Poor girl, rich girl, top girl?

She was raised in an orphanage, and while she may not know much of her past, Olivia Lum is building a future that many will remember. PN Balji profiles the recently named World Entrepreneur of the Year.

Hunger is a theme that Singapore water entrepreneur Olivia Lum keeps coming back to in her interviews. She told the press after bagging the prestigious World Entrepreneur of the Year award on June 4: "This reinforces that there are no difficulties you can't overcome when you have faced the challenges of hunger and poverty."

That is her life story, too.

She grew up in the mean streets of Perak, Malaysia, as an orphan living with four other children in a hut under a tin roof. Lum survived by selling fruit and bread in her school canteen.

She was a smart and hard-working kid, excelling in examinations. Her early life's turning point came when her teacher advised her to continue her studies in Singapore, the place down south where many Chinese Malaysians went to in search of that pot of gold.

With almost no money in her pocket, the teenage Lum boarded a train and headed straight to Singapore. She lived with Good Samaritans while she knocked on the doors of junior colleges for admission. She supported herself by being an insurance agent. Good results got her into university and she eventually graduated with a degree in chemistry.

Her first job was with Glaxo Pharmaceuticals as a chemist at the company's water plant. But her ambition was growing, and she set her sights on starting her own business.

This desire and her love affair with water made her start what was to become Hyflux, a company with market capitalization of about $1.8 billion and a listing on the Singapore stock exchange.

She remembered telling her boss in 1989: I have no money, no technology to sell, and no customers, but I feel that water is a sunrise business and I can do something for the environment.

At the age of 28 and with just $15,000 and two employees, she took the dive into the deep. The business started as a trading company selling local water-treatment services to other companies in Singapore and the region. But that was not enough for her.

Lum got in touch with her university lecturers for research and development and began to reinvent her business. Her trading house became an innovation center and a maker of systems that use fine membranes.

Her timing couldn't have been better. The Singapore government was beginning to see water technology as a business and as an export industry. Her company shifted focus to producing drinking water from sewage water and from seawater and Lum was poised for the big time.

Today, Hyflux is one of the world's largest water-treatment companies with annual revenues of $450 million and a staff of 2,300 across Southeast Asia, China, India, the Middle East and North Africa.

She knew that to make it big she had to go into China. Lum opened in Shanghai in 1993, just four years after starting Hyflux. For three years, the China revenue was zero. "We almost bankrupted the company," she told the Financial Times.

All that is history. Today, the China business contributes 20 percent to her firm's revenues and Hyflux now has more than 40 projects throughout China.

The company developed China's largest seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in Tianjin Dagang and is operating and maintaining the plant on a 30-year concession.

Recently, it was awarded four projects on the Build-Own-Transfer arrangement, each with a concession period of 30 years.

These included a wastewater treatment plant for Zunyi City in Guizhou province, and two wastewater treatment plants and a potable water treatment plant in Hechuan Industrial Park, Chongqing City.

On June 4, Olivia Lum was feted for her achievements when she beat 48 country finalists to be crowned the Ernst and Young World Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 - the first woman to win in its 11-year history.

Looking back on her struggles and achievements, Lum said she realized the need for and the value of money.

"Without money it was very painful. Our neighbors quarreled because of money. I knew early on that I should not let money manage me, and at the start, it was a big motivator for me.

"Now I always feel blessed that I can create a lot of opportunities for myself and others. If I am able to create opportunity, that is the biggest satisfaction.

"My people are able to be better off financially, emotionally. Sometimes they have not discovered how good they are until you give them an opportunity."

On being a woman and an entrepreneur, the 50-year-old said: "The pressure may be unspoken but it is real: Starting a business is much harder for a woman than for a man. But once you have launched your business, then making it really successful is equally hard for a man or a woman."

The best compliment a woman boss could get must come from a man, especially from a person who works closely with her. Asked about Lum, he said without hesitation: "She is fantastic. Olivia is decisive and is not afraid to admit it if she has made a mistake."

(China Daily 06/27/2011 page9)