SINGAPORE. Changi Airport Group (CAG) today announced that Chief Executive Officer Lee Seow Hiang will step down on 1 July after 15 years in the role.
He will concurrently depart from his positions as a Director on the CAG Board and as Chairman of the boards of Changi Airports International (CAI) and Jewel Changi Airport Devt.
The CAG Board has appointed Yam Kum Weng to succeed Lee as CEO of CAG. Yam will also become a Director of the CAG Board and Chairman of the CAI Board with effect from 1 July.
Yam is currently CAG’s Executive Vice President, Airport Development, leading the Changi East project including Terminal 5.
Lee was appointed CAG’s founding CEO when Changi Airport was corporatised on 1 July 2009. In the ensuing 15 years, CAG said it has made great strides in the development of Changi as a premier air hub – now the most internationally connected in Southeast Asia with links to more than 150 destinations worldwide.
During this time, CAG also celebrated milestones such as the launch of Terminal 4, the upgrading and expansion of Terminals 1 and 2 and the development of Jewel Changi Airport, which opened its doors in 2019. These large infrastructure projects increased Changi Airport’s handling capacity by +23% to 90 million passenger movements per annum.
The many enhancements at Changi Airport raised the Changi experience for passengers and visitors, contributing to numerous prestigious global awards for airports since July 2009, CAG continued.
Over the last ten years, Lee also laid the foundations of the future Changi East development including T5. Following a two-year pandemic-related pause, work on the development has resumed and is making good progress with groundbreaking to take place next year, CAG noted.
Lee received the Bintang Bakti Masyarakat (The Public Service Star Medal) 2022 for his leadership in the airport-wide efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was also accorded the Medal of Commendation (Gold) in the 2023 May Day Awards for his contributions in promoting and supporting labour movement initiatives.
In 2018, Lee was named Outstanding Chief Executive of the Year in the Singapore Business Awards for leading the continued development of Changi Airport as one of the leading air hubs in the world.
Paying tribute to Lee’s many years of dedicated service, CAG Chairman Tan Gee Paw said: “The Board Directors and I thank Seow Hiang for his immense contributions to CAG and Changi Airport.
“In the last decade and a half, Seow Hiang’s vision transformed Changi into the airport it is today – a strong air hub with an extensive network of city links, providing an extraordinary experience and supporting Singapore’s economy.
“As CEO, Seow Hiang kept CAG financially strong and stable during the pandemic years. We are especially appreciative of his management during the COVID-19 period, which saw travel demand plummet and CAG’s business fundamentals severely impacted.
“Despite the many challenges, Seow Hiang, with the support of his colleagues and airport partners, steered the company through the crisis and we have emerged in better shape. It is to the credit of CAG’s management team led by Seow Hiang, that Changi Airport’s passenger traffic has already surpassed 2019’s pre-pandemic levels in February and March 2024.”
Tan added: “In considering a replacement for Seow Hiang, the Board carefully reviewed its options, recognising that Changi Airport is a critical infrastructure, and leadership continuity is vital to take forward CAG’s plans.
“A key undertaking for CAG is the mega-development of Changi East and T5, which is entering a critical phase in the coming years. At the same time, CAG faces the challenge of ensuring smooth airport operations as passenger traffic at Changi Airport continues to recover post-COVID.
“The Board is confident that Kum Weng, as a senior executive with many years of experience leading Singapore’s air hub development and airport management in both the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and CAG, is best suited to anchor the twin challenges of running an operationally intensive airport while ensuring the success of the Changi East/T5 programme.
“He has a deep appreciation of the interests of the Singapore air hub and Changi Airport’s strategic role, and strong operational experience to ensure Changi Airport continues to run smoothly. With his strong ties with aviation partners, Kum Weng is well placed to work synergistically with them to grow Changi Airport as a key air hub and a leading international airport.”
Lee said: “It has been a gift of grace and a privilege of a lifetime to be a member of this special Changi community for these incredible years. The last 15 years have been an exhilarating journey of building the best air hub for Singapore.
“We worked hard to double the size and vibrancy of our air hub to almost 70 million passengers a year but lost it all during the COVID years. Yet, we kept our fundamentals strong and today we are emerging stronger on our full recovery.
“Through it all, we endeavoured to build CAG as a company that grows all the people who walk through her corridors, putting fun into our hub fundamentals, and bringing joy, wonder and delight to all whom we serve.
“We have given every ounce of energy to this task and the journey continues. This is a journey to be built, not just travelled, and I am leaving with the deepest confidence that, under Kum Weng’s leadership, the best days for the Changi air hub are yet to be.
“And as they say: sometimes reality exceeds even our biggest dreams.” ✈
The Moodie View: The prospect of Changi Airport Group without Lee Seow Hiang at its helm seems a strange prospect, writes Martin Moodie. Such has been the stamp he has put on the organisation and the aviation sector over the past 15 years.
As CAG Chairman Tan Gee Paw aptly puts it, Lee’s contribution to this great Asian and world gateway has been immense.
The real test of a leader is perhaps found in the worst not best of times, to lean on Dickens’ famous opening words from A Tale of Two Cities.
During the past decade and a half, Lee and Changi Airport have enjoyed some very good times indeed, creating an airport that treats its passengers – and its many local visitors – as welcome guests and embraces its responsibility to reflect the city state with pride, passion and purpose.
Any passenger arriving at Changi immediately encounters an atmosphere and ambience at one with Singapore itself. Green, serene and supremely well organised. The airport’s vast, multi-terminal retail and dining offer never overwhelms, complemented as it is by a focus on non-commercial attractions ranging from a vibrant arts programme to a Butterfly Garden, from a delightful Heritage Zone to the world’s tallest slide in an airport. And, of course, effiency, from state-of-the-art biometric technology to the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance the security screening process.
Then there is Jewel, Changi Airport’s multi-use lifestyle, dining and retail hub, replete with the HSBC Rain Vortex (the world’s tallest indoor waterfall), the gorgeous panoramas and lushness of the Shiseido Forest Valley, the family-friendly Foggy Bowls, the giant Hedge Maze and just about everything inbetween.
And the bad times? Well they don’t come any worse than the COVID-pandemic which rendered this lustrous gateway a near ghost town during the nadir of the crisis. Lee led his team with immense aplomb through the darkest moments in modern aviation history and knew exactly when and how to change into revival mode as things began to improve.
His great personal charisma – manifestly obvious to all those who met him at The Trinity Forum in 2022, an event he supported strongly as a sign of Changi’s, Singapore’s and travel retail’s resurgence – has been a key factor in the strength and loyalty of the outstanding team Lee leads. His beautifully worded closing lines quoted above sum up both his achievements and his legacy. The Changi journey does indeed continue. ✈
