Jannie Chan


Jannie Chan Siew Lee, also known by her married name, Jannie Tay, is a Singaporean entrepreneur and former president of the Singapore Retailers Association and the ASEAN Business Forum, in both cases the first woman to hold the position.
Chan earned a B.Sc. in physiology and an M.Sc. in pharmacology from Monash University in 1968 and 1971, and was a lecturer in both subjects at the National University of Singapore.
In 1979 she co-founded The Hour Glass Limited, a luxury watch retailer, with her husband, Henry Tay., it had 41 stores in several countries; she was formerly executive vice-president and executive vice-chairman.
She founded the holding company Save Our Planet Investments and the non-profit Save Our Planet Foundation, which works for reforestation to mitigate climate change. Her most recent company is Scientific Tradition Pte Ltd, which develops mushroom products based on traditional Chinese medicine.
Chan contributed to the 2006 book, Six Billion Minds: Managing Outsourcing in the Global Knowledge Economy. She is the first female president of the Singapore Retailers Association and of the ASEAN Business Forum, the first female executive board member of the Commonwealth Business Council and founder chairman of the Commonwealth Business Women Leaders' Network. She also serves on the first Business Advisory Council of the United Nations Office for Project Services and on the Business Advisory Council of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. She is active for women's rights: she was one of the organisers of the first Women Inspire exposition and business forum in Singapore in 2002 and was president of the Singapore chapter of WOW.
On 20 June 2019, .

Personal

Chan is of Hakka Chinese heritage; her father and grandfather were "sinsehs". She has six siblings, four of whom became physicians.
Chan and her husband have three children, Audrey, Michael and Sabrina. Their first child died in childhood. They divorced in 2010.

Honours