In 2003, Halimah Yacob was named Woman of the Year by a leading Singapore women’s magazine. She was then an MP for Jurong GRC and an assistant secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). She was known for a plain, listening style of public service rather than for glamour.
She went on to become Speaker of Parliament and then the eighth President of Singapore. At the time of the award, though, her working week was built around workers and residents.
A Monday night with residents
In 2003, her Mondays ended with a Meet-the-People session at a branch office in Bukit Batok East. A kindergarten was turned into a counselling room for the evening. By the profile’s account, she saw about 25 residents in three hours and had many more waiting.
The requests covered food vouchers, job placements, social visit pass extensions, family disputes and housing problems. She asked the children about their schools and offered to write to a school about fees. A volunteer there said her gift was listening.
Speaking in 2003, she said the work was not glamorous but was satisfying. She added that people came to her because they needed help.
Labour was her calling
She joined NTUC in 1978 as a legal officer straight after graduating in law from the National University of Singapore. She later directed its legal services department. By 2003 she had also directed the Singapore Institute of Labour Studies, now the Ong Teng Cheong Institute of Labour Studies.
Her work extended abroad. The Istana records that she represented Singapore on the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva for 12 years. She was the first Singaporean to do so. In 2003 she became the workers’ spokesperson for the ILO’s tripartite committee on human resource development, after serving as workers’ vice-chairperson of its Standards Committee.
She also had to carry unpopular news. In the years before the award, union leaders had to explain wage and CPF cuts during a weak economy. She recalled being scolded by workers who felt the burden fell on them. Her view was that people came round once they trusted that the leaders had no personal agenda.
Where she came from
Her manner at work was tied to her childhood. She was born in a shophouse on Queen Street, and her family was very poor. As a child she helped her widowed mother sell nasi padang from a pushcart. She remembered having only one school uniform for a stretch.
She said hardship taught her to understand other people’s struggles. She also said that attending Chinese-medium schools with girls of all races helped her see issues from several angles. That mattered when she handled sensitive debates such as the tudung and organ donation.
Family, study and the leap into politics
In 2003 she was a mother of five, and she completed a Masters in Law in 2001. She said she studied alongside her eldest son, who was sitting his A levels at the time. She had turned down earlier approaches from the People’s Action Party while her children were young. She agreed to stand in 2001 because she had been urging others to step forward and felt she should set an example. That year she became the first Malay woman MP in 45 years, and Berita Harian named her Achiever of the Year.
Her days started at 6am and often ended near midnight. She admitted she missed her privacy, since she was widely recognised, and she said she could not imagine retiring.
What came after
She was appointed Minister of State for Community Development and Sports in 2011. She also received the AWARE Heroine Award that year. In 2013 she became the first woman Speaker of Parliament, and in 2014 she was added to the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2016 the National University of Singapore conferred a Doctor of Law on her.
She stepped down as Speaker in August 2017 to contest the presidential election, which was reserved for Malay candidates that year. She was sworn in on 14 September 2017 as the first woman President. Her term ended on 14 September 2023, and Tharman Shanmugaratnam succeeded her.
She is now a former president and chancellor of the Singapore University of Social Sciences. In 2025 she was guest of honour at the magazine’s Women of the Year awards gala. There she described her 2003 award as recognition from the first women’s magazine she had read, and she said women’s voices could move communities and shape institutions.
That is 23 years since the award (2026 − 2003).