AS ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I was a reluctant Attorney-General, but once I decided to be A-G, I put heart and soul into it. I put in 110 per cent and, as long as I held office, I wanted to discharge my responsibilities to the best of my ability. There is no point having a half-hearted A-G.

ON UPHOLDING FAIRNESS

My operating ethos in every appointment or office that I held is to ensure fairness. And fairness includes, apart from due process, proportionality. It’s in no one’s interest for individuals to be punished harshly.

ON SELECTING HIS TEAM

I pay particular attention to the way people interact and I am less than impressed by people who manage upwards and are all brown-nosed… I rather let the work speak for themselves.

He was then on the Bench for 10 years, first being appointed Supreme Court justice in 2004 and then Judge of Appeal three years later. It was then, in 2007, that he first declined the Attorney-General post.

“I enjoyed my work. Further, I was keen to continue working with Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, whom I greatly respected. I regard him as the finest legal mind who has held public office in Singapore.”

Outside of his office, Mr Rajah reads extensively on social and political issues that affect Singapore and the wider world, as well as the sciences, such as psychology and neuroscience. “But since I became A-G, I’ve read only a handful of books,” he said, as he spent more time reading up on ongoing cases, even the minor ones, such as shoplifting.

Mr Rajah said: “I could leave my law firm when I wanted to and the fact that it continues to thrive 13 years after I left it means that I left it with good foundations and in good shape.” Former defence minister Howe Yoon Chong, in a conversation with Mr Rajah years ago, called the same quality a “walking capital” and the term stuck with him.

He entered the role as the “reluctant A-G”, but with his retirement, he said: “I made sure everything that I’ve done, every institution I’ve done, I have left it in better shape.”

An Evening with Jack Ma

Jack Ma or Ma Yun (Chinese: 马云; born September 10, 1964) is a Chinese entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, a family of highly successful Internet-based businesses.

He is the richest man in China and 18th richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $29.7 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Kwek Leng Beng

Haute Living, 27 June 2007

Kwek Leng Beng is pure business.

He is known for being highly driven, and addicted to making deals. This billionaire magnate and international property developer has amassed a plethora of hotels that span the globe from London to New York to China, but Kwek’s real passion is making an indelible mark on his beloved city of Singapore’s dynamic, changing skyline.

Kwek, whose UK-based Millennium & Copthorne (M&C) Hotels Plc group once owned half of the prestigious Plaza hotel in New York, is taking his hotel know-how and developing the St. Regis Residences, Singapore, among other projects. As Singapore’s first hotel and residence property, St. Regis Residences will introduce world-class designs to this island nation, and set the country’s new luxury real estate benchmark.

Executive chairman of City Developments Limited (CDL), Southeast Asia’s second largest property developer with 20,000 homes and 100 developments in Singapore, and Executive Chairman of Hong Leong Group of companies (parent co to CDL), Kwek’s acumen as a businessman and entrepreneur is renowned worldwide. Chairman Kwek, having just returned from his first holiday in years-he doesn’t enjoy taking time off, claiming, “I love business more.”-outlines his vision for Singapore during an interview with Haute Living, a vision that rings with an enthusiasm that is nothing less than contagious. “We want to be a biotech city, the medicinal hub, a city of amazing integrated resorts with downsized casinos,” he exclaims. He gets excited when talking about Singapore’s rapidly changing landscape, which will position the city as the leading dynamic business and tourism hub in Asia.

Once dubbed ‘Kwek Land Bank’ for his group’s sizable land bank in Singapore, Kwek is the country’s second-richest man, ranked 185th on Forbes 2006 list of the wealthiest people wordwide, and stands to gain as Singapore lures the jet-set with private banking services and new tax laws. He heads up an empire worth more than US$20 billion, with a worldwide staff of 30,000. One of the most influential players in Singapore’s luxury real estate boom that has led to a massive investment by developers in residential, hotel, office, and real estate markets, Kwek has his hands full with the St. Regis, Sentosa Cove, and Marina Bay projects, and as an advisor to the new US$3.6 billion integrated resort being built in Singapore by Las Vegas Sands corporation, set to open in 2009.

