Perfect timing for new start

Businesswoman who created luxury watch empire from Singapore boutique says life is just beginning at age 69

Spotlights shine down as the waltz begins. In a long black chiffon gown that flutters like butterfly wings, she gracefully glides across the ritzy ballroom.

"It's my biggest hobby now," says Jannie Chan as she shows a video on her smartphone of a performance in Tokyo. It was only four years ago that she learned the basics of ballroom dancing. Today, Chan can be found competing in Las Vegas championships.

"At this time of my life, I have to do something for myself that I enjoy," she tells China Daily Asia Weekly. "The best part is; I'm doing it with my daughter Sabrina."

But Chan is not, in fact, a professional dancer. The sexagenarian entrepreneur is best known as the co-founder of The Hour Glass, a boutique on Singapore's Orchard Road that developed into a luxury watch empire in the region.

Starting a business was not Chan's first choice of career, however. She acquired a master's degree in pharmacology in Australia, and teaching in a medical school was her first job.

Born in the tin-mining town of Ipoh in Malaysia, Chan grew up in an upper-middle-class family that she described as "very entrepreneurial". Her father was a politician and entrepreneur who owned businesses in lottery, life insurance and a medical hall.

She was immersed in a business culture from a young age. At 10, Chan accompanied her father on sales trips to Singapore to promote the family's traditional medicated oil. On other occasions, she was brought to meet her father's business clients and attend political rallies in Penang.

These experiences were eye-openers for Chan. "In that sense, I was being ingrained an entrepreneur without realizing it," she explains. "Entrepreneurship is basically common sense. It's about buying and selling. It's about relationships."

A mother of four, Chan is no stranger to family tragedy. Her firstborn daughter died prematurely due to brain damage. Her youngest daughter Sabrina was born with rubella, a hole in her heart and without ears.

"I did ask: 'Why God, why me?'" she says. "Then I realized it's for me to learn what life has given me. You just take it on and the make the best out of it."

It was when she was expecting her second child that Chan made her first steps in the business, starting out as a saleswoman in her parent-in-law's 50-year-old watch firm.

"The invaluable part was doing everything you need to learn, from selling to bookkeeping, from understanding watches to serving customers," she says. This solid grounding at the sharp end of the watch business paved the way for a new chapter in her life, when she decided to open her own shop.

It was a bold decision to venture into the market for high-end timepieces at a time when luxury retail was still far from a full-fledged concept in Asia.

"I started The Hour Glass in 1979 when I was a new kid on the block, a woman coming from outer space," she says, jokingly.

But Chan turned out to be particularly sensitive to market signals. She observed that a lot of Australians and wealthy spenders from the region were coming to Singapore to shop. Her initial plan was thus to establish the first luxury watch outlet on Orchard Road.

The 1,000-square-meter boutique was the first of its kind in Singapore - carpeted and air-conditioned, and advertised with full-page and full-color commercials. Her then-husband Henry also helped to bring the first Cartier boutique to the region in her store.

The turning point came in 1996 when Chan purchased the company and brand name of Gerald Genta, the renowned Swiss watch designer who created the Royal Oak for Audemars Piguet, as well as watches under his own brand.

The Hour Glass has made its name not only as a watch retailer but also by crafting watches for the super-rich, including members of the Brunei royal family. The most expensive watch ever sold by the boutique, a model from the collection of Patek Philippe, went for a record $7 million, Chan says.

Today, The Hour Glass has mushroomed into a regional network of 24 luxury boutiques in major shopping belts in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Australia and Thailand, and has a market capitalization of $318 million.

But even established players are not immune from challenges in the retail world, which can include surging rents, demanding customers and shrinking profits.

Chan recognizes the demands of sustaining a business. When you open a new shop, you cannot assume that you will necessarily get customers, she warns.

"The competition is there, the cost is there and the market is so differentiated," she explains.

Adapting to market changes is the key for Chan. In recent years, seeing the rise of China's new wealthy, The Hour Glass launched limited-edition watches targeting a new breed of heirloom collectors.

"You have to constantly come up with different marketing strategies," she says.

Sipping a cup of black coffee in a caf, Chan looks back over her long and distinguished career in which she holds many "firsts". She is the first female president of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Business Forum and of the Singapore Retailers Association.

She is also the first and only female board member in the Commonwealth Business Council. In 2009, she became the first winner of the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award organized by Enterprise Asia.

However, Chan used to fear and reject some labels inevitably bestowed on her - being a powerful woman or a "supermom" - which often have negative connotations in traditional societies in Asia.

"When a man is successful, people say he is dynamic and brilliant. If a woman is successful, people will say she's a bitch, a dragon lady, a steel woman and she's overpowering," she says.

But times are changing. "It's a woman's age," she says, citing the examples of the International Monetary Fund and US Federal Reserve which both have female leaders. "Today, we need not be a man," she says. "In fact, I've never been like a man. I've always throughout my career been a mother first - although I delegated."

Chan recalls her once-demanding schedule that involved working seven days a week, and traveling up to eight months a year. Because of this, she made the decision to send her children to boarding schools in the United Kingdom.

"This is supposed to be the main regret - that you have no time for your children. This is one part about working women," she says. "I spent my time building up wealth for my children so they could have the same lifestyle I had when I was a child. Everything must be planned for the best of my children."

Ten years ago, Chan decided to take a step back to a quieter life, and handed over the day-to-day reins of The Hour Glass to her brother and her son Michael.

With no plans for retirement, Chan, who turns 69 in May, sees herself as in her prime. "My life is just starting. I always laugh and tell my friends I'm going to live until 118," she says. "In fact, it's a perfect stage because we make all the mistakes we have made and we know how to play in this marketplace."

Today, she is investing in new businesses from biotechnology to sustainability, supporting reforestation projects to combat global warming.