Liew Mun Leong

Chief Executive Officer, Gelephu Mindfulness City

Liew Mun Leong started his career as an engineer during the early days of the Ministry of Defence in 1972. He went on to work on the Changi Airport project, building its first runway and ended up as the Chief Airport Project Manager in the development of Passenger Terminal 2. After Changi Airport, he was posted to Singapore Institute of Standards and Industrial Research (SISIR) as its Chief Executive. He concurrently acted as the Chief Executive of National Science and Technology Board (NSTB), the forerunner of A*STAR. He left the public sector after 22 years to join the private sector, heading L&M, a public listed specialist engineering construction group. He then went on to start his real estate career heading Pidemco Land which later merged with DBS Land to create CapitaLand Group, with him as its founding group CEO. He retired from active employment in 2013 at 67 after 17 years of leading CapitaLand, which under his leadership had become the largest real estate company in SE Asia by market capitalization. He continued his corporate leadership as active Chairman of Changi Airport Group and founding Chairman of Surbana Jurong Group. He retired his active chairmanship in 2020 and formed his business management consultancy company “Building People Consultancy Pte Ltd” and has been actively running the firm as its Principal Consultant till present. He was appointed CEO of Gelephu Mindfulness City on 1st Oct, 2024. During his career, he was appointed Registrar of the Professional Engineer Board and was elected President of International Standard Organization (ISO). He was Chairman of Temasek Polytechnic for 10 years. He was also appointed Provost Chair Professor (Practice) in NUS Business School, Faculty of Engineering and Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, all on a Pro Bono basis. He was awarded the National Day Meritorious Award by the President of Singapore and conferred France’s National Order of the Legion of Honor. During his private sector career, he received numerous awards and accolades including outstanding CEO in 2006, CEO of the year 2007, Asia’s Best Executive and Best CEO in Asia (Property) in 2008. Liew Mun Leong wrote regular Sunday emails depicting business management lessons from life experiences to his colleagues and friends for more than 20 years. These were progressively published into five books entitled “Building People – Sunday emails from the CEO”. He has also launched his latest book titled “Barracks to Boardroom – Climbing the greasy pole”, detailing his five-decades-long career in the public and private sector.

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