Kwek’s twin investment strategy- hotels with a residential component-has been taken to a new level with the St. Regis Hotel & Residences. Situated close to famed shopping district of Orchard Road, Kwek says that he has tried to create an iconic design and a concept of luxury lifestyle living at the St. Regis. Kwek himself loves luxury. He says, “I enjoy the finer things in life; I enjoy a good lifestyle and sense of design. I have the Maybach and the Bentley, Aston Martins and Ferraris.” His main residence is a mansion on one-acre in the prime district of Singapore, but he may choose to live at the St. Regis, where he has already purchased two sky villas. He describes these residences as exclusive, limited edition, and world class. “The arrival of a branded development where residents can enjoy the extended privileges and services from the adjoining six-star St. Regis hotel is a first in Singapore, and very exciting,” Kwek says.

The 20-story St. Regis Hotel, with 299 guestrooms, is planned to open in 2007, while the residences are expected to be ready in 2008. CDL will develop the residences along with Hong Leong Holdings Ltd and TID Pte Ltd (a joint venture company with Mitsui Fudosan, a leading real estate company in Japan), managed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. The estimated price-range for the 173 chic three- and four-bedroom residences start at around US$3.1 million, ranging in size from 1,500 to 4,000 square feet. Residents will have a private elevator lobby leading directly into their suites. Owners of the illustrious residences will also have access to the prestigious St. Regis Hotel’s Bespoke services, which includes personal butlers, chauffeurs, and flower arrangements. Those with truly deep pockets (a la Kwek) can opt for a sky villa, upper roof decks that will house bedrooms, a private pool, and steam room, coming in between 5,000 to 7,200 square feet each.

CDL has created some of the most extravagant show suites in Singapore for the property’s launch, designed to show off handpicked furnishings and fittings. Kwek says, “I have seen condos in New York and London, and without boasting, I can say that the standard of finishing at St. Regis is far better than I have seen elsewhere. We have the best imported marble, the best of everything… New York might have showrooms and a sales office where you can see the type of material that will be used, but in Singapore, potential buyers get to see the actual showroom apartments.

“At the end of the day, it has to be functional and beautiful.” Kwek brings this philosophy to several other high-end projects in the city, all in very strategic locations. He is building a sail-shaped skyscraper, called The Sail @ Marina Bay, part of the multi-billion dollar waterfront that will include the casino, a marina, and parks. Kwek explains, “I wanted a design of my own. I wanted a ship sailing out into the harbor in the form of a sculpture.” He created this twin-tower project with 1,111 luxury apartments, and managed to sell out within weeks of launch.

His iconic project, One Shenton, was launched in January 2007, and sold out in mere hours. Next to be launched? Quayside Isle, a marina-lifestyle project featuring waterfront homes on Sentosa Island, complete with W Hotel & Residences.

Singapore’s high-end market began taking off in late 2005, after steep declines from a property crash ten years ago. With a slew of new luxury projects, Kwek bullishly predicts a 10-20 percent rise in home prices next year. “Singapore is seeing a buying frenzy,” he says. “We are just at the start of an upward trend as the economy expands.” He also sees a lot more foreigners purchasing in Singapore. “In the old days, it would be about 20 percent, but with the St. Regis, foreigners are 65 percent. Because the population base in Singapore is small, the government has been promoting [the country] to foreign talent as a wonderful place to live and enjoy, and the people are listening.”

While other developers now race to launch new projects, Kwek understands that success depends on the design the developer can offer. “Buyers are very discerning,” he explains. “They understand if you want to sell your project at good prices, you have to do something more than what you have done in the past. A lot of that depends on creativity.”

Creativity is something that Kwek has brought to virtually every project he has gotten his hands on since he entered the real estate world at a very young age. Kwek is 53% owner of M&C, which currently owns 112 hotels and operates around a dozen. M&C’s origins come from the Hong Leong Group Singapore, an empire built from rubber plantations, cement, and property in the 1940′s and 1950′s by Kwek’s father, Kwek Hong Pong. Upon returning to Singapore from London with his law degree in 1963, young Kwek already had a knack of rising to the occasion. “At the age of 30, I took over a company called City Developments Limited, then a loss-making company,” recalled Kwek. Kwek was able to turn the business around, allowing the company-purchased for US$3 million in 1971-to become a favorite blue chip company in Singapore, with a capitalization of US$8.5 billion. “This deal was the start, combining my love for takeovers and property. It was very inspiring.”

