Prof Lily Kong

Professor Lily Kong has been President of Singapore Management University (SMU) since 2019, the first Singaporean to lead the institution and first Singaporean woman to head any university in Singapore. At SMU, she spearheaded significant strategic initiatives, focusing on Digital Transformation, Sustainable Living, and Growth in Asia. Under her leadership, SMU launched new colleges, research institutes, and overseas centres. SMU is ranked among the top three in the world for archival research in accounting, fourth in the world for software engineering, and second in Asia for research in business schools. In the 2026 QS Subject rankings, SMU is named the world’s most improved university among institutions with 10 or more ranked subjects.

Professor Kong has received prestigious honours including the British Academy Fellowship, the Victoria Medal from Royal Geographical Society, the Robert Stoddard Award from American Association of Geographers, and the Foreign Fellow from Geographical Society of China. She is consistently ranked in the top 2% of her field in studies by Stanford.