Business Times - 01 Aug 2009
From humble beginnings as a teacher, Jennie Chua rose to become doyen of the hospitality industry, yet remains remarkably grounded. By Vikram Khanna
JENNIE Chua is, it seems, everywhere. She is concurrently president and CEO of the Ascott Group; Singapore's non-resident ambassador to the Slovak Republic; chairman of the Community Chest of Singapore, the Council for Tourism, Alexandra Hospital and the Singapore Film Commission; chairman of the Raffles Hotel, and deputy chairman of the Workforce Development Agency.
She is also a member of the Temasek Advisory Board of Temasek Holdings and of the Pro-Enterprise Panel. In all, she holds 21 directorships. On May 18, she became chairman of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce, the first woman to hold the post in the chamber's 172 year history. And that's just a partial list.
64-year-old Ms Chua also likes to dance and do tai chi. Bubbling with energy and good humour, renowned for her vivid storytelling laced with sometimes startling candour, she is one of Singapore's great raconteurs, who could have made a career as a mistress of ceremonies - another role has she willingly and frequently played, and with aplomb.
As it turned out, Ms Chua spent most of her working life in the hospitality industry, rising, most famously, to become, as people said, the grande dame of the Raffles Hotel - general manager and CEO - from 1991 to 2007.
Ms Chua tells me about her life over tea and cakes, in one of the Ascott Group's well-appointed service apartment suites in Raffles Place.
Her beginnings were humble, as a junior teacher in St Margaret's secondary school in the 1960s.
'I had to leave university because my family was so poor that I had to go out and work,' she says. 'And the only job that was available to me was teaching. I would go to the teacher's training college at Patterson Hill in the mornings, Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays, and would teach in the afternoons.'
After marrying in 1968, she accompanied her husband Goh Kian Chee (the son of Singapore's then Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee) to Cornell University in the United States.
'I wanted to finish my tertiary education. So I got myself enrolled in Cornell's School of Hotel Administration.
'Why Hotel Administration? Cornell was very good for engineering, but I'm not right brained. It was also good for agriculture, but that had no application in Singapore. However it had a hotel school which was highly regarded.
'We're talking about 1968. Singapore was starting to build the Shangri-la Hotel and the Mandarin. So I knew I could find a job.'
Upon returning to Singapore in 1971, Ms Chua joined the Mandarin Hotel as a trainee. 'I was paid $650 a month, after hard bargaining,' she recalls. 'They wanted to pay me $400, but I said no. But $650 was big money then.'
After spending three years at the Mandarin, Ms Chua taught at the Asian Institute of Tourism in the Philippines for a year and then returned to spend the next 11 years with the Singapore Tourism Board as director of the newly-created Singapore Convention Bureau. When she started, Singapore was not a player in the convention business. But by the time she finished, it was among the world's top 10.
In the mid-1980s, Ms Chua decided to return to the private sector. Raffles City was completed and the Westin group, which managed the hotels there, invited Ms Chua to head up its sales and marketing, which she did for three years.
'And then, I crossed the road, literally,' she said. 'Why did Jennie cross the road? Because the Raffles Hotel was there.'
She was the first Singaporean general manager of the Raffles, subsequently becoming its CEO. (She was instrumental in starting the Raffles Conversation series - the idea of doing in-depth interviews with illustrious personalities at the Raffles; she hatched the idea back in 1992, together with the then-editor of The Business Times, Patrick Daniel.)
Hotelier of the Year
On her clock, the Raffles Hotel won accolade after accolade and came to be hailed as an icon of the industry. Ms Chua herself was named Hotelier of the Year in 1999, by TravelAsia magazine.
'Of course, I never kidded myself that it was true,' she says. 'It so happened that I was the general manager of the Raffles. People pay attention to the Raffles, and therefore, pay attention to you. If I had been the general manager of ABC Hotel with the same capabilities and even financial success, I would not have been voted the best hotelier, because people wouldn't even have known about me.
'So, famous hotels around the world - the Savoy in London, the Oriental in Bangkok or the Imperial in Tokyo - they make you, you don't make them.
