About

Ginney Lim has been with her current employer, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), since 1992. After joining the media organisation as corporate secretary and general counsel, Lim successfully set up the legal department and put in place a framework, processes and internal controls to ensure proper legal governance. At the time SPH’s business was only in newspapers and magazines, but since then, the company has diversified into different business segments, including properties, online business, events and exhibitions. ‘As growth and expansion are important to SPH, a major part of my duties involved M&A work’, Lim explains. ‘As a result of the diversification by the group, I had to hire legal counsel with the requisite expertise in various different business segments to support the operations’. As a sign of her deep entrenchment in the organisation, Lim’s professional remit stretches far beyond that of a typical GC. Apart from legal work and acting as company secretary to the SPH Board, Lim is also tasked with overseeing risk management, compliance, sustainability, corporate communications and corporate and social responsibility for the group, and has recently functioned as a director of some of the subsidiaries within the group. ‘I enjoy that my current job is not only confined to doing just legal work’, Lim says. ‘I am involved in senior management steering committees, where high-level discussions are debated and proposals put forth to the board of directors thereafter. I also find the challenge of representing my company as a nominee director on some boards a huge challenge and highly satisfying’. During her career at SPH Lim has seen the company grow in terms of its business operations and has witnessed a growing trust of the company senior management in the legal department. ‘Our department is now seen as an integral part of the business and its strategic decisions, with legal implications only being made after consultation with us’.