Transforming Singapore women through CRIB

Founders of CRIB,
Ms Tjin Lee
Dr Elaine Kim
Ms Marilyn Lum
Ms Mei Chee

Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. The first two speakers have done such a wonderful job – I'm not sure what I can else add. Just to say that about a year ago, I was approached by these three ladies; now it has increased to four – Mei, nice to meet you; with a very great idea, a very noble idea.

2. The three ladies took just about five minutes to impress me enough to want to support them. Because not only are they successful professionally, they are also successful entrepreneurs. They have several businesses and they are very humble. They don't tell you all at one go. As you talk to them they will say, oh, by the way I have this and I have that, and I have this and that. So they are very successful in their own right and I am sure there's thousand and one things they can do with their time and their resources but they decided to come together to start something for women. A non-profit social enterprise, no less, with the belief, that having gone through that process and really enjoying entrepreneurship – enjoying the flexibility that being your own boss offers, plus the challenges but also understanding how one is juggling family and businesses.

3. And they see that being in a start-up has its advantages. First of all you call your own shots, you do it at your own time, you have the flexibility. And working as business managers – the Bs – also as a start-up also allows you flexibility to do it from home, so you find both in time as well as workplace. They felt energised and inspired enough to want to share this dream with the rest of women in Singapore. And I thought that that's a really wonderful objective because these women could have just kept their energy to themselves and make probably a lot more money for themselves but no, they decided to come together and do this.

4. And so I thought that it's really a good, noble objective that I should support. I fully backed them up and I am so glad to see that after a year, not only has the idea bore fruit, I can see from today's gathering that they have gone on to recruit many members who believe in the same dream. They have also convinced me, advisors and mentors, who are similarly social-minded enough to want to contribute back to supporting women.

5. And I can see from this gathering that many of these women are successful and they are not only successful in their businesses, but they are successful in providing leadership as well. They are inspiring role models for all of us, including me. When I retire I will probably join you to start a business or two. But it shows that I think you need to have confidence in yourself. You need to believe in your ability, your talent but also find companionship, find support amongst yourself and go for it. Go for it, go for your goals, stick with it, persevere and you will find success at the end.

6. But I hope that the success stories out of CRIB, so far we have four already raising a million dollars, but I believe there will be many more. My dream is that the success stories will come back and help CRIB. Because CRIB, I know from several rounds of discussion with the ladies, is always struggling with a sustainable revenue model that will keep them going and achieving their dream of expanding this further with trying to get as many women accessible to CRIB as possible. So they have always struggled with the membership fee – how to keep it low enough so that potential women will not be put off. At the same time, how do I have enough money to find some full-time work and so on to keep it going because they are running businesses on their own. So I know that the revenue model perhaps in the beginning is going to be quite tough, quite challenging, and it's kept low for a purpose to help all of us here.

7. But some of you who become multi-millionaires in the future, please remember this platform has helped you and hope you will come back to help keep CRIB going. Because CRIB is what I think is going to be important in transforming Singapore women, particularly those who have businesses in mind because I think it's only when we are passing the torch from one generation of entrepreneurs to another, that we are able to improve the well-being and livelihood of women.

8. There are so many women out there that can benefit from CRIB. So I urge everyone here to keep CRIB going, to support CRIB and to do your very best to make CRIB a success. And I say again, when you are successful, please tell people about CRIB. Thank you very much.