Wee Cho Yaw
| Wee Cho Yaw | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 黃祖耀 |
| Born |
January 10, 1929 Kinmen, Fujian, China |
| Residence | Singapore |
| Nationality | Singaporean |
| Occupation | Chairman emeritus, United Overseas Bank |
| Net worth | $5.7 billion (January 2015) |
| Spouse(s) | Chuang Yong Eng |
| Children | five (5 sons & 2 daughters) |
| Parent(s) | Wee Kheng Chiang |
Wee Cho Yaw, DUBC (Chinese: 黃祖耀; pinyin: Huáng Zǔyào; born 1929), DUBC, is a Singaporean businessman and the chairman of the United Overseas Bank (UOB) and United Industrial Corporation(UIC) in Singapore.
Wee joined the board of directors of the United Chinese Bank (now the United Overseas Bank) in 1958. He was appointed managing director of the bank two years later, and when his father Wee Kheng Chiang, founder of United Chinese Bank, retired in 1974, Wee succeeded him as chairman of the Bank. His son Wee Ee Chong succeeded him as chief executive officer of UOB.
His mother was the second wife of Sarawak-based businessman Wee Kheng Chiang and in 1937, Wee and his family fled to Kuching in Borneo to escape the Sino-Japanese War. He lived with the family of his father’s first wife for about a year before moving to Singapore, where he attended Gong Shang Primary School and Chinese High School.
His education was disrupted by the Japanese invasion of Singapore and Malaya, and Wee spent most of the Japanese Occupation with his family in Karimun in Indonesia. After the Japanese Occupation, Wee returned to Singapore and attended Chung Cheng High School. There he was involved in anti-colonial politics, and was investigated by the British authorities before his father then pulled him out of school.
In 1949, Wee started work at Kheng Leong, a business owned by his family that traded commodities such as rubber, pepper and sago flour. He stayed close to his father and learned the ways of business, taking on his millionaire father’s wide range of contacts and connections. In 1958, Wee became the youngest director on the board of United Chinese Bank (UCB), which his father had founded in 1935. He then spent several months attached to a British bank in London to study its operations, before returning to work in UCB.
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