Page 20 - The Art of Leadership (preview)

the art of leadership

An Entrepreneurial Culture for Singapore

hen I was invited to inaugurate the China and studied agricultural economics at oca in Thailand. He started a factory with his
WHo Rih Hwa Leadership in Asia Cornell, USA, where he met and married Li wife, who was a chemist, to make glass noodles
Public Lecture Series, I could not decline. Lienfung, a fellow Cornell graduate from from mung beans, modernising the process

When my Foreign Minister was casting Hunan, China. After his studies, his father- and forcing others to follow suit. Then he went
around for a man capable of being our Am- in-law, a wealthy and successful entrepreneur, on to flour milling, jute sorting, trading, a
bassador in Bangkok, Ho Rih Hwa took up sent him to Thailand and Burma to work for vegetable oil factory and an electroplating
the appointment. He discharged it from 1967 Thai Wah, his father-in-law’s company. He plant. He did not start as an entrepreneur. He
Economic Community (EEC), to ‘‘ guidance from an entrepreneur — his father-
bought tungsten and tin for Wah Chang, the
was more of a trusted manager receiving
to 1971, refusing to accept any remuneration.
parent company of Thai Wah.
He went on to serve from 1972 to 1974 as our
in-law. But he later branched out
Ambassador in Brussels. He was
Entrepreneurship... is identifying
on his own and became a success-
also accredited to the European
sources currently available and
velopment from a manager to an
Bonn, and was our Permanent an opportunity regardless of the ful entrepreneur himself. His de-
Representative in Geneva, again executing that opportunity for the entrepreneur holds out promise to
without any salary. In 1962, we many who start off as managers.
awarded him the Meritorious purpose of wealth creation in the
private, public and global sectors. scribed by the Centre for Entre-
Service Medal. Entrepreneurship has been de-

Ho Rih Hwa was born in Singa- He knew nothing about the business and re- preneurship at Babson College in
pore in 1917, as the son of a Chinese immi- ceived constant and detailed instructions Massachusetts as “a way of thinking and
from his father-in-law. He also learnt how to
grant. He was educated at the Yangzheng jute. On his own, he mastered the trading and ’’
acting that is opportunity-obsessed, holistic
School from Primary 1 to Primary 5. At the deal in agricultural products like seedlac and in approach and leadership-balanced”. It’s
age of 11, he was sent to China to continue his very concise, and I am not quite sure I have
education, and graduated with a Bachelor of production of tapioca flour and chips and grasped the full significance of it. It is iden-

Arts from Nanking University. In 1944, he left became one of the largest producers of tapi- tifying an opportunity regardless of the

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