FORMER chairman of Bukit Sembawang Estates, Cecil Vivian Richard Wong, has died at the age of 101, on Wednesday (Sep 11).
Wong joined the board of Bukit Sembawang Estates in 1979 and was a director of the property group, which is dubbed Singapore’s land bank king, for 32 years. He became the chairman of the company in 1991, and held that position for 20 years before he stepped down from the board in 2011.
An accountant himself, Wong hailed from an illustrious family of accountants. His father, the late Evan Wong, set up one of Singapore’s first accounting firms, Evan Wong & Company, in 1926. Cecil Wong took the helm at Evan Wong in the 1950s. After several mergers, Evan Wong is now part of professional services firm Ernst & Young.
He remained active into his 90s as an independent director of four companies including mainboard listed Pan United and Venture Corporation, and two other privately held companies.
On his duties at these companies, he shared that “an independent director should help resolve any disagreements across the different parties to ensure the successful operations of a company”.
“We cannot just criticise or find fault with how things work,” he said.
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Wong also served on the boards of then-listed companies CK Tang and Sincere Watch among others.
The long tenures he had as an independent director of some listed companies may largely be a thing of the past, given the emphasis on board renewals today.
A lifelong Methodist, he leaves behind four children as well as grandchildren and great grandchildren. His wife died when their children were young. His children include David, a former Ernst & Young partner; and Gordon, the bishop of the Methodist church in Singapore.
Wong, who would have turned 102 later this month, was a former student at Anglo-Chinese School (ACS), and served as a member of ACS board of governors from 1955 to 1958, and president of the ACS Old Boys’ Association from 1958 to 1960.
He read law and economics at University of Cambridge, UK. It was also during his time at Raffles College and Cambridge that he became acquainted with the late former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and late former ministers Goh Keng Swee and Lim Kim San.
