Lum's ability to come this far gives her the benefit of the doubt with many analysts.
To get ahead, Lum took a gamble on focusing on membranes to clean wastewater.
Early on Lum banned the words "urgent" or "important" on company e-mails and memos.
Singaporean Olivia Lum, age 45, debuts at number 39 as the list's youngest, and only female, member.
Lum is now actively looking to break into India, where authorities may finally allow foreign companies to bid for water-treatment projects.
Olivia Lum, ranked 35 on the list, was born in poverty in Malaysia, and narrowly escaped a future as a child labourer.
When Olivia Lum had just started her water treatment firm, Hyflux, in Singapore, she could not afford a professional welder to build her first projects.
Lum has never married, and her main companions are an Alaskan malamute named Mood (whose photo she keeps on her desk) and a Samoyed named Snowy.
His second wife, Lisa DiStefano, was a Playboy model. (DiStefano was a Sea Shepherd volunteer, and Lance still is.) His first wife, Starlet Lum, was a Greenpeace bookkeeper.
She would not comment on the plea agreements her campaign fund-raising task force reached Wednesday with Democratic fund-raisers Gene and Nora Lum and their daughter Trisha for illegal political contributions.
"We are tremendously grateful for the extreme outpouring of support and prayer from the public as we honor our beloved founder, " Brady Lum, Special Olympics president and chief operating officer, said in a statement Tuesday.
But David Lum, a property analyst at Daiwa, said the new rules might "finally set a prolonged chill in the market, " tipping home prices to drop by 20%-23% from now to the end of 2014.
"From late 2012 we believe the sector's structural issues rising levels of unsold inventory due to robust launch schedules coupled with a formidable pipeline of completions will continue to depress rents and capital markets, " said David Lum, an analyst for Daiwa Capital Markets, in a recent report.
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