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 sustainability issues that matter to policy makers and corporations in ASEAN and Asia. He is concurrently a tenured Associate Professor, teaching international law at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law.
Additionally, Prof. 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.
Additionally, Prof. Tay is also Senior Consultant at WongPartnership, a leading Asian law firm. 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 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.
From 1992 to 2008, he served in a number of public appointments for Singapore. These included serving as Chairman of Singapore’s National Environment Agency; and as an independent Nominated Member of Parliament (1997-2001). In 2006, Professor Tay received a National Day Award.
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.