Partners

Kok Song is Avanda’s Co-Founder and Chairman.

Prior to co-founding Avanda, Kok Song was Chief Investment Officer of GIC, where he completed a 42-year career in the investment of Singapore’s foreign reserves. Before joining GIC in 1986, Mr Ng was at the Ministry of Finance (1970-71) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (1972-1986). The Singapore Government awarded him the Meritorious Service Medal in 2012.

During his 27-year career at GIC, Kok Song was instrumental in building GIC’s in-house capability for managing global equities, fixed-income investments and currencies, and for sourcing external managers. He led GIC in navigating through several financial crises including the October 1987 market decline, the 1998 Asian currency crisis, the dotcom bust of 2001 and the 2008 global financial crisis.

Kok Song served on the board of directors of the Singapore Exchange (SGX) from 2013-2018. From 1983 to 1987, he was the founding Chairman of Singapore International Monetary Exchange which was incorporated into SGX as its derivatives arm.  For his contribution to the global futures industry, the Futures Industry Association inducted him into the Futures Hall of Fame in 2009.

He has been Chairman Emeritus of the Wealth Management Institute at the Nanyang Technological University since 2017.  In 2013, the CFA Institute conferred on him the Thomas L Hansberger Award for Leadership in the global investment profession. He is on the CFA Institute’s Advisory Council for the “Future of Finance” project, a long-term global effort to shape a trustworthy financial industry that better serves society.

Kok Song was a member of the Strategic Committee of Agency France Tresor from 2001-2014. The Government of France conferred on him the award of “La Croix de Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur” and “Officer de l’ordre National du Merite”. He is on the board of directors of Makena Capital, a USA-based investment management company, and on PIMCO’s Global Advisory board. He also serves on the board of governors of the Asia School of Business in Malaysia, and served on the board of governors of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

Kok Song graduated in Physics from the University of Singapore and in Management from Stanford University.

As Chief Investment Officer at Avanda Investment Management, Wee Ghee leads Avanda’s investment strategies.

Prior to co-founding Avanda, Wee Ghee was the President of GIC Asset Management, where he was responsible for GIC’s Foreign Exchange, Bonds, Equities, Hedge Funds and Commodities portfolios from 2007-2011. He served as Advisor to GIC’s Investment Board, Chairman of India, and Chairman of Natural Resources Business Groups from 2011-2013.

Throughout his 25 years at GIC, Wee Ghee was responsible for heading various asset classes, including managing GIC’s equities department from 2003. He was also in charge of overseeing Technology from 1998 to 2001. Prior to joining GIC in 1987, he was a system engineer with IBM Singapore, responsible for installing banking systems.

Since 2011, Wee Ghee has been serving on several boards including those of the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation and Great Eastern Life Assurance Company Limited.

Previously, he served on the boards of the Central Provident Fund, Singapore Stock Exchange, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore Labour Foundation, EDB Investments Pte Ltd and the endowment of MOH Holdings Pte Ltd; and on the investment committees of the Workforce Development Agency (WDA), SingHealth and Silver Jubilee Fund in Singapore. For his contributions to public service, he was awarded the Public Administration Medal in 2002. He was also awarded the Distinguished Financial Industry Certified Professionals for Fund Management in 2010.

Wee Ghee graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering (First Class) from the National University of Singapore (1986) and attended the Executive MBA of Stanford University (1999).

Cheng Chih is Advisor to Avanda and one of Avanda’s Co-Founders. 

Cheng Chih joined the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) in 1993 and retired as Managing Director and Chief Risk Officer in 2011. Over the intervening years, Cheng Chih worked to enhance GIC’s capabilities in risk management, asset allocation, currency management, portfolio rebalancing, performance measurement, and treasury management. In late 2014, Cheng Chih set up Avanda Investment Management, a global asset management company based in Singapore, along with long-time GIC colleagues Ng Kok Song and Quah Wee Ghee. With assets under management of US$6 billion, Avanda strives to serve the investment needs of long-term asset owners by providing global multi-asset investment solutions and Asia-centric investment strategies.

