Siah Hwee Ang

Siah Hwee Ang is Professor in Strategy and International Business and Professorial Chair in Business in Asia at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), roles he has held for the past 11 years. He has also been the Director of New Zealand’s Southeast Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence (SEA CAPE) since 2018. Before VUW, Siah Hwee was the Associate Dean Postgraduate and Professor in Strategy at the University of Auckland Business School, where he spent 10 years.

Siah Hwee’s career, to which the bulk are based in New Zealand, has evolved from initially designing and leading business programmes for university students and executive programmes to training businesses on international markets, in particular around Asia. His expertise centres around the connection between strategy, international business and international trade. In more recent years, he has also become a conduit for linking academia to both government and businesses, heavily involved in thought leadership and engagement both domestically and internationally to link New Zealand to Asia. Initiatives he has designed and executed also provide New Zealand’s younger generation and academics across various institutions a platform to connect with businesses, building capabilities and capacity to engage with the Asia region.

During his time in Wellington as Chair in Business in Asia, Siah Hwee works closely with public and private funders MFAT, NZTE, MBIE and BNZ to provide knowledge and advice to businesses and policy makers on engaging with Asia. Through SEA CAPE, the VUW-based national centre (sits under a consortium of four universities – VUW, University of Auckland, Waikato and Otago) for enhancing New Zealand’s engagement with the Southeast Asia region, the programmes he orchestrated across 13 regions within New Zealand allow interweaving connections to be made across New Zealand and extend to the Southeast Asia markets (both government and business sectors). For example, initiatives such as ‘Bringing ASEAN to New Zealand’ that bring in key business people from Southeast Asia to engage across New Zealand regions allow New Zealanders to learn and connect to Asia despite the resource constraints to travel. In the period 2017–2019, Siah Hwee was also the Chair of VUW’s ‘Enabling Our Asia Pacific Trading Nation Academic Distinctiveness Theme’. This role sees him leading a pan-university committee consists of key stakeholders and academics across faculties on how the university can engage with the Asia-Pacific region.

Siah Hwee is highly recognised for his scholarship. He has published multiple times in the top journal in both the fields of strategy and international business. The international publisher Elsevier has appointed him to be Reviewing Editor (gatekeeping role) for the Journal of World Business (the top journal in international business) for two periods 2021–2023 and 2024–2026. He will also be the Deputy Editor-in-Chief for the Asia Pacific Journal of Management, the top management journal around Asia in 2025–2027 (he is currently the Senior Editor for the journal). Until the New Zealand national research exercise Performance-Based Research Fund was put under review in 2024, Siah Hwee had been appointed by Tertiary Education Commission as one of the 7 initial members of the Business and Economics Panel to help set up the national research exercise criteria for the 2026 quality evaluation round. He has previously sat on the national assessment panels for New Zealand Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia (2016–2019, 2022), Prime Minister’s Business Scholarships (2018), and Marsden Fund (2015–2018), a prestigious fund supporting excellence in science, engineering, maths, social sciences and the humanities in New Zealand. Since 2022, Siah Hwee has also been an assessor for the MBIE’s Endeavour Fund (the largest contestable fund in New Zealand) that supports excellent research that will positively transform New Zealand’s economy, environment and society.

In 2021, as recognising his engagement with businesses, Siah Hwee was nominated and elected to the boards of both Business Central NZ (HQ in Wellington) and Wellington Chamber of Commerce. He was re-elected at the end of 2023, and has been elected by business peers to become the President of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce in late 2024. Siah Hwee was also sitting on the board of the ASEAN NZ Business Council in the period 2020–2023. He was also on the ASEAN Business Alliance Working Group for a few years. This working group involves all the New Zealand Chambers of Commerce in the Southeast Asia region, with all parties seeking ways to collaborate to enhance New Zealand’s engagement in the region.

Due to his various roles, Siah Hwee has been frequently invited to provide keynote address, speeches and as panellists at events hosted by, for example, NZ International Business Forum Board, APEC Business Advisory Council, Chartered Accountants ANZ, Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, MFAT ASEAN Public Leadership Programme, Asia Forum, Latin America NZ Business Council, Productivity Commission, Trans-Tasman Business Circle, Hong Kong NZ Business Association, NZ China Trade Association, NZ China Council, NZ Institute of International Affairs, China and NZ Business Council, MFAT China Capability Programme, Education NZ, NZ Security Intelligence Services, Grow Wellington, The Wellington Club, University Third Age and Rotary Clubs. He has also done similar work for the governments of Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia, and international organisations such as the Association of Executive Search Consultants (based in Hong Kong) and the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (based in Indonesia). With extensive engagement in business and government coming from an academic background, Siah Hwee was invited by the Paris-based OECD to become the only Oceania member of its Entrepreneurship Education Collaboration and Engagement Steering Committee, a 12-member group on how universities can promote entrepreneurial education and learning.

Siah Hwee is also actively engaged in public education. He has published more than 250 media pieces in various outlets, such as NZ Herald, The Post, stuff.co.nz, interest,co.nz and China Daily. In fact, he founded the ‘Understanding China’ column at interest.co.nz in 2014 in a collaborative effort with the media outlet to push for more understanding of China in New Zealand. Further, Siah Hwee has collaborated on various projects and engaged in discussions with various New Zealand agencies as well as foreign government and research institutions on global, Asia and New Zealand matters. Most recently, he was involved in a project to which MFAT used to front public officials from Australia and ASEAN around how public policies can be used to help SMEs in the context of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA).

Before arriving in New Zealand, Siah Hwee has had work experience in City University in London and National University of Singapore, where he completed his PhD in Management. Siah Hwee is Visiting Professor to a few universities, and is on the assessor panels of various Australian and Asian universities for promotions to Professor and Associate Professor.