Career
Chan earned a Bachelor of Science in physiology and an Master of Science in pharmacology from Monash University in 1968 and 1971, and was a lecturer in both subjects at the National University of Singapore. As of 2015, it has 41 boutiques in nine cities throughout the Asia Pacific region, and she is executive vice-chairman. She founded the holding company Save Our Planet Investments (Hypha Holdings, 2005) and the non-profit Save Our Planet Foundation (2007), which works for reforestation to mitigate climate change.
Her most recent company is Scientific Tradition Pte Limited, 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 also serves on the first Business Advisory Council of the United Nations Office for Project Services (since 2000) and on the Business Advisory Council of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (since 2004).
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 (Women for Other Women). She has six siblings, four of whom became physicians.
Their first child died in childhood.
They divorced in 2010. 1999: Honorary doctorate, Oxford Brookes University.
