Nothing in the background of Fanny Lai, head of the company that runs Singapore Zoo and the consummate marketing professional, had prepared her for what happened two weeks ago.

Not her studies for a McDonald's hamburgerology degree. Not even when thousands of Singaporeans went berserk over Hello Kitty dolls at an event she organised eight years ago for the fast-food chain.

The event: when the zoo's white tigers killed a cleaner who went into their enclosure on Nov 13.

At the time, the group chief executive officer of Wildlife Reserves Singapore, which runs the zoo, Night Safari and Jurong BirdPark, was at a wake. It was for her 84- year-old mother, Madam Foo Gee Fong.

The call came just after noon: A man was inside the tiger enclosure.

Over the phone, she spoke to her department heads. Stay calm, she told them. Make sure no one is hurt. Keep the channels of communication with the media open.

The 51-year-old was about to go to the zoo when a few minutes later, she was told that cleaner Nordin Montong, 32, who had climbed into the enclosure, was dead.

She stayed at the wake, mourning a mother who ran a tailoring business at the family department store in Changi Village and who, with her father, raised six children and sent them to university.

Using her phone and Blackberry, she kept in touch with her team for the next five hours.

It must have been a wrenching time for this dutiful daughter, mother of two and high-achieving businesswoman.

That day, though, family came first. She remained with them.

The next day, it was back to business: She went to work, attended a senior management meeting and opened a new attraction, the Rainforest Kidzworld. 'We decided to proceed as planned, to assure people that the Singapore Zoo is a safe place.'

She capped off the tough week by leaving for Florida in the United States the next day, on Saturday, to attend a long- planned industry conference.

Ms Fanny Lai's first year birthday in this 1958 picture with her mother, Madam Foo Gee Fong, then aged 34. - PHOTO: COURTESY OF FANNY LAI

From fast food to animals

The two events came a week after the first of several interviews for a story on Ms Lai.

The idea was sparked after she was given an inaugural Woman Professional of the Year award from the Institute of Advertising Singapore last month. It came only nine months after she took on the post at Wildlife Reserves. She was formerly the executive director of the zoo and Night Safari.

Just who is this woman who moved many to tears with her eulogy at the funeral of much-loved orang utan Ah Meng in February, and yet has the business savvy to make the zoo - which has the world's largest animal collection of about 4,000 creatures - Night Safari and BirdPark run at a profit?

Three weeks ago - a week before the white tiger incident - Life! first spoke to Ms Lai at her offices at the zoo.

It was immediately clear that here was a person adept at running an organisation in tune with its staff, its stakeholders and the times, with their contradictory demands.

For example, asked if the complex- looking chairs in the stylish steel, glass and wood corporate offices at the zoo are from American high-end design firm Herman Miller, she moved quickly to nip that question in the bud.

'We are trying to be prudent. No gold-plated taps here,' she laughed, in an oblique reference to the National Kidney Foundation scandal.

Her caution was understandable. Wildlife Reserves generated a revenue of $88million in the last financial year, of which 20 per cent was profit. Yet it still takes in government grants, corporate sponsorship and public donations.

Her team needs to attract top talent but has to spend money the way a non- profit organisation should. So no high- end chairs and certainly no gold taps.

Still, the tasteful office, housing 100 office employees (there are another 450 field workers), looks like it could belong to a software company in Shenton Way.

Its appearance is just one sign of the shake-ups that swept through the organisation starting in 2000. That was when it was formed to overhaul the running of the parks which, till 2004, ran at a deficit.

Most zoos around the world run at a loss but the company needed solid financials to 'dream big', in the words of then executive chairman Robert Kwan.

One change the public would have noticed is that the three parks have revamped their live shows and attractions. So there are no circus sideshows, such as tea with the orang utans. Changing attitudes about the treatment of animals have put a stop to that.

But on the other side of the cage, MsLai is as much a symbol of the management revolution as the tasteful new offices, redesigned uniforms and $3.6-million Wildlife Healthcare and Research Centre where visitors can see animals being operated on through a video link.

Ms Lai (centre) on her first day in school at Cheong Seng Primary in 1963. - PHOTO: COURTESY OF FANNY LAI

For one thing, her background is in marketing. Previously, the heads of the parks tended to be trained in the animal sciences. They pottered about in jeans. So does she, but hers are animal-print ones from Italian designer Roberto Cavalli.

And not only did she come in as an outsider, but she was also no civil service brahmin or a suit from a non-profit organisation.

She hailed from that embodiment of the American management ethic, McDonald's, where she was Singapore director of marketing and communications for 12 years, reporting to the man who brought the brand to Singapore in 1979, Mr Kwan.

