Who is Tan Su Shan, DBS's incoming CEO?

SINGAPORE — Singapore's DBS Group has appointed Tan Su Shan, currently its institutional banking group head, as CEO from March, replacing Piyush Gupta, who has led Southeast Asia's biggest bank for 14 years.

She will be the bank's first female chief executive and also the first to be appointed from within the ranks of the bank.

Here are some facts about Tan.

Tan's career track

Tan, 56, is Singaporean and an Oxford University graduate. She has 35 years of experience in consumer banking, wealth management and institutional banking.

Tan began her career at ING Baring Securities in institutional equity and derivative sales. She joined Morgan Stanley in 1997 as an executive director before becoming Citigroup's regional head for Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore in 2005. She then returned to Morgan Stanley in 2008 as head of private wealth management for Southeast Asia.

Tan joined DBS in 2010, where she spent the first three years building the bank's wealth management business.

She subsequently spent roughly equal lengths of time managing DBS's consumer banking, wealth management and institutional banking businesses.

She served as a nominated member of parliament in Singapore from 2012 to 2014 — a position appointed by the president to bring more independent views to parliament.

Tan sits on the advisory board of the family office of James Dyson, the founder of home appliance maker Dyson. She is also a member of the board for Singapore-listed real estate investment trust Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust.

What's expected?

Tan's immediate focus will be DBS's tech capabilities. The bank has had multiple service disruptions, leading to regulatory penalties and pay cuts for senior management including Gupta.

"We've been heavily engaged in a tech resiliency programme over the last 12 to 15 months," Gupta said in a briefing announcing Tan's appointment on Wednesday evening.

"Su Shan has been involved with that, but in the coming months, I expect her to be able to get even more deeply immersed in things around technology," he added.

Analysts say they don't expect major changes in strategy for DBS, which on Wednesday lifted its full-year earnings guidance to record levels.

"The appointment signals continuity and stability given she is already a major contributor to the Group's current culture and business mix," Thilan Wickramasinghe, an analyst at Maybank Investment Banking Group, said in a note to clients.

Interests

In her youth, Tan was passionate about tap dancing, seeing it at one point as a potential career path, according to media interviews. She is also an avid piano player.

Tan has expressed her admiration for the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher numerous times.

"I think she was so single minded in pursuing what she thought was right. She became deeply unpopular during England's conservative years but she didn't care one bit about popularity. She cared only about doing the right thing," she said of Thatcher in a 2015 interview with Tatler Asia.

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