Mr Ng was born to a Teochew family and grew up in a mud-floored attap house in Kangkar, a fishing village located where Sengkang is today. Ng Kok Song was born into a family of 11 siblings grew up in a mud-floored attap house in Kangkar, a fishing village located where Sengkang is today. Mr. Ng admitted life was not easy as everything depended on his father’s income as a fish auctioneer and being the second eldest knew the responsibilities.
Mr. Ng credited the Catholic church and his school Montfort for keeping him focused on his studies at a tender age because Kangkar was “infested with gangsters”. Mr. Ng received a Public Service Commission scholarship to study physics at the then-University of Singapore. He later obtained a Sloan Master’s degree in management from Stanford University.
He married his schoolmate from Montfort, Patricia, in 1972 and had three children, aged 50, 47 and 33. Mrs Ng died in 2005 from stomach cancer. He is engaged to Ms. Sybil Lau, a Canada-born Singaporean who is 45. She started her career as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs and has been managing her family’s wealth since 2009.
Mr. Ng started his public service career in 1970 as an investment analyst at the Ministry of Finance’s overseas investment department. He moved to the Monetary Authority of Singapore when the central bank was formed in 1971 to take over the role of managing Singapore’s reserves. In 1986, Mr. Ng joined GIC and headed the equities and bond department. He held other posts, including managing director of public markets, before being appointed as group chief investment officer in 2007 – a position he held until his retirement in 2013. GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, has said that Mr. Ng played a critical role in managing its investments in public markets and vastly expanding its investment capability.
Mr. Ng was also the founding chairman of the Singapore International Monetary Exchange from 1983 to 1987. This was the first financial futures exchange in Asia, according to the Futures Industry Association which inducted Mr. Ng into its Hall of Fame in 2009. The derivatives exchange was later incorporated into the Singapore Exchange as its derivatives arm. For his contributions to Singapore, Mr. Ng received the Meritorious Service Medal in 2012.
Mr Ng is currently executive chairman of Avanda Investment Management, an asset management company he co-founded in mid-2015. Government-linked firms Singapore Labour Foundation, Temasek and GIC contributed about US$4 billion in assets to launch Avanda, according to a Bloomberg report last year. The report, dated February 2022, described Avanda as one of Singapore’s fastest-growing investment firms with assets having more than doubled to US$10 billion since its launch. Among his other roles, Mr. Ng is chairman emeritus of the Wealth Management Institute at the Nanyang Technological University and serves on investment firm PIMCO’s global advisory board.
Beyond his career, Mr. Ng is also known for his passion for meditation and most notably being the “friend” who taught meditation mantra to former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Mr. Ng has practised meditation for over three decades now.
Ng Kok Song on Wednesday (Jul 19, 2023) announced his intention to run for the Singapore presidency after picking his eligibility forms from the Elections Department. Mr. Ng is the third presidential hopeful to throw his hat into the ring. Former Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was the first to do so on Jun 8, followed by businessman George Goh on Jun 12.