Lee Foundation chairman Lee Seng Tee is the second son of late philanthropist and visionary businessman Lee Kong Chian, who made a name in the rubber, pineapple, coconut oil and sawmill trades. The elder Lee also created the Lee Foundation in 1952, with beneficiaries including Singapore’s National Library, Nanyang University and the University of Malaya.

Like his father, Lee also supports higher education via donations towards building libraries and reading rooms, as well as the acquisition of published resources for notable UK libraries such as the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library and Needham Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. He was named an honorary fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals for these efforts in supporting libraries worldwide.

The director of the Lee Foundation and Lee Rubber Group graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the US with an economics degree in 1950. Lee has received honorary degrees from various institutions worldwide, including both Oxford and Cambridge, Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. He was also elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.