A champion of S'pore sports

HIS resume reads like an overachiever - athlete, entrepreneur, politician, diplomat and sports advocate. Ng Ser Miang, has worn many hats in his illustrious career, but his lifelong passion has always been sports.

He has spent the past four decades raising the standard of sports in Singapore and making the impossible possible. For one, he helped the country clinch Olympic medals and meetings recently, previously deemed way out of Singapore's league.

Soft-spoken and mild-mannered, his demeanour belies his steely conviction and competitive streak in everything he does.

He spearheaded Singapore's successful staging of the inaugural Youth Olympics in 2010. He was the first man from Asean to be elected to one of the four International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president posts in 2009. He also ran for the post of IOC president in 2013, a historic campaign that had many Singaporeans rooting for him.

"I'm a very competitive person," the former Singapore Sailing chief and Singapore Sports Council chairman told the media before the secret votes were cast. "I want to make sure that every job I handle ends up well."

"Even as an athlete, once you go into competition, you are there to win," added Singapore's former national sailor who won a silver medal at the 1969 South-east Asian Peninsular (Seap) Games.

While he did not win the IOC president post, the man who was already a giant in the global sporting scene is still a big name on the Olympic circuit - as chair of the IOC's Finance Commission.

The former Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) and current non-resident Ambassador to Norway is also a luminary in business circles.

He founded Singapore's second bus company, Trans-Island Bus Services (Tibs), and went on to sit on several company boards, including NTUC FairPrice with revenue doubling from S$1.4 billion to S$2.8 billion during his nine-year tenure as chairman.

Mr Ng was born in 1949, the year his landowning family fled civil unrest in Shantou, China, for Singapore. The sixth of nine children of a textile merchant and housewife, he studied at Serangoon Garden Government High School and Dunman Government High.

Growing up, he always wanted to be a doctor as it was a noble profession that allowed him to give back to society by saving lives.

But he soon scrapped that thought of being a doctor after a stint as an exchange student in California. His host family taught him sailing and skiing. He was 17, and was smitten by the sporting bug.

After returning to Singapore, he became a competitive sailor while studying business administration at the then University of Singapore. While he won medals, he decided to pursue business instead of sports although he never stopped sailing.

He went to work at Chung Khiaw Bank in 1973 after graduation. Three years later, he got involved in the troubled Singapore Shuttle Bus company and transformed it into the successful Tibs, which was later sold to SMRT.

At Tibs, he was known for wanting to provide a higher level of service in public transport. He put in ergonomic bus seats and introduced flexi wages to reward drivers who worked harder. He even rented a house near Sembawang Road near his bus depot, so that he could wave off drivers starting their shifts at 5 am.

His efforts paid off. When SMRT Corp took over Tibs in 2004, he gained S$80 million. He then went on to become chairman of supermarket chain FairPrice. Again, he worked on improving the business, believing that low prices should not mean low quality.

Mr Ng is credited with launching FairPrice Finest, to meet growing affluence. But he also reaffirmed the cooperative's social mission and set up the NTUC FairPrice Foundation to help the needy.

Throughout his business career, he always had one foot in sports. He chaired the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) for 11 years from 1991, became an IOC member in 1998, made it to its executive board in 2005 and was voted its first vice-president since 2009.

Even as an NMP, from 2002 to 2005, he never failed to speak up about sports issues in Parliament.

On what kept him going as a sports advocate all these years, he said in an interview: "I believe in the power and value of sport, especially for young people. And the power of sport for nation-building and community bonding.

"It also helps me build relationships internationally. My sports relationships have helped me a lot in my diplomatic work (as Singapore's Ambassador to Norway and previously Hungary). It opens doors easily. Some heads of state I've met through the IOC, also senior politicians. I met the King of Norway through international sailing back in the 1980s. One of my IOC colleagues, Pal Schmitt, became President of Hungary."

At the SSC, he initiated the Spex 2000 programme, a strategy of targeting core sports to win medals, and the Sports-for-Life Programme to get the old and the young exercising regularly. He helped Singapore bring home its first silver Olympic medal in 48 years in 2008.

Even now, he has no plans to retire from the sporting arena. He has said before that he plans to devote his life to sports development and make sailing Singapore's national sport.

His three children also followed in his sporting footsteps - all sail and ski. His elder daughter, Xuan Hui, is a South-east Asia Games sailing champion. She won the 1991 Optimist gold and 1993 women's 420 title.

He once attributed the lure of sailing to the sense of freedom it gives.

"You're out there with nothing but your boat and the sea and the sky. You deal with calm, with storm, with sunshine, with rain, with light and strong winds and currents. The whole environment is ever-changing . . . I think it's really strategic, you always have to have a big picture of things happening around you," he said.

Keeping the big picture in sight is perhaps what continues to fuel his dedication to sports and everything else in life.