किशोर महबूबानी Kishore Mahbubani

Life and career

  1. 1948 · Born in Singapore. Born on 24 October 1948 into a Hindu Sindhi family that had left Sindh at Partition. He grew up poor: an underweight boy whose first ambition was to be a textile salesman. (Wikipedia · South China Morning Post, 11 Aug 2024)
  2. 1967 to 1971 · Scholarship and philosophy. Won the President’s Scholarship in 1967 and graduated with first-class honours in philosophy from the University of Singapore in 1971. (Wikipedia · Zurich Insurance Group board biography)
  3. 1971 · Into the Foreign Service. Joined Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Postings in Cambodia, Malaysia, Washington and New York followed. (Zurich Insurance Group board biography)
  4. 1976 · Dalhousie. Took an MA in philosophy at Dalhousie University in Canada, which later gave him an honorary doctorate (1995). (Wikipedia)
  5. 1984 to 1989 · Ambassador to the United Nations. His first term as Singapore’s Permanent Representative in New York. (Wikipedia)
  6. 1991 to 1992 · Harvard. A fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. (Wikipedia)
  7. 1993 to 1998 · Permanent Secretary. The top civil servant of the Foreign Ministry. Awarded the Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 1998. (Zurich Insurance Group board biography · Wikipedia)
  8. 1998 to 2004 · The UN again, and the Security Council. A second term as Ambassador to the UN, during Singapore’s 2001 to 2002 seat on the Security Council. He presided over the Council in January 2001 and May 2002. (Zurich Insurance Group board biography)
  9. 2004 to 2017 · Founding Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School. Built the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and led it for thirteen years. He stepped down at the end of 2017, citing a double heart bypass in 2016 and a wish to read, reflect and write. (Zurich Insurance Group board biography · Times Higher Education, 10 Nov 2017)
  10. 2013 · The Great Convergence. The Financial Times named it one of the best economics books of 2013. (Zurich Insurance Group board biography)
  11. 2019 · Asia Research Institute and the Munk Debate. Became a Distinguished Fellow at the NUS Asia Research Institute in July and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In May he argued in Toronto that China is not a threat to the liberal international order, and his side won the vote. (Zurich Insurance Group board biography · Munk Debates)
  12. 2020 · Has China Won?. His most widely debated book, on the contest between America and China. (Wikipedia)
  13. 2024 · Living the Asian Century. His memoir, published by PublicAffairs, tells his own climb from poverty alongside Singapore’s and Asia’s. In October he joined the governing board of the African School of Governance in Kigali. (Asian Review of Books, 13 Nov 2024 · Wikipedia)
  14. 2025 to 2026 · Still arguing. Co-edited Can Asians Think of Peace? (Springer, 2025), argued at the Oxford Union that America has become a plutocracy and kept up a steady run of lectures and long interviews on the US, China, ASEAN and India. (Wikipedia · Oxford Union)
Kishore Mahbubani at the St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland
At the 40th St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland. Photograph: Marcel Giger, St. Gallen Symposium, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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