Outside of Avanda, Cheng Chih is currently serving as investment advisor to the Singapore Ministry of Finance, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Ministry of Finance in Norway and the Bank of Thailand. In addition, he is a board member of the MIT Investment Management Company, the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy, the NTUC Income Insurance Co-operative, and the Wealth Management Institute in the Nanyang Technological University.

Cheng Chih studied mathematics at the University of Waterloo where he received his BMath and MMath degrees. He obtained his PhD in mathematics from the University of Minnesota.

Michael is Co- Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Avanda.

Until joining Avanda, Michael was Managing Director and Head of Operations for Asia Pacific in Barclays, responsible for the Investment Bank, Wealth and Corporate Bank Operations in Asia. He was also Global Head of Utilities Services (Reconciliations, MIS and Data). After joining Barclays in 2007, he assumed responsibility for Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Operations in Asia Pacific. He served as Head of Operations for the regional branches in Asia and Chief Operating Officer for the firm’s International Business Centre in Singapore and played a key role in building up Singapore as an Operations hub for Barclays globally.

Michael started his career in the financial industry in 1994 when he joined JP Morgan, where he spent about thirteen years in a variety of Middle Office and Operations functions. He was Head of Technology and Operations for the bank’s Asia Pacific branches and Chief Operating Officer for JP Morgan in Seoul before being appointed Head of Operations for Credit, Rates, FX and Commodities in the Asia Pacific region, as well as Chief Operating Officer for JP Morgan’s Singapore office. Throughout his career at JP Morgan, Michael was instrumental in driving the set-up of new businesses and offices, as well as leading the merger and integration of JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan and Jardine Fleming in Korea. He has also held various positions in New York and Brussels.

In 2014, he was conferred the title of “IBF Fellow” by the Institute of Banking and Finance in the Technology and Operations segment in Singapore.

Michael graduated from the National University of Singapore with a BA (Economics and Political Science).

Chan Chun Hong is Co-Chief Executive Officer, CIO of Multi-Asset Strategies and Head of External Managers at Avanda. He drives the overall strategic and tactical asset allocation of Avanda’s flagship Global Multi-Asset Fund, and is responsible for the firm’s portfolio of external managers, which includes overseeing investment analysis, research and due diligence, manager selection and monitoring.

Prior to joining Avanda, Chun Hong was a Managing Director and Head of the Real Return Program Division in the Economic & Investment Strategy Department of the GIC. The Division managed a portfolio of investments that was differentiated from existing GIC’s investments with the aim of evaluating their applicability for the GIC portfolio. The objective of the portfolio, similar to that of the overall GIC portfolio, was to achieve good long-term real returns and to outperform the market portfolio subject to prudent risk management.

Chun Hong joined GIC in 1999 as an Investment Officer and served variously in the Bond, Economics and Equities departments. He was deployed to the Fixed Income Department in 2000 where he managed the FI Asia Pacific portfolio and, subsequently, the Global Interest Rates and Global Sector Rotation portfolios. In 2006, Chun Hong was deployed to the External Managers department as Portfolio Manager for capital allocation to hedge funds and long-only managers. He also concurrently served as Staff Assistant to the Group Managing Director from 2005 to 2007. In 2009, Chun Hong was a member of the Strategic Cross Asset Investments team which had been started to manage the GIC Global Opportunities portfolio. The team sourced, evaluated and implemented long term global macro and strategic cross asset investment opportunities for the portfolio.

Chun Hong was awarded the GIC Scholarship in 1994 and graduated with a Bachelor of Economics degree from Osaka University in Japan (2000). He completed his MSc in Financial Engineering from the Nanyang Technological University (2006) and is a CFA as well as CAIA charter holder.

Richard Chan is CIO of Equities at Avanda. He is responsible for the global equity sub-strategy within the Avanda Global Multi-Asset Fund, and is the portfolio manager for the Avanda Asia Vantage Fund.

