Shaping better tomorrows, together

An investment in potential

The decision to join Temasek - and then to assume the role of its fourth Chairman a year later - were not decisions Lim had taken lightly. When the naval architect was offered the opportunity to make the move from Neptune Orient Lines to join politics in the early 1980s, he had spent about a day thinking about it. He mulled this move to Temasek for over a month.

"I knew little about investing at that time," he laughs, "but Temasek had enough good people who did. What I did know about was how to operate a company, and I understood people. My time with NTUC and in politics helped me understand their hopes, aspirations and fears - and focus on how their lives could be made better.

"At Temasek, that purpose continued."

He recalls one of the earliest conversations he had with former CEO Ho Ching about TTC, when she drew on Temasek's experience with helping to restructure Singapore's power generation companies at the turn of the decade. The various parties had to work through manpower priorities that sometimes pulled in different directions, and embrace the need for change. She was convinced that Temasek could play the role of "facilitator" in other contexts.

In 2017, the TTC was launched as a closed-door "makan session". Since then, it has struck up critical and varied conversations over dinner, durians, and drinks, on topics ranging from the impact of technological disruption to emerging "green jobs" created by climate action. As he kicked off the conversations each year, Lim rallied union representatives, corporate leaders and policymakers to candidly exchange insights and explore perspectives - and they did.

The relationships formed proved invaluable as parties in embattled sectors like air transport came together to preserve jobs, cut costs, and reskill and upskill workers when COVID-19 sent shockwaves through the economy in 2020.

"Relationships have to be built all the time, not only when you have a crisis or when you have to make a transformative change," says Lim. "When you are having an ongoing conversation, facilitating change becomes much easier.

TTC provides a platform for these conversations to take place.

"When you look at the news and what's going on around the world, a lot of labour conflicts arise because of a lack of communication, and it really is not necessary to repeat those mistakes...You can go further when there is already trust between the various parties."

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