Kuok earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the National University of Singapore Kuok is the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Wilmar International, Asia's leading agribusiness and cited as the "world's largest palm oil trader". In a joint purchase valued at £290m, Kuok's family investment vehicle HPRY Holdings partly acquired the Aviva Tower in the City of London in 2011, which subsequently received planning approval by the City of London for redevelopment into the Eric Parry designed 'Trellis', slated to be at 1000ft the tallest building in the City and the second tallest building in Western Europe. HPRY is a substantial shareholder in Perennial Real Estate Holdings, which develops commercial mixed use integrated developments and Health care projects in China. It owns several iconic properties in Singapore including CHIJMES, the Capitol and AXA Tower. HPRY was a seed/angel round investor in SEA Ltd, a SouthEast Asian Gaming and internet unicorn listed on the NYSE.

Kuok was born in the seaside town of Mersing in Johor, Malaysia, and educated at St Joseph's School and the English College, Johor Bahru. His Father, Kuok Hock Swee, had arrived in then British Malaya from Foochow in Southern China at the age of 18 and later built a thriving Business supplying foodstuffs along the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia, that was subsequently merged with the Kuok Group in exchange for an equity stake. The Kuok family traces its ancestry to the 8th century Tang Dynasty general Guo Ziyi. Kuok is married and has four children - 3 sons and 1 daughter. His second son, Kuok Meng Ru, is in the music industry, owning the music Retail company Swee Lee, the cloud-based music creation platform BandLab Technologies, and a 49% stake in Rolling Stones Magazine. In 2017 Kuok was estimated by Forbes to be worth US$2.7Bn and ranked as the 8th richest Singaporean.