SMRT Chairman Seah Moon Ming used to be the CEO of local oil and gas company Pavilion Energy but he has decided to relinquish that position to focus on SMRT.
When he was appointed SMRT Chairman in July, he already told the chairman of Pavilion Energy that he hoped to devote more of his time and attention to SMRT once the company has identified a suitable successor.
Meaning to say, this was not a rash decision.
Seah has already planned to quit his day job to focus on solving SMRT’s woes.
Former civil service head Peter Ho commended Seah for having the right mindset, which is to do his best to solve the problem instead of pointing fingers at what went wrong.
Ho said that if something went wrong, people who failed need to be dealt accordingly but the main thing is to solve the problem.
Citing the example of SMRT’s woes, Ho asked if we want to embrace blame-seeking culture or a problem-solving culture.
He lauded Seah for resigning from his real job to handle SMRT’s problems, calling it a “very honourable thing to do”.
“Because he is a real gentleman, he feels obliged to solve the problem. But the only way to solve the problem – and he is not being paid for any of this – is to resign from his real job to deal with this problem.”
Seah was the only high-ranking SMRT leader who bowed in apology for the Bishan tunnel flooding incident.
He did that despite having joined the company for only 3 months.
In case you missed his apology:
Seah will retain his role as Pavilion Energy’s CEO until his successor, Mr. Frédéric Barnaud, takes over on 1 February 2018.
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