'Yes, you have to be basically competent and have good support, and you have to know how to do marketing and all that. But it would be terrible hubris on my part if I were to say to myself: 'Wow, I'm really the best hotelier in the world'.'
'But hoteliers tend to be undervalued,' she continues. 'People look at a hotelier and say, oh, the guy looks quite nice. A number of times people would come up to me to sincerely pay me a compliment. They would say, 'Jennie, you're such a great general manager'. And then, they would add: 'your PR is so good' - as if that's all it takes.'
'People sometimes don't appreciate that it takes a bit more than good PR or standing in the lobby with a white carnation in your buttonhole. Managing a big hotel is like managing a little city. You need to understand the fundamentals of business - it doesn't just happen; there is a business model that you need to develop and to perpetuate. You need to have financial acumen. You also need to know a little about engineering - not that you need to fix the chiller when it breaks down, but you need to know how it works; you need to work with engineers and understand what they're saying. You definitely need to know about food and beverage, and about marketing.
'And Raffles Hotel had about 800 staff. Raffles City had 2,000 staff. So although of course you have professional help, you have to be a team builder. You have to make people function as a team, and on a daily basis, not occasionally. You've got to supervise people from different backgrounds, different education levels. And you have to be able to handle guests who come from all over the world.'
Moreover, as the hotel industry has evolved and gone more global, the profile of the typical general manager has changed, Ms Chua points out. '40 years ago, general managers were people who had risen from the ranks, mainly from the food and beverage side - that's why a lot of GMs are very good food and beverage people. Some also came from the sales and marketing side, because a room is not just a room, you have to know how to market it and you have to know about concepts - spas, shops and so on, so the marketing element is very important. Then a few years ago, you started to see more people who were financially savvy becoming GMs. Because the hotel business became more complex. An individual hotel can be a mom and pop business. But now we're talking about hotel companies spread across the world, brands, investment and divestment, private equity interests in hotels. So, now it's important at the top level to understand the financial side and the legal side.'
Despite being immersed in the high life for so much of her career, Ms Chua was mindful of remaining grounded. 'You have to keep your sense of balance, because the hotel world can be very artificial,' she explains. 'You are surrounded by chandeliers, crystal, starched napkins, Persian carpets, antiques. The guests come in usually well dressed. So you need to say to yourself, yes, this is where I work, and I enjoy my work. But when I go home to my 3-room apartment, and I eat off melamine plates maybe, and my husband is in a pair of shorts and my children are bawling - that is my real world. You have to be able to adjust and calibrate your life. Otherwise you lose your sense of reality. It is a challenge. And I can say that marriages in the hotel industry have this burden. But people who join the industry now are more aware of these dangers, and more prepared for them.'
In August 2007, Ms Chua went back to CapitaLand, the former parent company of the Raffles Hotel (which was sold to the private equity firm Colony Capital in 2005). She took charge of its subsidiary the Ascott group and as from Aug 1, she became CapitaLand's chief corporate officer.
I ask Ms Chua how she manages to juggle her 21 directorships and other appointments with her regular job - not to mention her chairmanship of the SICC.
She makes it sound easy: 'Those (directorships) are not really jobs, they are board responsibilities,' she says. 'And I'm fortunate that the professionals who run those organisations are very good. There isn't any organisation which I have to revamp. Another thing is, I don't accept a board position or a chairmanship if I don't think I'm going to enjoy it.
'And I do have time. I'm divorced, so don't have a husband and don't need to spend time mollycoddling him; I have a companion, but he mollycoddles me! I don't play golf, which can take up two afternoons a week. My children are grown, and as for grandchildren, well, you play with them, and when you're tired you say, now please go home.'
'On the whole, I have to say I've had a wonderful life,' says Ms Chua.
'Maybe I was born optimistic. When the glass is half full, I see it as three quarters full. Yet, I think I'm practical, I know what's real, and I don't dwell on regrets. I want to move on, and I feel that when I move on, things will be alright.'
'I've had many challenges, both career-wise and personal. But I don't have sleepless nights. Sometimes at 11pm, I know I have a problem to deal with, but I don't dwell on it. I can go to sleep.
'Like last night, at 10.30,' she jokes, 'I was wondering what I should say to you in this interview, but then I fell asleep.'
