Mr Chia is the founding Director and Managing Director of School D’Hospitality. Before 2007, Mr Chia was in the elite Singapore Administrative Service serving at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The varied assignments during his 15 years with the Foreign Ministry included First Secretary in the Singapore Embassy in Beijing; Deputy Director of Policy, Planning and Analysis Directorate III; Director of Corporate Affairs; Director of Human Resource; Director of East Asia Directorate; Consul General of Singapore to Shanghai; and Director of ASEAN Chairmanship Taskforce.

Mr Chia graduated with a Bachelor of Economics from Hitotsubashi University, Japan on a Singapore government scholarship and earned a Master of Management from the Peking University, China, under the Singapore China Foundation Premier Scholarship.

A recipient of the prestigious Singapore Public Service Commission – Colombo Plan Scholarship, Mr Hu was in the service of Institute of Technical Education (ITE), a statutory board of the Ministry of Education, for 14 years. During his tenure with ITE, he had held various academic and management positions which included Senior Lecturer; Curriculum Development Specialist; Head of Corporate Planning; Manager/Organisation Development; Manager/Academic & Organisation Excellence; and Campus Director of ITE College Central.

Mr Hu has a Bachelor of Engineering from Polytechnic University, Japan, a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration from University of Hull, United Kingdom and a Master of Business Administration (Advanced) from the University of Adelaide, Australia.