SINGAPOREANS ARE getting increasingly used to opening up their morning papers these days to find another report on Ho Ching, the recently appointed executive director at Temasek Holdings, the Finance Ministry's influential holding company.
The blizzard of coverage is in marked contrast to previous practice. Ms Ho, the former head of defence conglomerate Singapore Technologies and the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, has been described as the city-state's most powerful woman, but she has shunned the limelight over the years.
Until recent weeks, the 49-year-old had granted only a handful of media interviews, assiduously guarding her low profile. All that is now changing, however, and the sphinx of the Singapore establishment is fast becoming less inscrutable by the day. The latest instalment came last week after Ms Ho granted a few reporters a rare opportunity to question her over lunch in her new office building. 'She offered glimpses of the tough corporate leader, career-minded woman and the caring wife and mother she is,' the pro-government Straits Times reported.
Readers learned that she thinks the Lee family - the city-state's most influential - 'is like any other'. She said she replaces broken light bulbs at home, while her husband and the country's next leader takes care of the computers.
On offer as well were hints about what Temasek needed to do to energise its vast stable of companies, which range from Singapore Airlines, the flag-carrier, to DBS Group, the banking business that last year bought Hong Kong's Dao Heng Bank.
'We need to change from driving a Volkswagen to a Formula One racing car to compete with the best in the world,' she told the Straits Times.