He credits his father, whom he described as a tough master, for teaching him high standards. “When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I ran away to Malaysia, and he told someone to go and bring me back,” Kwek jokes. “His way of teaching was not actually explaining. He would ring at any time of the day and say ‘I want you to do this.’ Usually, I would not do it straight away, and within ten minutes, he would ring back and want to know how anything could be more important than what he asked me to do.”
Hiromichi Iwasa, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mitsui Fudosan, has known Kwek and his family for years. He says, “The late Mr. Kwek passed on his legacy of being a far-sighted entrepreneur. Kwek looks after joint venture partners.”

From his father, Kwek learned the importance of following up quickly, how to be innovative, and how to get the best customer. He also credits Leslie Grossman, a man from New York, as being a mentor, along with his father. “Both have passed away,” says Kwek, “but I learned a lot from them, especially that you must be passionate about what you do. If you are passionate, you can push the envelope farther, and be better than others.” He sets high standards, and has a competitive streak that extends to his morning bouts on the tennis courts. But regardless of where he is, his focus is always on work. He explains, “I work ten hours a day, but sometimes, I am so interested in something that I can’t sleep. My wife understands what makes the difference between an outstanding person and an average person, and is very understanding.” His wife, Cecilia is qualified as a barrister. She offers Kwek design tips inspired by her travels to art museums and concert halls, and her trips to art auctions in Paris and Venice. Her main advice is to not be carried away by minimalist or overly modern designs. “I always tell him to respect the local aesthetic, lifestyle, and Feng Shui principals.” She best sums up Kwek when asked what he really is like: “Kwek will not take no for an answer. He discusses five different topics in five minutes, and has extraordinary vision.”

These sentiments are echoed by others who have had the pleasure of doing business with this real estate mastermind. Dolly Lenz, Vice Chairman for Douglas Elliman says, “During my many trips to Asia over the past 20 years I have had the opportunity to meet practically all the movers and shakers shaping the Asian landscape. None has impressed me more with his vision and drive than Kwek. He is truly a man on a mission. He is simply the savviest and most brilliant developer in the Far East.”

Kwek’s talent for identifying trends, and following his gut feeling in business dealings has earned him tremendous respect from others in the industry. “The first time I met Kwek, I flew to Singapore with an offer to buy The Plaza [hotel in New York],” says Mike Naftali, President and CEO of Elad Properties. “My first impression was that he was a very savvy businessman-extremely smart, and knows the business upside down. But he was also a person you could talk to, and try to negotiate with in good faith.” Naftali’s partial condo-conversion plans as a way to boost the hotel fortunes at The Plaza sat well with Kwek, and the deal was completed before Naftali flew back to New York. Currently, the two are involved in other projects together, including a high-end residential condo development in Singapore. “I see he really cares about details; he personally looks into every detail. What I admire about him most is that he’s very focused, very smart, and he is tough with the numbers-Tough in a good way.”

Another friend and co-investor, Dr. K.S. Lo, deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Great Eagle Holdings Ltd in Hong Kong, backs that view. “Kwek does not have the air of a big tycoon, even though he was then already one of the richest men in Asia. He’s very, very intelligent, but he would pretend he doesn’t know anything, and would keep asking questions, and playing devil’s advocate… Kwek drives a hard bargain while negotiating a deal, but he’s reasonable and he’s trustworthy. He always keeps his word.”

For the future, Kwek is keeping an eye on China, where M&C has been awarded its first hotel management contract, with the Millennium Hongqiao Hotel in Shanghai in the prime business district. This move comes years after M&C first moved into China. “We were the first to have gone to Beijing and developed a gated community with single-family homes in 1994. It was very profitable, but then we stopped.” Just last year, he purchased a hotel in Beijing, to be ready in 2008.

In Los Angeles, Kwek is considering creating condos at his Millennium Biltmore Hotel; In London, he is being courted by developers to do condos at five of his hotels. He is considering a hotel/residence project with a partner in Japan as well. Kwek also has a solid presence in Thailand, including a 600-unit residential project, and an additional hotel development in Bangkok as well as the largest shopping mall in Phuket.

His various projects have led him to travel the world, but Singapore is where he chooses to spend the majority of his time. Here, he settles in with his two sons. One son, age 26, just graduated from Wharton Business School, and is studying International Relations and Comparative Politics at Columbia. His other son worked at Credit Suisse, then at one of Kwek’s New York hotels. Now he is in China, trying to take a loss-making company recently acquired and turn a profit. Do we have yet another Kwek that will one day be changing the global landscape in such a dynamic way? One can only hope.

