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Ambassador Michael Tay was the 17th Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat.
Ambassador Tay has taken office at one of the most challenging moments in APEC's 20-year history, as a global economic recession takes hold. He played a lead role in paving the way for a new fixed-term executive director who will lead the Secretariat from 2010 to 2012.
His links to APEC date back to its conception and establishment, and to the founding of the Secretariat. He has since been witness to the evolution of the process.
Ambassador Tay brings to the position his unique strengths and experience in mobilizing business linkages, in forging new ways of building diplomatic ties, such as through the arts, and in strategic foreign policy thinking.
As Executive Director, he also concurrently held the position of Executive Director of the Russia-Singapore Business Forum Organizing Council.
Prior to joining the Secretariat, Ambassador Tay served as Singapore's Ambassador to Russia from 2003 to 2008.
Ambassador Tay has considerable experience in Southeast Asia and of regional multilateral fora, thanks to his involvement with ASEAN. From 1999 to 2002, he was the Director-General of ASEAN-Singapore, which placed him at the center of the ASEAN policy-implementation and budgetary processes. During Singapore's Chairmanship of ASEAN in 1998–1999, he was the chief coordinator for the ASEAN Ministerial Meetings and the Summit.
Other regional postings include his time at the Singapore Embassies in Tokyo, Japan (1995–1998) and in Seoul, Korea (1989–1992)—during the latter posting, his first overseas, he was tasked with establishing the first Singapore Embassy in Korea.
In 2006, Ambassador Tay was awarded the Singapore Public Administration Medal (Silver) and bestowed with the honor of "Patron of Art of the Century" by a foremost Russian foundation. Ambassador Tay holds Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy) (Hons) and Master of Arts (Philosophy) degrees from the National University of Singapore.