Sim Kee Boon: The Businessman Bureaucrat

Mention the name “Sim Kee Boon” and it might draw blank stares, especially among the younger generation of Singaporeans.

Hand-picked by the colonial government to be a key civil servant, he participated in the merger talks with Malaysia, headed Intraco, the national trading company that was one of the drivers of the economy of a newly independent Singapore, and later, became Head of the Civil Service.

Sim Kee Boon is acknowledged as the man who oversaw the development of Changi Airport – from land reclamation and architecture, to clean toilets and plush carpets, making it the world’s best air hub by always putting customer experience first. At the same time, he saw to the design of the neighbouring Tanah Merah Country Club to create world-class golf courses.

Another significant contribution was the salvaging of Keppel by turning it into a diversified, visionary Singapore corporation. Through it, he not only gave M1 its name but led it to become a leading telco from scratch.

He chaired the Council of Presidential Advisers, and after retirement from executive positions, sat on the board of Temasek Holdings and was the President Commissioner of Indonesia’s Bank Danamon.

Sim Kee Boon: The Businessman Bureaucrat is more than the biography of this pioneer generation leader. It is a primer of the principles and values that he lived out in his successful career.

Meticulous research by biographer Low Shi Ping, with personal insights by Sim Kee Boon’s granddaughter Leanne Sim, makes this an engaging and valuable book about a man who made a difference to Singapore.

• About the Authors

Low Shi Ping is an experienced writer, editor and content strategist. An insatiable curiosity about the world has inspired her to tell its stories in the last two decades, especially from those in the design, hospitality, travel and luxury industries.

She is known to mildly terrorise friends and family at gatherings with her probing questions about their lives. In fact, this ability makes her a natural at personality profiles, of which she has written countless ones across titles like The Peak and Prestige magazines and China Daily Asia Weekly. She has also authored two books, including the biography of eminent cardiologist Dr Charles Toh, with a third underway of Singaporean urban planner and architect Liu Thai Ker.

Shi Ping runs her own consultancy LSP Communications and was the editor of design and architecture magazine d+a.

Leanne Sim is the first of Sim Kee Boon’s five granddaughters. By day, she is a senior marketing and communications professional in the banking and finance industry; by night, she enjoys creative writing by her bedside light. Her passion for storytelling led her to win top prizes at the Tim Winton Award for Young Writers and West Australian Young Writers Awards when she was in high school in Perth. It also inspired her to become a Singapore Tourism Board tourist guide, giving her the opportunity to share tales of Singapore’s early years.