 A
chartered accountant or “scorekeeper” by training, Ms Woo Kwai Merng is far from
the regular finance person. Rather than depend on her “line” function, she has
used her sharp business acumen and the ability to remain extremely focused to chart a
career path which has taken her by “the least travelled route” to success.
 Extremely astute at strategy, mergers and
acquisitions, Ms Merng was drawn to this kind of work because the challenge of identifying
acquisition targets with a seamless execution plan excites her. The icing on the cake is
being a part of the Group’s growth success story.
Ms Merng joined NatSteel in 1990 as
Manager to the Senior Vice President of NatSteel Pvt. Ltd. She grew rapidly in terms of
responsibility and stature in a business environment where “women are no different
from men. In Singapore, we have many successful women who are chief executive officers of
MNCs,” she comments.
Her ability to see potential in target
companies, that others may not be able to spot and to scan the environment so as to
anticipate changes, while formulating strategy also presented her with one of her greatest
challenges - to prove to those who had faith in her that accountants can indeed be good
with strategies and can evolve into business leaders. As head of the Thailand operations
from 2002 to 2005, she had to move away from her line function to the entirely different
ballgame of running an operation with bottomline responsibilities.
Success
Story of a
“scorekeeper”
Ms Woo Kwai Merng,
Executive Vice President,
NatSteel Asia Pvt. Ltd.
Ms Woo Kwai Merng is the
Executive Vice President of NatSteel Asia Pte Ltd. As head of the Corporate Development
Division, she is responsible for corporate planning and strategies as well as merger and
acquisition initiatives of the steel and wire operations.
With a career span of 15
years with NatSteel, Ms Woo started as a Manager to the Senior Vice President of NatSteel
Limited in 1990. She was then transferred to head the Thailand operations, Siam Industrial
Wire Ltd from 2002 to 2005. During her tenure there, she successfully expanded the Thai
operations from an annual turnover of USD50 million to more than USD100 million.
Ms Woo holds a Bachelor
of Accountancy from the National University of Singapore and is a Fellow Certified Public. |
|
“Other than language and culture
issues that I had to grapple with, I had to be very hands-on and learn to deal with people
from the very junior operators in the factory to very senior executives of the customers.
I had to know everything from production to sales, to HR, quality controls with good
leadership quality so as to earn their respect,” she recalls.
Now as NatSteel Asia is integrating with
Tata Steel, the immediate similarity which she finds among them is the professionalism of
the two organisations, their belief in upholding integrity and a strong sense of social
responsibility.
This strong modern woman carries this
adherence to accountability and integrity to her personal life as well. “I,
personally, believe in being responsible, standing by my views, upholding integrity,
having entrepreneurial instinct, thinking out-of-the-box and travelling by the least
traveled route to distinguish myself from others,” she asserts.
The strategist in her has carefully laid
out plans for personal growth and success. Here is a person who believes that if she
hadn’t chosen to go overseas, she would have never realised her potential. “One
must be adventurous and get out of the comfort tone,” is her cracker of a parting
shot. |
