Tony Tan

Tony Tan Keng Yam (born 7 February 1940) is a Singaporean banker and politician who served as the seventh president of Singapore between 2011 and 2017.

In 1969, Tan left the University of Singapore and joined OCBC Bank, where he became the general manager, before leaving the bank in 1979 to enter politics.

(In 1969, the NTUC had adopted "a cooperative, rather than a confrontational policy towards employers".)

Although striking was prohibited and trade unions were barred from negotiating such matters as promotion, transfer, employment, dismissal, retrenchment, and reinstatement, issues that "accounted for most earlier labour disputes", the government provided measures for workers' safety and welfare, and serious union disputes with employers were almost always handled through the Industrial Arbitration Court, which had powers of both binding arbitration and voluntary mediation.

He made his political debut in the 1979 by-elections as a PAP candidate contesting in Sembawang SMC and won.

A former member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), Tan was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sembawang GRC after his electoral victory in the 1979 by-elections.

He was subsequently appointed as Senior Minister of State for Education in 1979.

He joined the Cabinet in 1980, serving as Minister for Education.

Tan espoused a cut in the Central Provident Fund (CPF) in the 1980s, which Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had said would not be allowed except "in an economic crisis".

Tan took on the role of Minister for Trade and Industry from 1981 to 1986.

Tan initially opposed the timing of building the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) in 1981 when it was raised by Ong.

Tan held the view that the local construction industry was overheated at the time, and public housing should take priority.

He was also appointed as Minister for Finance from 1983 to 1985, and Minister for Health from 1985 to 1986.

Unlike the previous NTUC secretary-general Lim Chee Onn, Lee Kuan Yew's protégé Ong Teng Cheong in 1983 had an "implicit pact" with the trade unions—involving grassroots leaders in top decisions and "working actively and forcefully" in the interests of the unions "in a way Lim had never seen to do"—in exchange for the unions' continued "cooperation on the government's core industrial relations strategies".

As the Minister for Education, Tan scrapped a policy that favoured children of more well-educated mothers ahead of children of less-educated mothers in primary school placement in response to popular discontent and public criticism of the policy which saw PAP receiving the lowest votes since independence during the 1984 general election.

He also introduced the independent schools system, allowing established educational institutions in Singapore to charge its own fees and have control over their governance and teaching staff, though this was criticised by parents as being "elitist" and made top-ranked schools increasingly out of reach to poorer families due to subsequent fee hikes.

Tan was also known to have opposed the shipping industry strike in January 1986, the first for about a decade in Singapore, which was sanctioned by fellow Cabinet minister, Ong Teng Cheong, who is also Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress, felt the strike was necessary.

As Minister for Trade and Industry, Tan was concerned about investors' reactions to a perceived deterioration of labour relations and the impact on foreign direct investment.

In his analysis, historian Michael Barr explains that older [grassroots] union leaders bore "increasing disquiet" at their exclusion from consultation in NTUC's policies, which were effectively managed by "technocrats" in the government.

In December 1991, Tan stepped down from the Cabinet to return to the private sector, where he rejoined OCBC Bank as the chairman and chief executive officer from 1992 to 1995, while retaining his seat in the Parliament as the Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC.

After Ong Teng Cheong and Lee Hsien Loong were diagnosed with cancer in 1992 and 1993 respectively, Tan was asked to return to Cabinet in August 1995 as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence.

It was reported that he declined an offer of make-up pay, which compensate ministers for a loss in salary when they leave the private sector.

Tan declared that "the interests of Singapore must take precedence over that of a bank and my own personal considerations".

He also served as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1995 and 2005.

However, Ong felt these measures did not prevent "management [from] taking advantage of the workers", recalling in a 2000 interview in Asiaweek: "Some of them were angry with me about that... the minister for trade and industry [Tan] was very angry, his officers were upset. They had calls from America, asking what happened to Singapore?"

However the fact that the strike only lasted two days before "all the issues were settled" was cited by Ong in a 2000 interview with Asiaweek as proof that "management was just trying to pull a fast one".

In August 2003, he relinquished the portfolio of Minister for Defence and became Coordinating Minister for Security and Defence, while retaining the portfolio of Deputy Prime Minister.

Tan resigned from the Cabinet in 2005 and was appointed Deputy Chairman and Executive Director of GIC, the country's sovereign wealth fund, Chairman of the National Research Foundation and Chairman of SPH.

Tan was appointed as Deputy Chairman and Executive Director of GIC, the country's sovereign wealth fund, following his second retirement from Cabinet in 2005.

He was also appointed as Chairman of the National Research Foundation, Deputy Chairman of the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council, and Chairman of Singapore Press Holdings concurrently.

Tan's tenure at GIC coincided with moves toward greater disclosure in the investment fund's activities amid mounting concerns about the secretive fund's influence after high-profile investments in UBS and Citigroup.

He resigned from all of his positions in 2010 before contesting in the 2011 presidential election as an independent candidate.

Tan won the 2011 presidential election in a four-cornered fight and served as the president of Singapore until 2017.

He did not seek for a re-election in the 2017 presidential election, which was reserved for Malay candidates after a constitutional amendment.

Prior to entering politics, Tan was a general manager at OCBC Bank.

His presidential term ended & had officially retired on 1 September 2017.

He was succeeded by Halimah Yacob on 14 September 2017.

Tan was educated at St Patrick's School and St Joseph's Institution before topping his class and graduating from the University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore) with a Bachelor of Science with first class honours degree in physics, under a scholarship conferred by the Singapore Government.

He subsequently went on to complete a Master of Science degree in operations research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the Asia Foundation Scholarship.

He also completed a Doctor of Philosophy in applied mathematics at the University of Adelaide, and went on to teach mathematics at the University of Singapore.