From humble beginnings as a teacher, Jennie Chua rose to become doyen of the hospitality industry, yet remains remarkably grounded. By Vikram Khanna
JENNIE Chua is, it seems, everywhere. She is concurrently president and CEO of the Ascott Group; Singapore's non-resident ambassador to the Slovak Republic; chairman of the Community Chest of Singapore, the Council for Tourism, Alexandra Hospital and the Singapore Film Commission; chairman of the Raffles Hotel, and deputy chairman of the Workforce Development Agency.
She is also a member of the Temasek Advisory Board of Temasek Holdings and of the Pro-Enterprise Panel. In all, she holds 21 directorships. On May 18, she became chairman of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce, the first woman to hold the post in the chamber's 172 year history. And that's just a partial list.
64-year-old Ms Chua also likes to dance and do tai chi. Bubbling with energy and good humour, renowned for her vivid storytelling laced with sometimes startling candour, she is one of Singapore's great raconteurs, who could have made a career as a mistress of ceremonies - another role has she willingly and frequently played, and with aplomb.
As it turned out, Ms Chua spent most of her working life in the hospitality industry, rising, most famously, to become, as people said, the grande dame of the Raffles Hotel - general manager and CEO - from 1991 to 2007.
Ms Chua tells me about her life over tea and cakes, in one of the Ascott Group's well-appointed service apartment suites in Raffles Place.
Her beginnings were humble, as a junior teacher in St Margaret's secondary school in the 1960s.
'I had to leave university because my family was so poor that I had to go out and work,' she says. 'And the only job that was available to me was teaching. I would go to the teacher's training college at Patterson Hill in the mornings, Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays, and would teach in the afternoons.'
After marrying in 1968, she accompanied her husband Goh Kian Chee (the son of Singapore's then Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee) to Cornell University in the United States.
'I wanted to finish my tertiary education. So I got myself enrolled in Cornell's School of Hotel Administration.
'Why Hotel Administration? Cornell was very good for engineering, but I'm not right brained. It was also good for agriculture, but that had no application in Singapore. However it had a hotel school which was highly regarded.
'We're talking about 1968. Singapore was starting to build the Shangri-la Hotel and the Mandarin. So I knew I could find a job.'
Upon returning to Singapore in 1971, Ms Chua joined the Mandarin Hotel as a trainee. 'I was paid $650 a month, after hard bargaining,' she recalls. 'They wanted to pay me $400, but I said no. But $650 was big money then.'
After spending three years at the Mandarin, Ms Chua taught at the Asian Institute of Tourism in the Philippines for a year and then returned to spend the next 11 years with the Singapore Tourism Board as director of the newly-created Singapore Convention Bureau. When she started, Singapore was not a player in the convention business. But by the time she finished, it was among the world's top 10.
In the mid-1980s, Ms Chua decided to return to the private sector. Raffles City was completed and the Westin group, which managed the hotels there, invited Ms Chua to head up its sales and marketing, which she did for three years.
'And then, I crossed the road, literally,' she said. 'Why did Jennie cross the road? Because the Raffles Hotel was there.'
She was the first Singaporean general manager of the Raffles, subsequently becoming its CEO. (She was instrumental in starting the Raffles Conversation series - the idea of doing in-depth interviews with illustrious personalities at the Raffles; she hatched the idea back in 1992, together with the then-editor of The Business Times, Patrick Daniel.)
Hotelier of the Year
On her clock, the Raffles Hotel won accolade after accolade and came to be hailed as an icon of the industry. Ms Chua herself was named Hotelier of the Year in 1999, by TravelAsia magazine.
'Of course, I never kidded myself that it was true,' she says. 'It so happened that I was the general manager of the Raffles. People pay attention to the Raffles, and therefore, pay attention to you. If I had been the general manager of ABC Hotel with the same capabilities and even financial success, I would not have been voted the best hotelier, because people wouldn't even have known about me.
'So, famous hotels around the world - the Savoy in London, the Oriental in Bangkok or the Imperial in Tokyo - they make you, you don't make them.
'Yes, you have to be basically competent and have good support, and you have to know how to do marketing and all that. But it would be terrible hubris on my part if I were to say to myself: 'Wow, I'm really the best hotelier in the world'.'
