When it was announced in 2002 that Ms Saw Phaik Hwa would become
SMRT's chief executive, eyebrows were raised.
She was someone outside the military and public sector elite, and a
woman to boot.
It did not matter that she had 19 years' experience in duty-free
retail chain DFS Venture Singapore, rising to become a regional
president who oversaw 1,000 staff in Singapore, Malaysia and
Indonesia.
Service is key
'Today, service is the buzzword everywhere in every industry... As
a company, we don't want to see the ride as the only service which
is important. There must be good service in every transaction with
every customer.'
MS SAW, on making it a priority to improve
service
WHO IS SAW PHAIK HWA?
Industry people and analysts sniffed at her mainly retail and
marketing background and absolute lack of experience in running a
large public transport business.
But Ms Saw was unfazed.
'I'm here to manage a public organisation where there is a lot of
service involved and profits are important,' she said in one
interview. 'I have done this all my life. It's really about running
a very big business very efficiently.'
She put it this way in another interview: 'I didn't have to learn
to be a CEO; all I needed was to learn a new trade.
'It's like running the same show, just that you have a different
cast, a different storyline, and they fall in love and seek revenge
at different times.'
Nine years later, the plot has taken a decidedly dire twist and Ms
Saw now finds herself very much the villain.
The 57-year-old CEO has attracted most of the blame for a series of
breakdowns on SMRT's rail lines.
The worst occurred during a five-hour breakdown on Thursday, when
one desperate passenger had to smash open a window to let air into
the stiflingly hot carriage of a stalled train.
Barely 36 hours later, the same train line suffered another
seven-hour outage, just as commuters were rushing into town on the
last weekend before Christmas.
Online, netizens are howling for her resignation, one even coming
up with a template resignation letter on his blog. At Hong Lim Park
on Saturday, 80 people attended a public demonstration calling on
her to quit.
How did it all come to this?
On paper, Ms Saw seems to have done well, growing SMRT's net profit
from $56.8 million in 2002 to $161.1 million this year. SMRT is a
company now renowned among investors here for its high dividend
yield.
One area Ms Saw felt had potential was commercial space and she set
about turning SMRT stations into retail paradises.
The rental of retail space in the stations now accounts for about
45 per cent of the total net earnings.
Under her watch, rail ridership has also gone up, averaging a
combined 1.79 million a day in September this year. Her critics,
however, note that this could also have been due to the addition of
new rail lines and the growth of the resident population.
Her confidence has translated to colourful media profiling to match
the explosion of colours on her head.
Ms Saw has her hair cut famously short and her fringe is almost
always dyed in bright hues that include green and orange.
'If you have to dye your hair, why dye it black? So boring,' she
once retorted.
'You might as well take the opportunity to do what you want. If
it's not nice, just change colour, no big deal.'
But while some would agree her trademark candour has been a nice
contrast to the drone of some official statements, it has also
landed her in the soup on several occasions.
Asked last year about what SMRT can do about overcrowded trains,
she famously angered commuters by replying: 'People can board the
train; it is whether they choose to.'
SMRT was censured for a security breach in May last year that saw
two foreigners break into the operator's Changi depot and
spray-paint graffiti on the side of a parked MRT train.
Despite steps taken to strengthen security, a second breach
occurred at SMRT's Bishan depot in August this year.
Internally, there has also been talk of instability within the
ranks of top management. Recent departures include deputy CEO Yeo
Meng Hin and senior vice-president of finance Catherine Kuan.
SMRT sources say that despite being pilloried in the recent
breakdown, Ms Saw has been working hard behind the scenes.
She has been stationed at the company's headquarters in North
Bridge Road since last Thursday night.
She spent much of Friday morning discussing strategies before
holding a media conference at 3.30pm.
And when the system went down again early on Saturday, The Sunday
Times learnt that Ms Saw visited the affected stations in Bishan,
Toa Payoh and Orchard.
She walked the tunnels at Orchard to assess the damage there before
going to Bishan depot to look at the damaged trains.
For someone who has always promised to make 'improving service' a
priority, it looks like Ms Saw now has her work cut out for
her.
'As a company, we don't want to see the ride as the only service
which is important,' she once said. 'There must be good service in
every transaction with every customer.'
With a Committee of Inquiry looming and a panel called in to relook
at the company's procedures, it looks like SMRT will have to go
back to basics in the next few months.
'There's only one way, (and that) is to get better at this,' said
Ms Saw at the close of Thursday's press conference.
That remark should apply as much to the company, as it does to
her.