The global burger chain was a client when she was an account director at an advertising agency.

She was attracted by its attention to detail, which she would hone at McDonald's Hamburger University in Chicago in 1991 with a degree in fast food restaurant management, also known popularly as a certification in hamburgerology.

She joined it as head of the marketing team at a time when it was second in size to rival KFC, where she had also spent time in marketing during the 1980s.

At McDonald's, she signed off on over 100 commercials that have become part of Singapore pop culture. There was the one with the elderly Mandarin-speaking woman and her high-spirited, burger- loving grandson; the Liang Po Po ads with comedian Jack Neo; and the ones where local stars Fann Wong and Zoe Tay played on their supposed rivalry.

Her team's ability to engineer excitement was displayed in boisterous fashion in 2000, when thousands of normally placid Singaporeans went mad for McDonald's Hello Kitty dolls, leading to punch-ups and shattered glass.

She is proud to have created a marketing coup but prefers to keep a low profile about the incident: 'We expected it to be huge but didn't expect it to be that big.'

Getting down and dirty

It was Mr Kwan who, as executive chairman of Wildlife Reserves, invited her to join the Singapore Zoo in 2004 as marketing and communications director.

Though he stepped down as chairman last year, they still stay in touch. Former Nominated Member of Parliament and senior vice-president of luxury hotel chain Banyan Tree Claire Chiang took over in April this year.

Describing Mr Kwan as her mentor, Ms Lai said: 'When we build an exhibit, most people would go through a paralysis of analysis. For Bob, he would come to the park and make his own assessment.'

When she joined in 2004, Wildlife Reserves, which is 88 per cent owned by Temasek Holdings and 12 per cent by the Singapore Tourism Board, was still reeling from the aftershocks of changes.

In 2002, Mr Bernard Harrison, who had become synonymous with the zoo, resigned as chief executive officer after almost 30 years as head. Mr Asad Shiraz, sent in to replace him, quit a year later.

Ms Lai with one of the 250,000 wildebeest that die dueing the annual migration in Serengeti in Tanzania. - PHOTO: COURTESY OF FANNY LAI

Ms Lai arrived as someone at home in the concrete jungle of the corporate world. But she quickly acclimatised to her real jungle world, too.

She asked to learn operations from the ground up, as a zookeeper, including shovelling dung. 'There are all shapes and sizes. Some are small. Some, like elephant dung, are really big,' she said with a laugh.

Her approach came because of her belief that the boss must get his hands dirty if he is to be able to run the organisation - something she learnt at McDonald's.

At the burger chain, it meant going to the outlets to cook, clean and serve a few weeks every year as part of corporate training. Nothing beats hands-on experience, she said.

'After my first week, I was totally exhausted but I learnt how much hard work goes into it. So I always quote: 'When you hear, you forget, when you see, you remember, when you do, you understand'. That's what Confucius said.

'That's what I tell my people: If you want to walk the talk, then you have to do it yourself, then you'll understand.'

The phrase 'walking the talk' pops up a lot in conversations and also on posters outside the corporate office.

Even the staff use it. Zoo assistant director Biswajit Guha, the organisation's most senior zoologist, said of his boss' drive to stop the practice of eating wild creatures such as turtles and sharks: 'We need to walk the talk because if we advocate something and we don't practise it, it's all hypocrisy.'

He added: 'Fanny has always been pushing for us to handle conservation in Singapore. We may not have much wildlife left but we have a precious few that we should conserve.'

It is fitting that Ms Lai quotes Confucius. She went to a primary school which her father helped found, Cheong Seng Primary, because he was concerned about the lack of a Chinese-language school in the Changi area.

Mr Lai Mei Long, who died 30 years ago, was an avid reader of Chinese classics and believed that his children needed a firm grounding in the language and culture. From primary school, his daughter went to Anglican High and then to Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

This was followed by a degree in business management from King's College in London and several post-graduate certifications, including an MBA from the Chicago Graduate School of Business.

She is married to business consultant Bjorn Olesen, 59, with whom she has Zoe, 22, who is at university in Australia, and Aaron, 15, who is in Secondary 3.

But now, this mum-cum-keeper of the zoo is tired, emotionally and physically.

She praised her team for its handling of the white tiger incident, such as ensuring that Mr Nordin's family was informed of his death and arranging for counselling for the staff.

And she praised her family for their support over her mother's death, adding candidly: 'I believe I've not gone through the entire grieving process. It will take some time to get over that.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Nov 24, 2008.