Grace Fu: Steely leader sticks to her convictions

From boardroom to Cabinet, from drinking with shipping bosses to sparring with opposition politicians in Parliament, Grace Fu, Singapore's only female minister, has come a long way

By Rachel Chang, The Straits Times, 12 Aug 2012

Early this year, a day after recommendations to slash ministerial salaries by a third were made, Ms Grace Fu, now Singapore's second-ever woman Cabinet minister, waded into the emotive, explosive topic.

Hitherto thought of as a competent if low-profile public servant, her Facebook comment made an uncharacteristic splash, going viral with a speed and fury that those close to her said took the former corporate honcho completely by surprise.

"When I made the decision to join politics in 2006, pay was not a key factor," she wrote. "(But) I had some ground to believe that my family would not suffer a drastic change in the standard of living even though I experienced a drop in my income. So it is with this recent pay cut. If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for anyone considering political office."

In those heady post-General Election 2011 days, among a cyber community intensely critical of high salaries, it flew in the face of the political wind. Many read into it hubris and an inability to empathise with ordinary Singaporeans.

Her post attracted thousands of critical comments and spawned a popular meme, with netizens making up their own "When I made the decision to..." spoofs.

The pressure mounted, but Ms Fu did not apologise - she conceded a day later only that her comments may have been "misunderstood".

In remaining defiantly unapologetic, Ms Fu bucked a trend of People's Action Party MPs saying sorry in online slugfests.

Asked by The Sunday Times last week why she chose not to apologise, Ms Fu replied that "my convictions remain".

That steeliness, friends and colleagues say, is a defining trait of the 48-year-old, and one that has propelled her to the top of male-dominated arenas - whether as chief executive of PSA International for South-east Asia and Japan, or now as only the second woman ever to be made a full minister.

"Grace is calm and not one to buckle under pressure," says Mrs Rosemarie Chiang, a long-time grassroots leader. "She has that quality that if she believes in something, she is steadfast and will not be easily swayed."

Not the table-banging type

One thing that Ms Fu has always believed in, due in large part to a pedigree background, is public service.

Her late grandfather was involved in revolutionary activities in early 20th-century China and came to Singapore after his newspaper was banned by the Chinese government.

Her late grandmother, Madam Liew Yuen Sien, was principal of Nanyang Girls' High School for more than 40 years.

Her father, Mr James Fu, 79, was involved in the left-wing movement here in the 1960s, and later became press secretary to then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Her mother was a nurse.

Ms Fu and her older sister always had it drilled into them to "be a useful person to society". So when she made the leap from PSA International to politics in 2006, it was not unexpected to those who knew her well.

What was more unpredictable was how her capabilities and skill sets - honed in the rough-and-tumble shipping world - would translate in government service and on the heartland ground.

As senior minister of state for national development and education, her first roles after being elected, Ms Fu slid seamlessly, by all accounts, into policymaking.

She brought to Government the same style that served her well in the private sector, one of few words and a soft touch.

Nominated MP Nicholas Fang, who used to cover shipping as a journalist and is now a personal friend of Ms Fu's, notes: "She's quiet and firm. She's not the type that screams, bangs tables and all that."

Those who have worked with her point out her ability to delegate with confidence. She is not one to "look over your shoulder and have to cross the 't's and dot the 'i's", says Minister of State for Finance and Transport Josephine Teo, one of Ms Fu's deputies in the PAP's Women's Wing.

"I think that reflects her style as a woman who knows what she's doing," says Mrs Teo. "When she works with the rest of us, she applies the same attitude that there's no reason to doubt our competence."

With her subordinates in the civil service, Ms Fu has pushed things forward not with bold pronouncements or aggressive instructions but with simple questions that respect their professional authority.

Recalls lead specialist in educational programmes Mariam Aljunied, who worked with Ms Fu on special education issues in the Ministry of Education: "We were looking at the issue of children having difficulty accessing special education. And the pattern we saw was that those of moderate disability had the most difficulty because parents were not sure if they should be in normal or special schools.

