Discover - RI Zone Director

Born in Singapore, Ghim Bok “G.B.” Chew graduated in 1981 with an honors degree in computer science from the University of Liverpool, England, before returning to his home country to launch a career as a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and private equities fund manager. After opening his first business, an IT systems integrator, he took a bankrupt food processing company to an initial public offering after turning it around. Now semiretired, Chew maintains real estate and real estate management companies in Singapore, in addition to his fund management holding company.

Chew joined Rotary in 1996. Immediately after serving as district governor in 2013, he took on several zone and international roles, including assistant regional Rotary Foundation coordinator, assistant Rotary public image coordinator, Rotary coordinator, and chair of the zone institute committee. He is the Host Organization Committee chair for the Rotary International Convention in Singapore in 2024.

Outside of Rotary, Chew is active as a local volunteer, having served for nearly three decades with Singapore’s People's Association, a government organization that uses a grassroots approach to promote racial and social harmony among Singapore’s diverse population. Chew created synergy between People’s Association youth groups and Rotary when he helped start community-based Interact and Rotaract clubs that are still active today. For his contributions to Singapore’s communities, Chew was awarded the Public Service Award Medal in 2005 and Public Service Star Medal in 2012 by Singapore’s president. He also serves as a justice of the peace who volunteers in local prisons, chair of two religious organizations, trustee of three national trust organizations, and honorary consul for the Republic of Slovakia in Singapore.

Chew, who decided to join the Bugis Junction club after reading about the global polio eradication effort in a local newspaper, advocates for the power of partnering to accomplish great things. “As a business person, I strongly believe in creating synergy and leveraging partnerships,” he says. “One plus one can be more than two — it can be 11.”

Chew has applied this approach by partnering with Rotary clubs and outside organizations to support cleft palate surgeries in Indonesia and prosthetic limb fittings in Malaysia. In another project coordinated by his club, he helped raise funds for doctors in Indonesia who donate their time to provide cataract surgeries, implanting lenses for only about $50 each. “Imagine an older person who has never seen their grandchildren suddenly seeing them for the first time,” says Chew. “These are some of the life-changing experiences I have been able to witness through Rotary.”

Chew is a recipient of the Service Above Self Award. With his wife, Phyllis, he is a member of the Arch Klumph Society Chair’s Circle.