On 6 May, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) issued a media release on its Emerging Stronger Taskforce (EST), which co-chaired by the current Minister for National Development Desmond Lee and PSA International Group CEO Tan Chong Meng.
The list of EST’s members also includes Ms Dilys Boey’s name, with her designation as a Partner of ASEAN People Advisory Services Leader at EY.
In June, Ms Boey was co-opted to the Singapore Cancer Society council.
Singapore Cancer Society stated on its website that Ms Boey is currently on the Board of Special Needs Trust Corporation and a member of the SingHealth Service Excellence Committee, the Singapore Accountancy Commission Professional Education Council, and the EST.
It also stated that she holds the position as the Assistant Chief Executive Officer at Enterprise Singapore (ESG), which is a statutory board formed under the MTI.
ST had also reported on the appointment of six new members of EST last Thursday (19 Nov) and published a list of the 15 existing members, where Ms Boey was listed as the Assistant Chief Executive Officer of ESG.
Her position at ESG was further confirmed when she was quoted as a spokesperson from ESG in ST’s recent report on the launch of “Made With Passion.
The “Made With Passion” brand mark was launched by the Singapore Brand Office and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), which was supported by ESG, to promote local lifestyle brands.
A simple online search does not show any results of ESG announcing Ms Boey’s appointment as its assistant chief executive.
Information between Ms Boey and former PAP MP seemingly scrubbed
Now what is missing from all these information is that Ms Boey is the spouse to current Deputy Attorney-General Hri Kumar Nair, who is a former People’s Action Party’s (PAP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Bishan Toa-Payoh GRC from 2006 to 2015.
According to the Ernst and Young’s (EY) website, Ms Boey graduated with a Master’s degree in Asia-Pacific Human Resources from the National University of Singapore.
She currently leads EY’s People Advisory Services practice across ASEAN, as stated on the website, and dedicated “her career of over 24 years to understanding and working with corporations on various challenges around people, culture and structure”.
Notably, her biography on EY’s website was surprisingly short with no details on her career of “over 24 years”. Ms Boey is also said to be Tin Pei Ling’s former boss at Ernst & Young.
What’s more, Ms Boey’s identity and personal connection to Mr Nair had seemed to be scrubbed by the mainstream media.
It was reported on 12 August 2015 that Mr Nair left politics due to his wife’s diagnosis of lymphoma in 2012, which made him refocus his priorities. Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system that is part of the body’s immune system.
Though The Straits Times (ST) had covered Mr Nair’s announcement on the resignation and even released a video of him speaking at the PAP’s press conference, there was no mention of his wife’s background in the report, not even her name.
Mr Nair also did an interview with AsiaOne in 2010, where he talked about how his name changed from “Hari” to “Hri” and his life as a politician and a lawyer.
He also mentioned his daughter Sarah and his wife Dilys Boey during the interview, in which AsiaOne described Ms Boey works as “a partner and business consultant” with “flexi hours” at Ernst and Young (EY).
AsiaOne highlighted that Mr Nair met his wife a year after he joined Drew & Napier law firms in 1991, where Ms Boey had briefly worked there as a business executive, before the couple got married in 1998.
The article, however, has since been removed by AsiaOne and only accessible on the news archive.
Even further back in 2006, Mr Nair was introduced as a PAP candidate with his wife named. However, this article is not viewable online.