Koh Boon Hwee couldn’t kill a rabbit

That’s why he decided not to be a doctor and became a corporate head honcho instead

Straits Times Aug 10, 2014
Over a two-hour chat with Koh Boon Hwee, one learns three key things about the corporate titan.

One, he does not like to give up on what he has started.

Two, he does not look back.

Three, he believes education is the key to changing one’s life.

These attributes have helped him navigate through life more than just niftily.

Just look at his curriculum vitae. A respected investor who co-founded private equity firm Credence Partners, the 63-year-old has chaired some of the country’s biggest and most successful organisations including SingTel, Singapore Airlines and DBS Bank.

He serves on the board of several public and private companies, both locally and in the United States and Hong Kong. He also chairs the board of trustees of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and is credited for overseeing its growth into an internationally recognised research university.

“I’m just lucky,” he says, trying to downplay his achievements. Several good mentors and some astute decisions at critical junctures, he suggests, are responsible for who, what and where he is.

Breaking out into a hearty laugh, he adds: “You know, being lucky is better than being smart.”

Perhaps so but Mr Koh – who has a first-class honours degree in mechanical engineering from Imperial College London and an MBA (Distinction) from Harvard Business School – also has one heck of a brain.

Almost sheepishly, the eldest of three children of a trader and a homemaker says: “Studies came very easily to me.” He breezed through his years at St Andrew’s and was Singapore’s top boy in the O-level and A-level examinations.

At St Andrew’s, he met Ms Lenn Mei Ling, a teacher who was to have a lasting influence on his life.

As one of the school’s brightest, he was sent to the pre-medicine stream for his A levels. A couple of months into his first year, he started having doubts if he was suited to be a doctor. “I hated the idea of gassing rabbits and guinea pigs; I just hated the idea of having to kill them,” he says. “So I thought to myself, if I have some difficulty with animals, I may have problems with humans.”

“Obviously, not because I’d have to gas them,” he adds with a chortle. “But if I was not successful in treating them, I might find that difficult to deal with.”

Engineering, he decided, was a good fallback except for one snag: mathematics – a requisite for engineering studies – was not part of the pre-med syllabus.

So he decided to do maths as a private candidate and approached Ms Lenn for help to catch up, even though she was not his teacher. It turned out that he did not need her help that much, but she became a respected mentor.

She died a few years later from leukaemia, in her early 30s.

“The problem with the world is that you have many people who profess to be a lot of things but don’t live according to what they profess to be. She was an exception,” he says. “The way she lived her life, the fortitude she showed, the faith that she had… I’ve not seen that in many people.”

Teachers like her were a reason why Mr Koh – who has sat on NTU’s board of trustees for more than 20 years – is such a strong champion of education. It is a social leveller and can help anyone make his way through the world as long as he is diligent.

Four years ago, he donated $2.5 million to NTU to help deserving students and honour teaching excellence. He has also given generously to his alma mater and other educational causes.

Earlier this year, Imperial College London conferred an honorary doctorate on him for his contributions to education in Singapore. “I believe the award is not because of my personal achievements, rather it is a reflection of the tremendous accomplishments of NTU – how it has gone from a teaching university in Singapore to being an internationally recognised research-intensive university in such a short time,” he says modestly.

It was shortly after sitting the A levels that he met another person who helped to shape his life. With nine months to kill before beginning his degree course in London, he found a job as a computer card puncher with consulting firm Arthur Young for $180 a month.

“But I found card punching very boring. After just two weeks, I was the department’s fastest and most accurate card puncher,” he recalls.

The precocious 17-year-old then approached the firm’s director William Schroeder one Friday evening and told him he wanted to be a programmer instead. “He asked me, ‘What do you know about programming?’ I said, ‘Nothing, but I can learn.'”

Mr Schroeder gave him three books on programming which he read from cover to cover over the weekend.

“On Monday morning, I went to Bill and told him I was ready to write programs,” recalls the skilled raconteur. His sceptical boss decided to test his claims and asked him to write a program calculating mortgage payments, and was stupefied when the young man did just that in a few hours.

“On the spot, he said, ‘Well, you are no longer in the card punching department, you are in the programming department and I’m doubling your pay.'”

Over the next couple of months, Mr Schroeder threw all sorts of programming challenges at the young man.

