SINGAPORE - Mr George Goh pulls out a wallet from his pocket, its leather weathered and shape bent by age. From it, he retrieves a folded piece of paper, filled with handwritten jottings and numbers, some of which are highlighted. “This piece of paper has been with me for more than 10 years… I’ve recorded all my journeys from 2009...
SINGAPORE - Mr George Goh pulls out a wallet from his pocket, its leather weathered and shape bent by age. From it, he retrieves a folded piece of paper, filled with handwritten jottings and numbers, some of which are highlighted.
Among other things, the small envelope-sized piece of paper tells him when some of the companies he runs have hit an average shareholders’ equity of at least $500 million over three years, a qualifying requirement for the presidency. Sitting on 2,000 sq m of land in the Holland Road area, it is a verdant sanctuary surrounded by dense foliage and trees old and newly planted.
“Some people may take as a retirement job for six years with a total remuneration of $10 million, which is actually not bad,” he says, referring to the president’s six-year term, with an annual salary of about $1.54 million. With no money for entertainment, he found solace and comfort singing in the choir of the nearby Chen Li Presbyterian Church in Guillemard Road, under the guidance of the late conductor and composer Goh Say Meng, who encouraged him to study music.
Just a decade later, he did so well that he could afford to spend $22 million to construct a seven-storey building in Changi. “In 1997, I went to Gerry Harvey even though I didn’t know him,” he says, referring to the executive chairman of Australia-based Harvey Norman, the multi-retailer of bedding, furniture and household electronics. “I sold him the idea of how good Asia was.”
Over the last four decades, Mr Goh has founded more than half a dozen listed companies – from home furnishings and electronics to asset management and water treatment – in countries including the United States, India, China, Britain and Australia. “I took the exams seven times until the teacher said: ‘Please don’t take the exams again.’ But I said no,” says Mr Goh, who finally received his degree two months ago.
“I said: ‘Study all the top politicians in the Hansard, what they said about the presidential elections’,” adds Mr Goh, who is especially proud of the fact he is not a hired chief executive but someone who founded and built his enterprises. “My private sector helped me a lot because we have to look at the full set of our balance sheets, right? We also have to make sure that when there is a crisis, we know how to manage our cash flow and our cash.
Since announcing his presidential ambitions, he has attracted his fair share of fans as well as detractors. He has, for instance, been criticised, mocked and lampooned for his poor command of English.“Language is for communication and there is no necessity that a whole sentence must be perfect as long as you can communicate with the people.”
“I’ve received many compliments from my counterparts who would say: ‘George, you look very dapper every time.’ I’d say: ‘I’m from a small nation and I have got to make sure that the first impression you have of me is that I’m presentable’.”
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