Jennie Chua Kheng Yeng () is a Singaporean businesswoman who is the co-founder of Beeworks, Inc. She was named one of Forbes Asia's "50 Women In the Mix" in 2013. She has been called "Singapore's Grande Dame".

Early life and education

Jennie Chua was born in Batam, Indonesia and raised in the

Tanglin Tanglin is a planning area located within the Central Region of Singapore. Tanglin is located west of Newton, Orchard, River Valley and Singapore River, south of Novena, east of Bukit Timah, northeast of Queenstown and north of Bukit Merah. ...

area of

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. She is the oldest of 12 children. Her father, Chua Kok Kuan, was a wealthy businessman who sold

clove Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, ...

s and

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...

, but lost his business when she was 10. Chua was educated at

Singapore Chinese Girls' School Singapore Chinese Girls' School (SCGS) is an independent girls' school in Bukit Timah, Singapore, located opposite Stevens MRT station. Founded in 1899, it is one of the oldest institutions in Singapore. It offers a six-year primary education in ...

and started working as a teenager, as a

typist Typist is a person who types, a clerical worker who writes documents, using a typewriter. Skills and occupations Typist may also refer to: *Data entry clerk, someone who types data into a database via a computer or terminal. * Audio typist, someone ...

and

tutor TUTOR, also known as PLATO Author Language, is a programming language developed for use on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in roughly 1965. TUTOR was initially designed by Paul Tenczar for use in co ...

. After completing her A Level at Anglo-Chinese School, she was awarded a scholarship to attend the University of Singapore (now the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in the c ...

), where she dropped out after a year. After school, she worked as a teacher.

Personal life

She met Goh Kian Chee, son of Goh Keng Swee, when she was 16. The couple married eight years later in 1968. As Goh attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, Chua moved there and attended Cornell for

hotel management ''Hotel Management'' magazine is a trade publication produced by Questex, LLC. History and profile The magazine ''Hotel Management'' was established in New York in 1922 by Ahrens Publishers. It absorbed or merged with various other hotel managem ...

. They couple have two children, but divorced in 1977 and remained on amicable terms.

Career

After graduation, Chua started working as a general manager at the Mandarin Hotel in Singapore. In 1977, she started working, for 11 years, at the

Singapore Tourism Board The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Government of Singapore, tasked to promote the country's tourism industry. History The board was first established on 1 January 1964 and wa ...

(STB), as director. In 1988, she started working for

Westin Hotels Westin Hotels & Resorts is an American upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International. , the Westin Brand has 226 properties with 82,608 rooms in multiple countries in addition to 58 hotels with 15,741 rooms in the pipeline. History Wester ...

as a marketing director. Chua became the first female general manager at Raffles Hotel in 1990. In 2003, she became the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Raffles Holdings Raffles Holdings was the parent company of Raffles International. It is owned by Temasek Holdings which is the investment arm of the Singapore government. In 2005, Raffles Holdings' hotel business ranked 17th or 18th in the world in terms of m ...

but left Raffles Holdings in 2007. She became the chief executive officer of Ascott Group, a department of CapitaLand, she subsequently became the chief corporate officer for CapitaLand. She left the company in July 2012. Chua is the co-founder of Beeworks. Today, she is 40% of the company's

shares In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...

. Her work is currently focused on the

fast food Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...

market in Singapore. She is a former teacher at the Asian Institute of Tourism in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. Chua is also Singapore's Ambassador to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, and former Ambassador to

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chua, Jennie Singaporean women in business Living people Singaporean chief executives Cornell University School of Hotel Administration alumni Singaporean hoteliers Ambassadors of Singapore to Slovakia Ambassadors of Singapore to Mexico People from the Riau Islands Singaporean women diplomats Singaporean women ambassadors Year of birth missing (living people)