12 saturday people - Parkway Pantai
12 saturday people - Parkway Pantai
12 saturday people - Parkway Pantai
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TODAY • SATURDAY 13 APRIL 2013<br />
<strong>12</strong> <strong>saturday</strong><br />
<strong>people</strong><br />
If there is one<br />
manager in world<br />
football who knows how<br />
to get his tactics right in a<br />
big one-off cup match,<br />
it is Rafael Benitez.<br />
ADRIAN CLARKE • 26<br />
THE ST REGIS PERSPECTIVES<br />
CHIEF<br />
HEALER<br />
Taking on a S$90,000 debt<br />
right out of NS, Dr Tan See Leng<br />
was a millionaire by his 30s.<br />
Meet the family physician<br />
who also happens to be a<br />
savvy businessman and CEO<br />
CONRAD RAJ<br />
Editor-at-Large<br />
conrad@mediacorp.com.sg<br />
Most young doctors join<br />
an established hospital<br />
or clinic after serving<br />
their housemanship.<br />
Not Dr Tan See<br />
Leng, who plunged into setting up<br />
his own health practice with three<br />
friends — one of whom is now his<br />
wife — in 1992, right after completing<br />
National Service.<br />
His decision wasn’t without sacrifice.<br />
“I had to break my bond (with the<br />
Ministry of Health) and buy myself<br />
out by taking what was then a hefty<br />
loan of S$90,000 to start Healthway<br />
Medical Group.<br />
“Then, six months later, my classmates<br />
from the National University of<br />
Singapore were given an early release<br />
by the Ministry, without having to pay<br />
a cent,” Dr Tan recalls with a sigh as<br />
if to say, if only he, too, had waited<br />
six months!<br />
Still, he can’t regret the serendipity<br />
that has ruled his life since then. “I<br />
feel blessed beyond measure,” says the<br />
affable 48-year old Group Chief Executive<br />
and Managing Director of the<br />
<strong>Parkway</strong> <strong>Pantai</strong> Group, one of Asia’s<br />
largest private healthcare providers.<br />
The only son of a Singapore Bus<br />
Service timekeeper and a housewife,<br />
Dr Tan has come a long way since<br />
growing up in a rented room of a Toa<br />
Payoh HDB flat.<br />
“I really believe that, in Singapore,<br />
we have meritocracy,” he says. “I think<br />
my story is really about how, just when<br />
the doors appeared to be closing on<br />
me, I managed to slip through and<br />
seize the opportunity ... It’s something<br />
that I thank God for.”<br />
FLAIR FOR BUSINESS<br />
It was due to fate’s intervention that<br />
he got into a medical career at all.<br />
In pre-university, he was awarded a<br />
scholarship for studying humanities<br />
at Oxford/Cambridge. But when his<br />
mother fell into a coma from cancer,<br />
he decided to switch to medicine.<br />
“It was at National Junior College<br />
(NJC) that my interest in biology, the<br />
sciences and so on really came alive,”<br />
says the alumni of Monk’s Hill Primary<br />
and Secondary.<br />
As a young doctor running his<br />
own business, Dr Tan had decided he<br />
needed to get some formal business<br />
education. So he obtained a Master’s<br />
in Business Administration from the<br />
University of Chicago Booth School of<br />
Business. “Everyone then was talking<br />
about return on equity and so on,”<br />
he explains.<br />
It turned out that, so good was his<br />
business savvy, the Healthway group<br />
soon grew to encompass more than 30<br />
branches. His and his partners’ invest-<br />
ments paid off within 10 years, when<br />
they sold the group to the British United<br />
Provident Association — he is reluctant<br />
to disclose the sum, but admits it<br />
made him a millionaire in his mid-30s.<br />
Afterwards, he continued to work<br />
for the group for another two years<br />
to provide some continuity. “Yes, we<br />
could have taken the company public<br />
but, if we had done that, then we’d be<br />
holding paper. This was an all-cash<br />
sale,” he says.<br />
FIRST, GIVE OF YOURSELF<br />
Medicine<br />
starts off as a<br />
passion. Once<br />
you graduate<br />
... it’s a calling.<br />
I’m trained<br />
as a family<br />
physician so<br />
I live by the<br />
adage that we<br />
cure seldom,<br />
we relieve<br />
often but<br />
we comfort<br />
always.<br />
Dr Tan See Leng<br />
CEO AND MD OF<br />
PARKWAY PANTAI GROUP<br />
PHOTO: ERNEST CHUA<br />
In the meantime, his business acumen<br />
had been spotted by then-head<br />
of <strong>Parkway</strong>, Dr Lim Cheok Peng (who<br />
now heads its listed parent Integrated<br />
Healthcare Holdings). Dr Lim invited<br />
him to join the group’s Mount<br />
Elizabeth Hospital as its Chief Operating<br />
Officer.<br />
After about two years there — he<br />
joined in 2004 — the stress was beginning<br />
to take a toll. So Dr Tan took a<br />
sabbatical to help his friend, Mr Richard<br />
Eu, turn the Eu Yan Sang group’s<br />
Australian business around.<br />
Six months later, Dr Tan was back<br />
at <strong>Parkway</strong> and was soon appointed<br />
the group’s Senior Vice-President of<br />
International Operations. Later, he<br />
was seconded to <strong>Pantai</strong> Holdings Berhad<br />
as Executive Director and Group<br />
CEO of its hospitals division.<br />
“By serendipity, and also thanks to<br />
Richard Seow (then <strong>Parkway</strong>’s Chairman)<br />
and Dr Lim, I was introduced to<br />
