CLASS founding CEO Paul Wee, will retire after 21 years with the organization. He will be succeeded by Andrew Fong, who joined CLASS recently as CEO Designate.
Paul joined CLASS in 2000 shortly after it was established in 1999, first as its General Manager and soon after as CEO. From its humble beginnings when CLASS operated out of rent-free office space from the generosity of a founding member Cambridge University Press, Paul has managed to transform CLASS into one of Asia’s most successful, not-for-profit copyright management organisations, who now distributes annually royalties in excess of $2.2 million to its members.
Andrew will take over as CEO from 1 February 2021. CLASS will however not be losing Paul, as from 1 February 2021, he will continue to work with CLASS as consultant.
Andrew, has held various senior executive positions in both local and international multi-national corporations. Deeply involved in education and publishing, his business network spans across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, parts of Europe and the Americas. Andrew is also experienced in strategic decision-making, business process engineering, quality assurance and change management. Before joining CLASS, he was the General Manager – Business Development (SEA & CAMENA) at Oxford University Press.
The CLASS Board of Directors wishes to extend its heartfelt appreciation to Paul for his past contribution and leadership and at the same time, welcomes Andrew onboard.
Publisher member, Peh Shing Woei of Shing Lee Publishers and author member Peh Shing Huei have both joined the Board of Directors at the CLASS Annual General Meeting on August 26. The AGM, which was held on-line due to the current pandemic distancing measures, also saw 6 other directors retain their positions on the 9-member Board. They are: author member Alban Kang; two other publisher-member representatives: Anil Chandy (Springer Nature) and Chua Hong Koon (World Scientific Publishing); Independent director-members: Ang Kwee Tiang, Anthony Lund and Tan Chor Meng (Wiley Asia Education).
Download Press Release here.
