Quek Leng Chan – Malaysian Chairman

As the chairman of a privately held conglomerate, Quek Leng Chan is in control of Hong Leong Co in Malaysia. The company has interests in the property, finance and food sectors.

Chan inherited some of his fortune directly from his father, who was one of three brothers that started a banking group back in the 1920s. Chan’s cousin, Kwek Leng Beng, who is a billionaire from Singapore, chairs the other part of the family business, the Hong Leong Group.

Over the years, the company under Leng Chan's control has amassed reserves of around RM36.5 million and has a book value of RM50 billion, which is one and a half times book value. However, he did not stop with just Malaysia, he went to Hong Kong to build an even bigger empire.

Chan was named by Forbes as one of the 50 richest people in Malaysia and is the third richest billionaire in Malaysia in 2016. Not to mention the fact that he even made the billionaire list, ranking 248 in the world in 2016.

The family name Quek is taken from the Chinese name Guo and means “the wall that surrounds a city” in Chinese. The name Leng is a Mandarin pinyin and the romanization of a Chinese surname Ling that is a unisex name taken from the Chinese name Ling that means “soul”, “spirit”, “bell” or “chime”. Chan is taken from Chen a popular East Asian surname that has a Chinese origin but the meaning is unknown.