the operating team in Khazanah,” he<br />
says, referring to the investment holding<br />
arm of the Malaysian Government.<br />
“Those years I spent in Malaysia<br />
were really formative because I learnt<br />
a lot. For instance, that in order to gain<br />
something you must first give a lot of<br />
yourself — your time, your resources,<br />
your convictions and passions.”<br />
Gaining the trust of Khazanah put<br />
him in good stead when the Malaysian
13<br />
<strong>saturday</strong> <strong>people</strong><br />
TODAY • SATURDAY 13 APRIL 2013<br />
sovereign wealth fund won control of<br />
<strong>Parkway</strong> after a battle in mid-2010<br />
with India’s Fortis Group. Dr Tan was<br />
in quite a quandary as to who to support,<br />
as he had then just been appointed<br />
<strong>Parkway</strong>’s CEO.<br />
“Both were very good shareholders.<br />
Both had very good strategic<br />
visions for <strong>Parkway</strong>. So it was not a<br />
case of who you wanted to support,<br />
but more of doing what was right for<br />
the company. I learnt a lot from Fortis<br />
— the way they operate, their thinking,<br />
their worldview. I also learnt a<br />
lot from Khazanah in terms of their<br />
worldview and how they see (<strong>Parkway</strong>)<br />
as a sustainable organisation<br />
moving forward.<br />
“I think, if both parties had been<br />
able to work together, their platform<br />
would have been great. But I must say<br />
I’m quite happy now.”<br />
‘WHAT I WOULD CHANGE’<br />
Asked about his philosophy of life,<br />
Dr Tan says: “I think no one has a fixed<br />
philosophy of life. It changes according<br />
to where you are on (Abraham)<br />
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs ... I think<br />
in the early years, when I was in my<br />
20s and 30s, everything just went by.<br />
I wish I could go back in time; I wish<br />
I’d spent more time with my parents,<br />
with my children’s upbringing.<br />
“In those (early) years, what drove<br />
me was fear of failure. What drives<br />
me now is making sure my staff, the<br />
<strong>people</strong> who support us — I mean all<br />
our unsung heroes — that their needs<br />
are taken care of (such as) putting<br />
three meals on the table; that they<br />
have a reasonable enough lifestyle;<br />
they can keep their families going,<br />
help the next generation to get proper<br />
education, and so on.”<br />
Dr Tan is also well aware that his<br />
group is perceived as a group of hospitals<br />
catering to the rich, especially<br />
foreigners. He says: “The demands on<br />
the healthcare system in Singapore<br />
and the region are constantly evolving.<br />
Given the ageing demographics,<br />
we are now seeing a greater complexity<br />
and higher intensity of diseases.<br />
“All of these factors require that we<br />
attract the best doctors, nurture our<br />
nurses and allied health professionals<br />
and invest in the necessary medical<br />
equipment and infrastructure, to<br />
In those (early) years,<br />
what drove me was<br />
fear of failure. What<br />
drives me now is making<br />
sure my staff — all our unsung<br />
heroes — that their needs are<br />
taken care of (such as) putting<br />
three meals on the table ...<br />
Dr Tan<br />
effectively serve the needs of our patients.<br />
These drive costs up.<br />
“However, we always make sure<br />
that we manage and balance our cost<br />
structure, such as harnessing technology<br />
and streamlining our processes,<br />
so that these costs are not passed on<br />
to our patients.”<br />
DOCTOR OR<br />
BUSINESSMAN FIRST?<br />
Given the group’s operations in several<br />
countries — from joint ventures<br />
in India to managed hospitals in China<br />
and Vietnam — and with <strong>12</strong>,000 <strong>people</strong><br />
to manage, travelling takes up half<br />
of Dr Tan’s time.<br />
“That is why weekends are sacred<br />
to me,” says the father of three — a<br />
20-year-old daughter and two sons<br />
aged 20 and 14. The two older children<br />
are studying medicine.<br />
A lover of good food and wines and<br />
single malts, Dr Tan loves cooking for<br />
his family and friends at his home in<br />
Siglap. “I’m a lousy cook but my family<br />
humours me by telling me they like<br />
it,” he says.<br />
One classmate at NJC, in fact, remembers<br />
him as “the fattest guy in<br />
class, but smart and studious”.<br />
“I was very overweight,” Dr Tan<br />
admits, but in the last few years he<br />
has been on a diet-and-exercise regime<br />
that has reduced his girth to a<br />
mere 40 inches.<br />
A very busy CEO he might be,<br />
but Dr Tan is still a practising doctor.<br />
“Medicine starts off as a passion.<br />
Once you graduate, it’s not just a commitment,<br />
it’s a calling. I’m trained as a<br />
family physician, so I live by the adage<br />
that we cure seldom, we relieve often<br />
but we comfort always.”<br />
Asked if he is more businessman<br />
than doctor, he replies: “I hope to become<br />
a commercially savvy doctor<br />
with a heart.”<br />
WHAT DR TAN SEE LENG<br />
HAD AT LABREZZA<br />
Burrata cheese,<br />
heirloom tomatoes, basil<br />
Grilled Kurobuta pork chop,<br />
sauteed spinach<br />
and balsamic reduction<br />
Mixed forest berries<br />
with zabaglione sauce<br />
S$84