About the Speaker

George Yong-Boon Yeo is a former Member of Parliament and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Singapore. He currently serves as Vice-Chairman of Kerry Group and is a Visiting Scholar at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore.

Mr. Yeo studied Engineering at Cambridge University from 1973-76 on a President’s Scholarship and served in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) as a Signals Officer. After graduating from the Singapore Command and Staff College in 1979, Mr. Yeo was posted to the Republic of Singapore Air Force. He attended Harvard Business School in 1983 and graduated as a Baker Scholar. Upon his return to Singapore in 1985, he went on to appointments as Chief- of-Staff of the Air Force (1985-1986) and Director of Joint Operations and planning in the Ministry of Defence (1986-1988), attaining the rank of Brigadier-General. He resigned from the SAF in August 1988 to enter politics.

From 1988 to 2011, Mr. Yeo was one of the elected Members of Parliament (MPs) for Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC). He held the positions of: Minister of State for Finance and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (1988-1991); Acting Minister for Information and the Arts and Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (1990-1991); Minister for Information and the Arts (1991-1999); Second Minister for Foreign Affairs (1991-1994); Minister for Health (1994-1997); Second Minister for Trade and Industry (1997-1999); Minister for Trade and Industry (1999-2004); and Minister for Foreign Affairs (2004-2011). After losing his seat in the General Elections of May 2011, he spent a few months in Peking University as a Visiting Scholar before joining the private sector on Jan 1, 2012.

Mr. Yeo served as Chairman of the Young PAP (People’s Action Party) from 1991 to 2000. From 1992 to 2011, he also represented the Eurasian community in the Cabinet. In addition, Mr. Yeo was a member of the Harvard Business School’s Visiting Committee from 1998 to 2004 and has been the Advisor to the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall in Singapore since its establishment in November 2001. He is a member of the Governing Board of Nalanda University in India and chairs its International Advisory Panel. He has been a Patron of LASALLE College of the Arts since 1988. In 2012, he was presented with the Order of Sikatuna by the Philippines Government and the Padma Bhushan by the Indian Government.

About the Series

S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and ZICO Holdings Inc. (ZICO) will be co-hosting a distinguished lecture series in Singapore on ASEAN and its partners. The objective of the lecture series is to increase awareness among the business community on developments in international affairs, geopolitics and strategic challenges in the ASEAN region. This platform will promote a vision of ASEAN in a wider setting beyond trade issues through roundtable lectures and private discussions between experts on the region and selected business leaders.