Chua Sock Koong

In a decade at the helm, Chua has grown Singtel into Southeast Asia’s largest telecommunications company, boasting $51 billion in market capitalization, and earnings of $2.8 billion last year—70% of which came from overseas operations. Working with volatile global currencies has not daunted Chua, a fitness aficionado, who is investing $1.8 billion in the two largest mobile operators in Thailand and India. The astute technocrat has also made sizable investments in cybersecurity, hoping to capitalize on Singapore’s status as the most digital nation in the world. It is paying off: ICT (information communication and technology) revenue was up 18% in the first quarter of fiscal 2017, offsetting declines in the telecom’s consumer division, thanks to the September 2015, $810 million acquisition of US-based Trustwave.