Ho Kwon Ping
Banyan Tree Holdings Limited, Laguna Resorts & Hotels plc and
Wah Chang / Thai Wah Group
Chairman, Singapore Management University

KP, as he is known, also is founder of Laguna Phuket, Asia’s first and largest integrated resort. It was his vision, imagination, and determination that converted the ravaged wasteland of a disused tin mine into Asia's most successful integrated resort with a string of environmental awards to its credit.

Mr. Ho was educated in Tunghai University in Taiwan, Stanford University in California, and the University of Singapore. He worked as a broadcast and financial journalist and was the economics editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. He joined the family business in 1981. In 1994, buoyed by the success of rehabilitating a piece of environmentally damaged land into Asia's first integrated resort, Laguna Phuket, Mr. Ho then launched the company's own global hotel brand.

Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts was set up to build and manage luxury hotels and resorts, steeped in Asian traditions and sensitive to the environment. While Banyan Tree Phuket still is the flagship resort, the company has since grown to over 20 resorts and hotels, over 60 spas, in excess of 70 retail galleries and two golf courses, with close to 40 properties poised to open by 2013.

Mr. Ho was appointed the founding chairman of Singapore’s third university in 1997 before it was incorporated in January 2000. It was envisioned to be a different university from the two existing universities then. Under Mr. Ho’s leadership, the Singapore Management University (SMU) can be said to have redefined the university landscape in Singapore in the last decade. In 2009, Mr. Ho was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his significant contribution to the success of SMU.