Heng Swee Keat

Heng Swee Keat was born on 15 April 1961 and is a Singaporean politician.

He was educated at the Raffles Institution in Singapore, before coming up to Christ’s in 1980 to read economics. After graduation, Heng began his career in the Singapore Police Force (SPF) where he was awarded an SPF Overseas Scholarship from then President Devan Nair. This enabled Swee to obtain a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1993.

In 1997, he joined the Singapore Civil Service's Administrative Service. He served a period at the Ministry of Education, before being appointed the Principal Private Secretary to former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (who was then Senior Minister). In 2001, Heng became the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Trade and Industry. He then served as Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore from 2005 to 2011.

At the 2011 general election, Swee was a People's Action Party (PAP) candidate in the Tampines Group Representation Constituency (Tampines GRC). On polling day the PAP team won the contest with 57.22% of the votes. On 18 May 2011, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong therefore appointed him to the Cabinet as the Minister for Education. In August 2012, Heng was tasked to lead a new ministerial committee to conduct a broad-based review of the Government's policies and direction.

He became Minister of Finance in October 2015, and first assistant secretary general of the People's Action Party in November 2018.

In February 2011, Heng was named the Asia-Pacific Central Bank Governor of the Year by the British magazine The Banker.