“One day, he asked me, ‘What would your parents say if you moved to Hong Kong to work for a few months?'”

It turned out that the programming tasks he had been doing were for Hong Kong’s first private housing project – the Mei Fu Sun Chuen – by oil giant Mobil. The 99-tower complex built between 1965 and 1978 was considered the largest private housing development in the world then, home to nearly 80,000 people.

The teenager was made leader of the project to handle computerised billing for the estate’s residents and put up in a suite at Hong Kong’s most expensive and exclusive hotel, The Peninsula.

“Bill introduced me to the head of Mobil who asked, ‘Are you sure this kid knows how to do anything?’ Bill’s response was, ‘I’m telling you, he’s the best.’ After that, I just couldn’t let the man down,” says Mr Koh, adding that Mr Schroeder taught him a lot about mentoring and spotting talent.

At Imperial, he did so well that he won a scholarship to complete his tertiary education. The British government also offered him a scholarship to do his PhD.

“My claim to fame was getting a computer to draw an ellipse with just the definition of the two focal points and the radius. In those days, everyone thought it was a big deal,” he says with a laugh.

But he had to return to Singapore for national service. And that was when his life took another turn.

While in the army, he developed an interest in the stock market. “I had no background in economics but every day, I’d read in the newspapers all these reports of stocks going up and down. Based on what I was reading, I put two and two together, the same thing as I’m doing now,” he says, adding that he and three of his army mates would pool their monthly allowance of $90 to play the market.

To better his understanding of business and economics, he decided he needed to learn how to read accounts. He took up a professional accounting course, completing four of five modules on his own. An engineering PhD no longer appealed to him; he applied for and got into Harvard to do his MBA instead.

Upon graduating, he was hired by Hewlett-Packard in 1977. He started as cash manager, got promoted to accounting manager, and after two years was posted to the multinational corporation’s cost accounting division in the United States. After seven years, he was made managing director of HP in Singapore.

Although sterling, his 14 years at the company had its fair share of bumps. In steering HP from a manufacturing company to a research and development one, he launched two projects, one to develop an oscilloscope and another a disk drive. Both projects bombed spectacularly and cost the company more than $1 million each.

But he did not get fired because his bosses encouraged risk-taking and did not punish failures. It is a philosophy he holds close to his heart, especially since he invests in many technological start-ups and steers NTU, which is very research-based.

By definition, he says, research is a little messy and results are not always immediately tangible.

“It’s not a good idea to pull a tree up by its roots every day to see if it’s healthy. I’d rather have my people try and fail because they would learn from it than not to try. If you don’t try, you are not pushing the envelope and will not make progress,” he says.

After HP, he continued making strides in the corporate world. He was executive chairman of the Wuthelam Group from 1991 to 2000, guided SingTel’s transformation from statutory board to telco giant in 1993, steered Singapore Airlines through a tumultuous time after the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, and shepherded DBS through the financial crisis after the Lehman collapse in 2008.

Asked how he holds his own in the corporate jungle, Mr Koh, who is married to a former banker and has four children and one grandchild, says: “I don’t look back. Looking back takes a lot of negative energy. There are bound to be setbacks, ups and downs, betrayals. You just have to move along and move on.”

He believes he is lucky to love what he is doing.

“A lot of people in today’s world decide what they want to do based on what they think they are going to get compensated for. And some of them grow to love the job, which is fine. A lot of them don’t, and then they’re actually not very happy.

“I think that’s a tragedy. Life is too short for that sort of stuff.”

Background story

Mentor’s wise words

“One day, I jokingly asked Bill if I should give up the idea of university and continue working for Arthur Young. He looked at me and said: ‘You are fired. No matter how attractive it is, you have to go to college.’ He did not promise me a job after I completed my studies either. He said if I went back, people would say he favoured me. He told me it was important for me to see what was out there and learn to make it on my own. We became friends for life.”

MR KOH BOON HWEE on his mentor William Schroeder, who died a couple of years ago

Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses

“We shouldn’t get caught up with wanting to make sure that whatever we do in life, we want to have the approval and adulation of other people. There is always someone better. If you are famous, there is someone more famous, with a bigger Twitter following. If you are good-looking, there will be someone better-looking. You will never be happy. The important thing is to be happy with what you have. If you wake up every day measuring and comparing, life can’t be much fun.”

MR KOH on contentment