Hong Leong

"even as his family business Hong Leong enjoys a household name status in Singapore and Malaysia, and his flagship CDL company is held up as a blue-chip bellweather stock on the Singapore stock exchange, Kwek is a man seldom heard in public and even less often seen. A favourite story among business circles was how he was shooed away by the security guard at his own Orchard Hotel in Singapore after turning up one day in a new car. His staff recognised his wheels, not his face."

"His younger relatives who worked with him in Hong Leong and CDL said that they relate to him mostly as a boss and rarely as an uncle. “His work is all consuming, and therefore, it is very hard to distinguish between him as an uncle and as chairman,”"

"When he took over from his father in 1990 after nearly three decades of tutelage, Hong Leong and its subsidiary companies were largely focused on Singapore with scattered business interests in a few Asian territories, such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. Kwek turned it into a bona fide global enterprise with businesses in five continents, including at one point listing his proud hotel empire on the London Stock Exchange — the first Singapore company to do so."