Associate Professor Simon Tay
Chairman, Singapore Institute of International Affairs
Simon SC Tay is a public intellectual as well as an advisor to major corporations and policy-makers.
He is Chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, the country’s oldest think tank. The SIIA focuses on the politics, economic policies and sustainablity issues that matter to policy makers and corporations in ASEAN and Asia. Consistently ranked by an international survey within the top 50 of the world and amongst the best in ASEAN, the SIIA is also rated the No 1 independent think tank across all of Asia. The SIIA works actively in “track 2” diplomacy with policy makers, not only in Singapore but across ASEAN, including previously advising the Indonesian and Myanmar governments on foreign investment. SIIA members and supporters include many of leading Singaporean companies and multinationals.
Concurrently, he serves Singapore in a number of public appointments and as Ambassador for Singapore, presently accredited to Greece on a non-residential basis. He is a board member of the Maritime Port Authority and also chairs the trade and sustainability dialogues for free trade agreements that Singapore has with the European Union and UK. The public appointments include Chairman of the National Environment Agency (2002-08); Expert and Eminent Person in the ASEAN Regional Forum (2002–2019); independent Member of Parliament (1997-2001); and to coordinate the country’s equivalent of the Peace Corps (1990-93). He co-chaired a number of national public commissions such as Singapore 21, the Singapore Green Plan and the Singapore Concept Plan 2010. In 2006, Prof Tay received a National Day Award.
Additionally, Prof Tay is a tenured Associate Professor, teaching since 1995 at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law with a focus on international law. He has also taught as visiting professor at Harvard Law School, the Fletcher School and Yale University. In addition to academic works, his book, Asia Alone: the Dangerous Post Crisis Divide from America (Wiley 2010) was well reviewed in the Economist and Financial Times. His comments and interviews often feature in the international and regional media.
Another aspect of Prof Tay’s work is to advise major corporations. Currently, he is Senior Consultant at WongPartnership, a leading Asian law firm of over 350 lawyers and offices in ASEAN, China and the Middle East. He currently serves on the board of Certis Cisoco as a Non-Executive Independent Director. He advises the firm and major clients on cross-border and regional strategy, especially concerning political and sovereign risk and also sustainability. Previously, he served on global advisory boards for MUFG Bank of Japan and Toyota Japan, and was Corporate Advisor to Temasek Holdings (2006-09). For more than a decade, he served as independent board director for companies including the LGT Bank of Liechtenstein and Deutsche Boerse (Asia). He is often asked to brief major corporate boards and financial institutions and has spoken at leading business conferences including the World Economic Forum, APEC and ASEAN CEO Summits.
Additionally, Tay is a prize winning author of fiction and poetry. His 2010 novel City of Small Blessings was awarded the Singapore Literature Prize. In 2019 he received the SE Asia Write award in recognition of contributions to the region’s writing.
He graduated in law from the National University of Singapore (1986), where he was president of the student union for three terms. He also holds a Masters in Law from Harvard Law School (1993-94), which he attended on a Fulbright Scholarship and where he won the Laylin prize for the best thesis in international law.
He was born in 1961 and is the only son of the late Tay Seow Huah, a pioneer generation civil servant reporting to the Prime Minister and Defence Minister, and the late Madam Cheong Keong Hin, a teacher. Prof Tay is married and has one son.