On 1 April 2009, Lim Hwee Hua became the first woman to serve in Singapore’s Cabinet, as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for both Finance and Transport. She was 51, and she was named Woman of the Year in 2009.
Her path there was not a straight line. In 2009 she described a run of moments when she had to push against the usual limits, starting well before politics.
A girl, a softball team and a strict father
Her first test of will came at home. Her father, a tea merchant, thought a girl’s time after school should go to her studies, and he saw no point in extra-curricular activities. She wanted to play softball. It took her almost three years to win him round.
She treated it as an early lesson that perseverance can change what people accept as normal. She was one of nine children, and the family lived in a three-room flat in Tiong Bahru.
Stepping forward when nobody expects it
Her working life began after a scholarship to Cambridge, where she graduated in 1981 with an honours degree in mathematics and engineering. She then joined the civil service, held posts in the Finance, Education and Law ministries, and completed an MBA in California in 1989. After a spell at Swiss Bank Corporation, she moved in 1992 to Jardine Fleming as Head of Research and Director of Business Development.
She said the research-head post came when she was 33. The other country heads were expatriate men, and she hesitated because women seldom put themselves forward. She asked anyway. Her bosses were surprised but agreed. The lesson she drew was that making a pitch for yourself creates opportunities.
Politics followed in much the same spirit. She said she had not planned it. The chance was put to her at a time when she wanted to give back to society, and she decided to try it and see what she learnt about herself. She was elected to Parliament in December 1996 and became the first woman Deputy Speaker in 2002. She was made Minister of State for Finance and Transport in 2004 and Senior Minister of State in 2008.
What she said about leading
She told young women not to confine themselves to a career-only phase. Those with the capacity, she argued, should work out what they believe in and put their time and resources behind it.
On her own leadership, she said she tried to keep listening to a wide range of voices, especially views that differed from hers, in case her own turned out to be wrong. As a boss she expected everyone to carry their share but said she avoided impossible deadlines. When someone fell short, she asked whether her expectations were too high or the person was unmotivated. She also asked her team for honest feedback.
On failure, she advised against shifting blame. Whether the cause was poor judgment or a rival’s sabotage, she said, the task is to work out what to do next time. She added that nobody should only chase opportunities they are 99.9 per cent sure of winning.
Guilt, motherhood and keeping calm
She was frank about trade-offs. She took two years off from 1985 to look after her young children and accepted a slower career track and a harder return to work as the price. Having made that choice, she said, she felt no guilt about spending less time with them later. She said she was not suited to being a full-time housewife and that women should not accept guilt that others heap on them. Her aim was to work “until I drop”.
She had three children, and she said they reminded her to model the values she wanted to teach.
She put her calm down partly to her late father’s temperament and partly to growing up in a crowded home, where quarrels taught her to look for the source of unhappiness. At meet-the-people sessions, she reasoned, angry residents were not angry with her personally. She listened and helped them work through their problems.
Life after politics
She retired from politics in May 2011, having served as an MP since 1996. She went on to work in finance and international business. Tembusu Partners lists her as co-chairman, and its profile records her time at KKR from 2011 to 2023 and at Asia Pacific Exchange from 2017 to 2024. It also lists board roles at Nippon Paint since 2022 and at JERA since 2023.
She joined the board of trustees of the International Valuation Standards Council in 2020. In May 2024 the council announced that she would become its chair from June 2024, the first Asian and the first woman in the role. The Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame inducted her in 2014.