​Cheong Koon Hean

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Centre for Liveable Cities

Singapore
https://www.clc.gov.sg/home

Biography

Cheong Koon Hean is currently chairman of the Centre for Liveable Cities (MND) and the incoming chairman of Singapore University of Technology and Design’s Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities in June 2021. She was formerly the CEO of the Housing and Development Board (HDB) from 2010 to 2020, overseeing some 1 million public housing flats. At the HDB, she introduced a new generation of well designed, community centric, sustainable and smart public housing. Cheong was also CEO of Urban Redevelopment Authority from 2004 to 2010 and concurrently the deputy secretary of the Ministry of National Development from 2001 to 2016, with extensive experience in land use planning, urban design, conservation of built heritage and the real estate market. 

Cheong played a key role in major urban transformations locally and internationally, such as the development of Marina Bay and the master planning of Tianjin Eco City. She serves on numerous advisory panels including the World Economic Forum and is also the chairman of the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize’s Nominating Committee, board trustee of NUS and a fellow (life) and honorary fellow of the Singapore Institute of Architects and Institute of Planners respectively. She is a current council member and former deputy president of the International Federation of Housing and Planning and global board trustee of the Urban Land Institute. In 2018, she was appointed the Institute of Policy Studies’ 5th SR Nathan Fellow.

Throughout her career Cheong has received numerous awards, notably the Meritorious Service Medal for outstanding public service and is the first Asian to receive both the Urban Land Institute’s Prize for Urban Visionaries and the Lynn S Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award by the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. She is a Colombo Plan Scholar with degrees in Architecture (Hon 1, University Gold Medal) and Doctor of Architecture Honoris Causa (University of Newcastle), Masters degree in Urban Development Planning (University College London), and completed the Advanced Management Programme (Harvard University).