Handling it with military precision

The city's stock investors may know George Yeo only as the new chairman of Kerry Logistics, a unit of Hong Kong-listed Kerry Properties.

But a simple Google search would turn up photographs of Yeo with political dignitaries such as Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Yeo, also a vice-chairman of Kerry Group, which publishes the South China Morning Post, was in politics for most of his life before he joined the private sector. He is a former Singapore member of Parliament and minister for foreign affairs but retired from politics after he lost his seat in the general election last year.

Prior to entering parliament, Yeo, who studied at Cambridge University and Harvard, was a brigadier-general in the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF). He served as the chief of staff of the RSAF from 1985 to 1986 and as the director of joint operations and planning at the Ministry of Defence from 1986 to 1988.

That experience has stood him in good stead in his new role at the head of a logistics firm. In January this year, he accepted Kerry Group chairman Robert Kuok's invitation to join the company as vice-chairman and took up the chairmanship of Kerry Logistics on August 1.

Yeo feels he has long been connected, indirectly, with the logistics industry. In his youth, he helped his father to take care of a rubber godown. Later, he was involved in logistics planning and operations during his time in the air force. While he was trade minister and foreign minister of Singapore, he kept an eye on the logistics industry in member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) from a policy perspective.