Internal strife in urban development Who is Wu Guanying, Secretary-General of Guo Lingming's Office?

Family conflicts in the management of Urban Development (CDL) continue to ferment. Group President Guo Yizhi issued a statement on Thursday (February 27) evening saying that Dr. Wu Guanying, Secretary-General of Chairman Guo Lingming's Office, is the fundamental cause of the dispute.

This statement made Secretary-General Wu Guanying, who has followed Guo Lingming for nearly 30 years, the focus of the incident. Who is she? Lianhe Zaobao has compiled some details about Wu Guanying based on several interviews with Wu Guanying in the past and combined with public information on the Internet.

Wu Guanying is 65 years old, originally from Taiwan, and has received music education since childhood. In 1982, she obtained her master's degree in piano performance from The Juilliard School in New York and then her PhD in music education from New York University. In the early 1990s, Wu Guanying returned to Taiwan, released music albums and hosted music programs.

In 1992, Wu Guanying met Guo Lingming at a dinner party with elders in Taiwan. She once described this encounter as “changing life.” In the same year, she moved to Singapore and studied with Guo Lingming for more than 30 years.

When Wu Guanying first came to Singapore, she did not engage in hotel business, but continued her music career. By 2000, she had published eight albums. In 2000, she devoted herself to the field of education and founded a kindergarten on the East Coast of Singapore, and operated it for 10 years.

Further reading

Meet Wu Guanying at an elder dinner with Guo Lingming. She described her encounter changing her life.

Guo Yizhi: Internal fighting on the board of directors of urban development is not “seizing power” Wu Guanying is the root cause

After closing the kindergarten, she became active in hotel management affairs.

In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao, she talked about the reasons why she finally entered the hotel industry – Guo Lingming was interested in cultivating her, and sometimes invited her to attend hotel management meetings or events to listen to her opinions, and she also took this opportunity to learn.

She once described her status as she was still focused on the music career and had not officially entered the hotel industry: “The Chairman would raise his ideas or questions. I would provide advice or feedback from an outsider's perspective, which is usually related to the hotel business. But I don't make any decisions, and Chairman Guo is the one who made the final decision.”

After officially joining the hotel business, Wu Guanying became the secretary-general of Guo Lingming's office.

According to the Straits Times, she served as a director of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (M&C), a subsidiary of Urban Development, and stepped down in January 2024. In August 2024, she returned to the board of directors as an advisor.

The Straits Times also reported that according to a 2018 London court document, Wu Guanying served as Guo Lingming's personal secretary at that time, but was not a company employee, but directly paid by Guo Lingming.

In May 2024, GeekCon, a cybersecurity event and conference that was founded for ten years, was held in Singapore for the first time. Wu Guanying is the behind-the-scenes promoter and serves as the secretary-general of the event. Guo Lingming strongly supported this and served as honorary consultant for the event.

Wu Guanying once talked to Lianhe Zaobao about the reason for introducing this event to Singapore: “Compared with some countries, Singapore may not have that many 'white hat' talents. We hope to cultivate industry talents so that Singapore can become not only a financial center, a trade center, but also a security center.”