Foo Mee Har

Foo Mee Har (born 1966) is a Malaysian-born Singaporean politician and businesswoman.

She is a member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP).

Foo attended Ave Maria Convent School in Ipoh, Malaysia from 1973 to 1982, and Loreto Normanhurst in Sydney, Australia from 1983 to 1985, before graduating from the University of New South Wales in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science degree with first class honours in psychology.

Foo started her career in 1990 as a Management Consultant with Coopers and Lybrand Management Consultants (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) and PA Consulting Group.

She later joined Jardine Matheson's shipping group as the Head of HR.

Foo was with Standard Chartered Bank from 1994 to 2012, during which she held a number of senior positions across the Group.

From 2003–2005, Foo was appointed the Country Head of Consumer Banking in China, spearheading the growth of the Consumer Banking franchise in China.

From 2006–2008, she was President & CEO of Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) pcl with overall responsibility for the Bank in Thailand.

In 2008, Foo was appointed Global Head for Priority & International Banking business with overall responsibility for banking, financing and wealth management of affluent and international banking client segments, a business that spanned over 30 countries in Asia, Africa and Middle East.

Foo was involved with a range of corporate community programs, including advocacy, outreach and fund-raising for causes such as avoidable blindness, HIV/AIDs and healthy living.

She started the inaugural Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon, which has become one of the largest sporting events.

Foo joined the PAP in 2010, and was unveiled as PAP's candidate for the 2011 Singapore general election.

During her introduction, Foo said that living abroad gave her the opportunity "to really reflect on Singapore, its government, systems and its processes" and appreciate its unique strengths.

Foo has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ayer Rajah division from 2011 to 2020.

Foo made her political debut in the 2011 general election as part of a five-member PAP team contesting in West Coast GRC and won 66.6% of the vote.

In March 2011, Foo was featured in Sunday Times' Women at the Top series, an eight-part weekly series on successful women in Singapore.

She stepped down as Global Head of Priority & International Banking for Standard Chartered Bank in 2013 to focus on constituency work and to pursue other interests.

She had a long-standing career at Standard Chartered Bank spanning 19 years covering Asia, Africa and Middle East markets.

After being elected, she was then appointed Deputy Chairperson of the Finance, Trade and Industry Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) in the 14th Parliament of Singapore.

PAP Women's Wing

Foo is the Treasurer to the PAP Women's Wing Executive Committee.

She is also a member of the Advocacy Subcommittee.

She led a position paper urging the government to put in an enhanced level of resources to effect the necessary change in the workplace to make it pro-family and called by flexi-work legislation.

In an interview with Channel NewsAsia, she said, "As a professional woman, I'm hoping that I can contribute to the women's agenda in Singapore. I'm a banker by profession, so hopefully this network can help me reach out to women, especially the professional women, and understand their issues."

Leveraging her portfolio in Parliament, her depth of experience in the financial sector as well as her experience as a working mother, Foo has championed the following causes:

Fiscal Sustainability

As Chairman of the Estimates Committee of Singapore Parliament, Foo has called on government to ensure spending remains sustainable and prudent, without imposing undue tax burdens on future generation of Singaporeans.

She also raised the need for robust KPIs, monitoring mechanisms, transparency and accountability of government initiatives.

Foo cautioned the government not to depend on outsourced vendors and consultants to supply technology knowledge, but to build a strong Singaporean core of highly competent public sector officers with cutting-edge expertise in technology, including data science and cyber security.

Business Transformation

Foo has been a strong advocate of government support to help small and medium-sized enterprises transform.

She called on the government to shift to a higher gear where help provided becomes more targeted and solutions are tailored to address companies' specific operational issues.

Concurrently, the private sector needs to step up and pull their own weight for transformation to succeed.

During the 2015 general election, Foo retained her parliamentary seat in the West Coast GRC after defeating the opposition Reform Party with 78.6% of the vote.

Foo has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the Wealth Management Institute, Asia's Centre of Excellence for wealth and asset management education and research in 2015.

In July 2015, Foo was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Wealth Management Institute in Singapore.

She has also been appointed as Council Member of the Singapore Business Federation in 2018.

Since 2020, she represents the Ayer Rajah-Gek Poh division, a result of the merger between the Jurong West portion of Hong Kah North SMC and West Coast GRC's Ayer Rajah ward.

During the 2020 general election, Foo retained her parliamentary seat in West Coast GRC again after garnering 51.68% of vote.

Prior to entering politics, Foo had 30 years of corporate experience with leading international firms and has held senior leadership roles across businesses and geographies.