Tan Kong Yam is presently Professor of Economics at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is also the board member of Changi Airport Group.

From 1985-88, he was an assistant director in the Monetary Authority of Singapore in charge of exchange rate policy. He was the chief assistant to Dr Goh Keng Swee, the former deputy Prime Minister of Singapore invited by Mr Deng Xiaoping to advise China on economic development strategy (1985-89). From June 2002 to June 2005, he was a senior economist at the World Bank office in Beijing where he worked on issues of macro stabilization, banking reform, international trade and investment as well as regional inequality. In 2004, he was a member of the World Bank expert group on the eleventh five year plan (2006-2010) for the State Council in China.

Prior to that, he was the chief economist of the Singapore government at the Ministry of Trade and Industry (1999-2002 May), Head, Department of Strategy and Policy, Faculty of Business Administration at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is a graduate of Princeton (1975-79, class of 1931 scholar, Paul Volcker Thesis prize) and Stanford University (1980-83) where he completed his Master and PhD in three years.