Ho Ching
SINGAPORE: Temasek Trust chair Ho Ching took 32nd place in the latest Forbes ranking of the world’s most powerful women, while OCBC Bank chief executive Helen Wong made her debut at 59th place.
The third Singaporean woman in the list is Jenny Lee, a senior managing partner at venture capital firm Granite Asia.
The annual Forbes World’s Most Powerful Women list, published on Dec 11, takes stock of the global influence and accomplishments of women across the fields of business, finance and politics.
Ho Ching, 71, was chief executive of Singapore state investment firm Temasek from 2004 to 2021.
She is also the wife of senior minister Lee Hsien Loong.
In 2022, she became chairman of Temasek Trust, the philanthropic arm of Temasek.
Forbes, an American business magazine, said Ho invested over a quarter of Temasek funds in sectors like life sciences, technology, and agribusiness, and the firm’s portfolio grew by more than US$313bil.
In this year’s power rankings, she came in ahead of major public figures such as media mogul Oprah Winfrey (33), pop icon Beyonce (35) and Britain’s finance minister Rachel Reeves (39).
Helen Wong, 63, with more than four decades of experience in banking, became OCBC’s chief executive in 2021.
Under her leadership, OCBC reported a total income of US$10bil for the 2023 fiscal year.
Her Forbes citation said Wong spent the earlier part of her career in a raft of roles at HSBC for 27 years.
Her last job within the bank was overseeing its Greater China business. -— Straits Times/ANN
