Vivian Balakrishnan

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan has helmed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since October 2015, having previously been a Member of Parliament since 2001. He served as Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Initiative; Minister for the Environment and Water Resources; Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports; Second Minister for Trade and Industry; Minister-in-charge of Entrepreneurship; Second Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts and Minister of State for National Development. Dr Balakrishnan studied Medicine at the National University of Singapore after being awarded the President’s Scholarship in 1980. Following post-graduate specialist training in Ophthalmology, he was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1991. Dr Balakrishnan was also a ministerial facilitator for many rounds of negotiations (2011-15) that led to the Paris Agreement on climate change at the United Nations.