Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah AO is the visionary founder and chairman of Sunway Group, a leading Malaysian conglomerate with core interests in property, construction, education and healthcare. He is also the founding trustee of Malaysia’s largest education-focused social enterprise, the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation (JCF). His lifelong dedication to sustainable development is evident in the host of thriving communities throughout Sunway’s integrated developments and townships totalling some 5,000 acres across Malaysia. He has also shown magnanimous philanthropy through the JCF, in making quality education accessible to all deserving and bright students, for posterity.

Sunway’s sustainable and fully-integrated green township developments have remarkably improved the way thousands of people live, learn, work, and play in a healthy, safe and connected environment. The flagship Sunway City was transformed from a tin-mining wasteland into a wonderland with first-rate facilities and amenities, and remains an epitome of rehabilitation and restoration. Sunway City Ipoh was built upon the principles of preservation and conservation cradled by 260-million-year-old limestone hills and verdant forests. Sunway Iskandar, dubbed as Nature’s Capital City, offers world-class city living in harmony with nature. As benchmarks for sustainable development, Sunway remains in its townships as the largest stakeholder through a unique “Build-Own-Operate” business model, thus ensuring constant value-creation and the continued growth of its communities with sustainable high standards and an enhanced quality of living.

As an ardent enthusiast of quality education for socio-economic growth towards fostering peace and prosperity in the country, Tan Sri Cheah has chosen to focus on democratising education as his legacy. Fulfilling his personal life philosophy to “aspire to inspire before I expire,” he had transferred, in perpetuity, the equity and rights of Sunway Education Group’s (SEG) educational institutions, worth in excess of RM1 billion today, into the JCF. Rooted in his conviction of the power of education in breaking the cycle of poverty and in raising standards of living, the JCF has disbursed scholarships RM270 million and counting in scholarships to date, touching and transforming the lives of thousands of future leaders and global citizens. It is Tan Sri Cheah’s personal aim to award RM1 billion worth of scholarships in his lifetime.