Hsuan Owyang

Hsuan Owyang was born March 24, 1928 in Guangzhou, China. He left China in 1949 and graduated from the University of Dubuque in Iowa in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. After earning his MBA at the Harvard Business School from 1950-1952, he worked as an investment counsellor on Wall Street for 12 years until he returned to Singapore in 1965.

His career in Singapore spanned the private and public sectors. He was Director and General Manager of Overseas Union Bank, Executive Deputy Chairman of Post Office Savings Bank and a board member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Temasek Holdings. Later, he became Chairman of the Housing and Development Board, Chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies, Chairman of the East Asia Institute, Pro-Chancellor of Nanyang Technological University, and chairman and board member of several companies. In 1993, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by the Singapore government.

He also found time to write three books: The Barefoot Boy from Songwad: The Life of Chi Owyang (1996) about his father; From Wall Street to Bukit Merah: Strategies of a Corporate Leader (1998); and a book of classical Chinese poetry inspired by the mountains and vistas of China (2006). He was an avid traveler, a movie buff without peer, and a devoted husband and father. He retired to San Diego in 2008. Hsuan passed away peacefully in San Diego on August 23, 2018. He is survived by his wife, June; son Todd; daughter Sharon and son-in-law Tom Hugh-Jones; as well as his brothers Ho (Sook Ming) Auyang, Raymond (Kwan Ching) Auyang, Chung (Jeannette) Owyang, King (Vivian) Owyang, sister Liang (Chun Fook)Wong, and sister-in-law Elaine (wife of deceased brother John).