So which is more serious mistake?
Tharman Shanmugaratnam
Managing Director and Chief Executive, Monetary Authority of
Singapore
Jul 2 2001, Business Week Online
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_27/b3739052.htm
As a youth, Tharman Shanmugaratnam loved a game of field hockey or
soccer. "I've always enjoyed nothing more than playing as hard as I
can as part of a team," says the recently appointed managing
director and CEO of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the
nation's central bank. Indeed, Shanmugaratnam won a reputation as a
"clean player" that followed him through Cambridge University,
where he earned a masters in economics, to the MAS, where he
carries the torch of financial reform.
True to form, Shanmugaratnam didn't get where he is without
rolling with the punches. In 1994, he was fined $1,000 for
violating the Official Secrets Act, after economic growth
projections were leaked to the press. He was exiled to the Ministry
of Education for three years before returning to the
MAS.
Since then, Shanmugaratnam has thoroughly rehabilitated
himself--overseeing reforms aimed at shielding Singapore against
post-crisis turbulence and making it more attractive to foreign
investors. Shanmugaratnam lifted a 49% foreign shareholding limit
on insurance companies, removed fixed rates on the fees that
securities brokerages charge clients, and allowed foreign banks to
expand their branch and ATM networks.
Shanmugaratnam also has made "Fortress MAS" more open and flexible.
"It required a fairly bold change of mind-set," he says. "We had to
break away from something that wasn't `broke' but wasn't good
enough to keep us competitive." Largely thanks to Shanmugaratnam's
reforms, bankers say Singapore is better prepared for global shocks
than any other Southeast Asian economy.