Richard Chan was a Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific Equities in GIC. In addition to leading the Asian equities investment team, Richard also directly managed a regional Asian equities portfolio since 2002. At the corporate level, he led the Vietnam Interest Group and was a member of the China Business Group.

As Head of Asia Pacific Equities from 2008 to 2015, Richard led a team of analysts and portfolio managers responsible for managing GIC’s Pan Asia Equities portfolio. He became an equities portfolio manager for the Asia Pacific region in GIC from 2002. At various points, he had primary coverage for India, Korea, Malaysia and China before he was appointed Head of the team. Richard was the lead portfolio manager for China when GIC was granted the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) license to invest in A-shares in 2005.

Richard joined GIC in 1994 as an Investment Officer and spent 6 years with the Foreign Exchange Department, including 2 years in GIC’s London office. During that time, he was active in G7 currencies prior to the introduction of the Euro, and in Asian currencies after the Asian Financial Crisis. He was also a founding member of the Currency Quantitative Group where he developed and implemented a systematic FX trading model.

Richard graduated with a Bachelor of Business (First Class honours) from Nanyang Technological University in 1994. He earned an MBA from Columbia University in 2002 and attended the Stanford Executive Program in 2013. Richard served on the Board of Trustees for the Ministry of Defence SAVER-Premium Fund from 2009-2018. He is a CFA charterholder.

Li Ying is CIO of Fixed Income, Currency Management and Dynamic Allocation at Avanda.

Li Ying was the Chief Investment Officer of the Singapore Labour Foundation (SLF) from 2009 to 2015, prior to joining Avanda. She was in charge of establishing the SLF’s investment management arm (SSA – SLF Strategic Advisers, an FMC-licensed manager), and served as its founding Executive Director, CEO and CIO. As CIO of both SLF and SSA, Li Ying built up investment management capabilities across global equities, fixed income and currencies. As Executive Director and CEO of SSA, she was responsible for business strategy and development, as well as investor and risk management.

Her investment career spans over 20 years, with experience in both public and private sectors, and based in Singapore and London. Starting with fixed income, she has managed global multi-asset portfolios through various cycles. She has held previous appointments with the GIC, Barclays Bank, Norges Bank Investment Management and DBS Asset Management.

At present, Li Ying is a member of the investment committees of the Chinese Development Assistance Council, the Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism, and the Lee Kuan Yew Fund under the Ministry of Education. Li Ying previously served as a member of the National Trades Union Congress Investment Committee, Singapore’s National Council Against Drug Abuse, the CFA Institute’s Asset Manager Code Advisory Committee as well as President of CFA Singapore’s Board of Directors.

Li Ying graduated from Harvard University with honours in Applied Mathematics and has a postgraduate diploma in Economics from the University of London. She is a CFA charterholder.

Doris serves concurrently as General Counsel and Compliance Manager at Avanda.

Prior to joining Avanda, Doris was Senior Vice President in the legal team at CapitaLand where she was, inter alia, company secretary and legal advisor to the managers of SGX listed REITs – Ascott Residence Trust and CapitaCommercial Trust.

Doris started her legal career practicing law in the litigation departments of Messrs Lee & Lee and subsequently Messrs Wong Partnership, where she handled mainly corporate and commercial disputes for a number of key corporate clients. In 1999, Doris left practice and joined the in-house legal team of EDB Investments Pte Ltd (EDBI) as Assistant Manager, Legal, handling venture capital and other investments both in Singapore and overseas. She later joined the legal team of the GIC as Assistant General Counsel, where she assumed primary responsibility for global legal support to GIC Special Investment Pte Ltd (GICSI) – the private equity investment arm of GIC – which allowed her to participate in multiple key funds and direct investments of GICSI.

In 2008, Doris returned to practice and joined Sidley Austin LLP’s Singapore office as Counsel in its Investments Funds, Advisors and Derivatives/M&A & Private Equity team. In this role, Doris advised a wide range of clients including China Investment Corporation in their fund management activities.

Doris graduated from the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (1994).