Businessman Stephen Riady, 59, has been elected to the global board of trustees of the Asia Society, an international organisation that focuses on educating the world about Asia.

Dr Riady, elected at a meeting in Hong Kong last Friday, is executive chairman of Singapore real estate company OUE and chairman and executive president of Hong Kong-listed company Lippo.

In 2010, he established the Stephen Riady Group of Foundations, which gives scholarships and bursaries to educational institutions in Singapore and abroad.

The Asia Society is a non-profit organisation that was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in New York.

The society has centres in American cities like San Francisco as well as Asian cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore.

Dr Riady's involvement in the society follows that of his 89-year-old father Mochtar Riady, who was an Asia Society trustee from 1997 to 2005 and a global council member from 1989 to 1997.

The two other new appointments to the board are Mr Harit Talwar, global head of Goldman Sachs' digital consumer financial services business, and Mr Frederick Demopoulos, co-founder of Qunar, one of China's largest online travel marketplaces.