Assoc Prof Lee Boon Keng

Director, Centre of Excellence International Trading

Dr Lee Boon Keng is currently Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Applied Financial Education (CAFE) at the Nanyang Business School in Nanyang Technological University.

He returned to the University after a 15 year stint in the financial industry to drive efforts in raising the skill level of banking and finance graduates. This is done by systematically introducing platform-based learning into the curriculum, where students are required to learn how to analyze the financial market and manage portfolios with platforms commonly used in the industry such as Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters. Students graduating from the program are expected to be more desk-ready.

Before returning to the University in 2014, Dr Lee was Managing Director and the Head of Investment Solutions Group at Bank Julius Baer in Singapore. There, he managed a team of about 50 specialists in research, investment advisory, fund solutions, portfolio management and wealth and tax planning. He also led a team in managing a portfolio of around USD1bn. Prior to Bank Julius Baer, he was the Chief Investment Strategist in Wealth Management at UBS, Singapore. Before UBS, he was the market strategist in Global Financial Markets and Private Banking at DBS Bank in Singapore.

In 2016, Dr Lee was appointed Director of the Centre of Excellence in International Trading (CEIT) tasked with developing the talent pool for commodity trading through the International Trading Program (ITP) and conduct research in areas related to international trading.

In the same year, he was also appointed Director of the Centre for RMB Internationalization Studies (CRIS) that will focus on widening and deepening the understanding of RMB as an international exchange and reserve currency. CRIS is also tasked to structure executive workshops on issues related to China and its trade and financial linkages with the rest of the world, such as the One-Belt-One-Road initiative.

Dr Lee did his Ph.D in Economics at the New York University and his B.A. in Mathematics at Northwestern University. He joined Nanyang Technological University as an Assistant Professor in Economics between 1993 and 2000.