'But hoteliers tend to be undervalued,' she continues. 'People look at a hotelier and say, oh, the guy looks quite nice. A number of times people would come up to me to sincerely pay me a compliment. They would say, 'Jennie, you're such a great general manager'. And then, they would add: 'your PR is so good' - as if that's all it takes.'
'People sometimes don't appreciate that it takes a bit more than good PR or standing in the lobby with a white carnation in your buttonhole. Managing a big hotel is like managing a little city. You need to understand the fundamentals of business - it doesn't just happen; there is a business model that you need to develop and to perpetuate. You need to have financial acumen. You also need to know a little about engineering - not that you need to fix the chiller when it breaks down, but you need to know how it works; you need to work with engineers and understand what they're saying. You definitely need to know about food and beverage, and about marketing.
'And Raffles Hotel had about 800 staff. Raffles City had 2,000 staff. So although of course you have professional help, you have to be a team builder. You have to make people function as a team, and on a daily basis, not occasionally. You've got to supervise people from different backgrounds, different education levels. And you have to be able to handle guests who come from all over the world.'
Moreover, as the hotel industry has evolved and gone more global, the profile of the typical general manager has changed, Ms Chua points out. '40 years ago, general managers were people who had risen from the ranks, mainly from the food and beverage side - that's why a lot of GMs are very good food and beverage people. Some also came from the sales and marketing side, because a room is not just a room, you have to know how to market it and you have to know about concepts - spas, shops and so on, so the marketing element is very important. Then a few years ago, you started to see more people who were financially savvy becoming GMs. Because the hotel business became more complex. An individual hotel can be a mom and pop business. But now we're talking about hotel companies spread across the world, brands, investment and divestment, private equity interests in hotels. So, now it's important at the top level to understand the financial side and the legal side.'
Despite being immersed in the high life for so much of her career, Ms Chua was mindful of remaining grounded. 'You have to keep your sense of balance, because the hotel world can be very artificial,' she explains. 'You are surrounded by chandeliers, crystal, starched napkins, Persian carpets, antiques. The guests come in usually well dressed. So you need to say to yourself, yes, this is where I work, and I enjoy my work. But when I go home to my 3-room apartment, and I eat off melamine plates maybe, and my husband is in a pair of shorts and my children are bawling - that is my real world. You have to be able to adjust and calibrate your life. Otherwise you lose your sense of reality. It is a challenge. And I can say that marriages in the hotel industry have this burden. But people who join the industry now are more aware of these dangers, and more prepared for them.'
In August 2007, Ms Chua went back to CapitaLand, the former parent company of the Raffles Hotel (which was sold to the private equity firm Colony Capital in 2005). She took charge of its subsidiary the Ascott group and as from Aug 1, she became CapitaLand's chief corporate officer.
I ask Ms Chua how she manages to juggle her 21 directorships and other appointments with her regular job - not to mention her chairmanship of the SICC.
She makes it sound easy: 'Those (directorships) are not really jobs, they are board responsibilities,' she says. 'And I'm fortunate that the professionals who run those organisations are very good. There isn't any organisation which I have to revamp. Another thing is, I don't accept a board position or a chairmanship if I don't think I'm going to enjoy it.
'And I do have time. I'm divorced, so don't have a husband and don't need to spend time mollycoddling him; I have a companion, but he mollycoddles me! I don't play golf, which can take up two afternoons a week. My children are grown, and as for grandchildren, well, you play with them, and when you're tired you say, now please go home.'
'On the whole, I have to say I've had a wonderful life,' says Ms Chua.
'Maybe I was born optimistic. When the glass is half full, I see it as three quarters full. Yet, I think I'm practical, I know what's real, and I don't dwell on regrets. I want to move on, and I feel that when I move on, things will be alright.'
'I've had many challenges, both career-wise and personal. But I don't have sleepless nights. Sometimes at 11pm, I know I have a problem to deal with, but I don't dwell on it. I can go to sleep.
'Like last night, at 10.30,' she jokes, 'I was wondering what I should say to you in this interview, but then I fell asleep.'
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