"She listened to the findings, then she asked just one question, 'Is that the only pattern?' And because of that we went back and realised that within this group, it was also those from the lower-income groups that had the most difficulty getting help."

But the grassroots ground, where the other and perhaps more important half of a politician's reputation is made, proved a little harder for Ms Fu to win over at first.

She went into the Yuhua ward of Jurong GRC in 2006, taking over from Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, a former minister of state who retired before last year's general election.

The contrast between the two women office-holders was initially stark to long-serving grassroots leaders. Ms Fu's "atas" background and business-like calmness seemed a world apart from Mrs Yu-Foo's gregarious trade unionist style.

"Grace was more formal compared to Mrs Yu-Foo, who talks to people she has just met as if they are old friends," says Ms Karney Ngai, a Yuhua grassroots volunteer since 1995. "And Grace is very independent, very efficient and doesn't like to dilly-dally, whereas Mrs Yu-Foo used to need us to drive her around for events so we would just be with her all the time."

Over her first year in Yuhua, Ms Fu revamped the entire grassroots corps, identifying the people she wanted to have in charge.

For the position of chairman of the Citizens' Consultative Committee, the top role on the ground, she chose someone much like herself: a bilingual woman who had risen to the top of the corporate ranks while raising a family and remaining involved in community work.

Mrs Rosemarie Chiang, a director in a French bank, was hand- picked because Ms Fu saw in her a strategic thinker who could go from high-level issues down to the ground - a quality Ms Fu prizes in herself, say grassroots leaders.

Leveraging on her mellifluous Mandarin and tirelessly walking the ground, she then slowly built a level of support for herself that made the PAP confident enough to field her as one of two women in a single-member constituency in last year's general election.

She trounced her Singapore Democratic Party opponent, former detainee Teo Soh Lung, with 66.9 per cent of the vote in Yuhua.

No need to keep track

The women's issues portfolio has become closely linked to Ms Fu's public persona.

She has been a strong proponent of family-friendly work practices, and one of her latest appointments - to assist Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean with population strategy - indicates her growing influence in this area.

Asked how her elevation to a position only one other woman - former second minister for finance and transport Lim Hwee Hua - has held would inspire other women, Ms Fu says: "I do not profess to have any particular qualities to be emulated but I hope to be able to demonstrate that women in Singapore can enjoy having families and children and still be in leadership positions and have fulfilling careers."

She and her technopreneur husband, Mr Ivan Lee, have three sons aged 20, 18 and 15.

"Whenever I meet women executives, I always encourage them to believe in themselves and aim high," she says.

Ms Fu's trajectory had seemed limitless a year ago. Bolstered by her strong mandate in Yuhua, many expected her to be promoted to full minister in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's first Cabinet of the term.

Since Mrs Lim Hwee Hua had lost her parliamentary seat in Aljunied GRC, it seemed only natural that Ms Fu should ensure some gender representation in Cabinet.

But she was not promoted, and in fact was moved from Education and National Development to what seemed to be smaller portfolios in the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, and the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.

"It seemed like PM's focus was on the new fourth-generation leadership, and he forgot about her," said one politician who declined to be named.

Asked about that period and if she was disappointed at not being promoted after the GE, Ms Fu declines to comment. Now that she has taken her place among ministers, that brief dimming of the spotlight seems better consigned to a footnote in her political career.

Indeed, the highest-ranked woman in Government seems reluctant to discuss the fact at all.

After all, she used to be a woman chief executive in a male-dominated industry, who punctuates her sentences with giggles but could drink shipping bosses under the table.

Labels, it seems, have always been irrelevant to her; so it goes with this latest that comes with her current appointment.

Asked about the legacy she would like to leave as the only woman minister in Singapore, she says, simply: "I find the labelling unnecessary. My hope is that there would be more women ministers in future, so that it is no longer meaningful to keep track."

When that day comes, Ms Fu's name will still have a place in the history books for helping Singapore forget that it once seemed a rare feat.