Chang San-cheng

Chang San-cheng or Simon Chang (Chinese: 張善政; pinyin: Zhāng Shànzhèng) (born 24 June 1954) is a Taiwanese politician who was Premier of the Republic of China from 1 February 2016 until 20 May 2016, a position to which he was confirmed by President Ma Ying-jeou on 25 January. Before assuming the Premiership, he had served as Vice Premier from 8 December 2014.

Education

Chang obtained his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from National Taiwan University in 1976. He then obtained his master's degree in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University in 1977 and doctoral degree in civil and environmental engineering from Cornell University in 1981 in the United States.

Early career

Upon graduation, Chang had served as a lecturer, associate professor and professor at the Department of Civil Engineering of the National Taiwan University from 1981 to 1990. He was the Director for National Center for High-Performance Computing from 1991 to 1997. From 1998 to 2000, he was the Director of the Department of Planning and Evaluation of National Science Council. Between 2000 and 2010, he worked for Acer Inc. as Vice President of the e-Enabling Service Business Group, and between 2010 and 2012, he worked for Google as the Director of Google's hardware operations in Asia.

Political career

He was appointed as Minister without Portfolio of the Executive Yuan in 2012. On March 3, 2014, the National Science Council was upgraded to the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Chang served as its first minister. On December 8, 2014, at a reformation of the Executive Yuan after the ruling KMT party lost the election, Chang became the Vice Premier.