Dr Cheong Koon Hean

Dr Cheong Koon Hean is the CEO of the Housing & Development Board since 2010. She oversees 1 million public housing flats and leads the development of well designed, community-centric, sustainable and smart towns. She was the CEO of the Urban Redevelopment Authority from 2004 to 2010, in charge of strategic land use planning, conservation of built heritage, promotion of design excellence and the real estate market. She was credited with major urban transformations of Singapore, including Marina Bay.

Dr Cheong is currently on the Boards of HDB, NUS, and the Civil Service College. Active internationally, she is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Real Estate and Urbanisation Global Agenda Council, the Deputy President of the International Federation for Housing and Planning, and a nominating committee member of the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize.

Dr Cheong has been conferred multiple awards, including the Meritorious Service Medal for outstanding public service; Doctor of Architecture honoris causa, Convocation Medal for Professional Excellence, IWF’s 2011 ‘Woman Who Make A Difference’ Award and appointed an endowed professor of NTU in 2014. In 2016, she became the first person in the world to be conferred the Urban Land Institute’s JC Nichols Prize for Urban Visionaries; and the Lynn S Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award by the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in the same year.