By KAN KWOK LEONG
WHEN his firm’s biggestclient requested a meet-ing with him and hisbosses in the UnitedStates, Tan Chin Hwee,
the Singapore-based partner of Apol-lo Global Management, turned themdown.
The reason: The meeting wouldhave forced him to miss his daugh-ter’s fifth birthday.
He marked Kylie’s birthday hereand then flew off to meet the client, aday after the scheduled meeting.
The move was typical of the manwhom many consider to be Asia’s topprivate equity professional, the found-ing partner in Asia at Apollo, aNew-York headquartered US$115 bil-lion alternative investment firm setup by Wall Street legend Leon Blackin 1990.
In an industry where sacrificingthe personal for the professional isconsidered par for the course, the42-year-old has stood out for his dedi-cation to his family and a concerted ef-fort to give back to society.
He told BT in an interview: “Ididn’t say no out of arrogance, but Ihave never missed my three chil-dren’s birthdays. I may be a top dogin a global firm, but my greatestachievement is my lovely wife and mythree kids.
“We must be the person we wantto be, so that we can inspire ourkids.”
Being with Kylie on her birthdaywas especially significant for him andhis wife, Michelle Lee, 39. The girl,born prematurely at 27 weeks andweighing only 800g, had to fight forher life as a baby.
The experience inspired the Tansto set up two foundations dedicated tohelping children. The couple havetwo other children, Brian, nine, andSarah, four.
Mr Tan credits his parents and hiswife – he describes her as his universi-ty sweetheart – above all others forhis success.
“I have a wife who can run the
house properly, and that allows me tofocus on my job.”
His success in the industry is undis-puted, having built an impressivetrack record and garnered numerousindustry awards. He was named as aWorld Economic Forum Young Glo-bal Leader 2010; voted by HedgeFund Journal as one of the top 40emerging absolute-return investorsglobally; and honoured as the BestAsia Credit Hedge Fund Manager byHong Kong-based publication The As-set.
His most recent accolade was thisyear’s Distinguished Financial Indus-try Certified Professional (FICP)award from Singapore’s Institute ofBanking and Finance (IBF). He is alsothe new president of the CFA SocietySingapore.
He joined Apollo in 2007 and start-ed its Asian operations based out ofSingapore after a career in finance atKeppel Corp, DBS Bank andUS-based hedge fund managers Ama-ranth Advisors.
“After DBS, I joined Amaranth androse through the ranks. I could suc-ceed in the western world because itis purely performance driven. Thereare only three letters that matter – notMBA, not CFA, but P&L. It is purelymeritocratic.”
At Apollo, he and his team, whichincludes partner Girish Kumar, havecompleted close to 50 deals in privatecredits in the last six to seven years.“Our business is a local business, andour mantra is that we must invest indeals that can solve problems,” hesaid.
Mr Tan’s beliefs are contrary tothe bottom-line focus of the financialindustry.
“Sadly in finance, the value systemis performance-based. It is tilted to-wards making money at all costs. Butthere must be a balance between avalue-based and performance-basedsystem.
“In finance, they pay too muchmoney and that becomes reinforce-ment. Why should an engineer bepaid so much less than a financial an-
alyst?” He believes that one of thegreatest challenges of business todayis creating a culture that is bothvalue-centred and performance-driven; too many firms focus on per-formance and pay little attention tovalues. He cites Norges Bank Invest-ment Management, Google and hisformer employer Keppel Corporationas organisations which are taking thelead in trying to balance both objec-tives.
To achieve that balance on a per-sonal basis, he takes pains to drawboundaries between his work and per-sonal lives.
“The business takes a lot out ofyou. I have done close to 100 deals inthe last 10 years. You need to sustaina balance, but I always find that chal-lenging. The only way you canachieve that is to set boundaries: Iwill not return calls till I’ve put thekids to sleep.”
He supports a long list of socialcauses, such as by sitting on theboards of hospitals and volunteeringhis time teaching at the universitieshere.
He believes that more can be doneto help Singaporeans who have not
benefited from the country’s econom-ic success. One idea that he proposesis to redistribute wealth by imple-menting a progressive a tax system –one that taxes the rich more.
“I can make such a proposal witha pure heart because I will be one ofthose who will be affected.”
His desire to give back to societycould stem from his humble upbring-ing in a lower-middle income family,and growing up in a meritocratic sys-tem that gave him three scholarships,including one that sponsored hisMBA at Yale University.
“I was always among the top stu-dents in school. These scholarshipsgave me the chance to focus on mystudies and worry less about helpingmy parents to provide for my twoyounger siblings.”
He credits current Keppel Corpora-tion CEO Choo Chiau Beng for givinghim a scholarship in 1992, and thecompany’s finance chief Teo SoonHoe and treasury general managerLynn Koh for giving him his break infinance by hiring him for Keppel’streasury department a few years lat-er.
In the face of the finance indus-
try’s many scandals in recent years,he urges the next generation of bank-ers and financiers to stick to their ide-als: “You should never forget your ide-als and your standards. Many ofthose from the younger generationstart out idealistic, but once they getthere and start earning a lot of mon-ey, they forget.”
He believes that despite its recenttroubles, the financial industry willcontinue to attract the best and thebrightest, sometimes at the expense
of other industries. Yet, the industry
needs to change if it is to remain rele-
vant.
“Finance still creates a lot of
wealth, and many people make an
honest living from it – but it has to con-
tinue to evolve because if you don’t
change, you will become a dinosaur.
The finance industry has always
evolved, but it has to come from with-
in. Governments can only do so
much.”
Fighting tostay balanced
By KAN KWOK LEONG
AT a Citibank branchearlier this year, thebank’s Singaporechief executive HanKwee Juan foundhimself playing theword-guessing gameTaboo with some of
his staff. The objective of the game isfor a player to have someone elseguess the word on his card without us-ing the word itself. In his case,Mr Han was playing the role of a cus-tomer, and the branch employeeswere trying their best to make theirboss understand.
An objective of such games is to in-grain in staff the concept of keepingthings simple for customers in orderto better serve them.
As banking products become morecomplex and their consumers increas-ingly demanding, Mr Han is focusedon achieving one thing more than anyothers during his tenure as CEO: tosimplify, simplify, simplify.
“If we simplify the platform, it willbe much easier to be nimble to thechanging needs of customers and easi-er to manage the risk in our busi-ness,” said Mr Han, 45, in an inter-view with BT.
His desire to achieve this led himto create an index to measure simplici-ty of the bank’s processes and prod-ucts on a scale of 1 to 10, with one be-ing the simplest.
This has resulted in a host of newproducts and services that have beenunveiled since Mr Han took over hiscurrent role in March last year – fromthe ability to pay credit card bills viaSMS to a 24/7 self-service machinethat offers many branch banking ser-vices.
It also helped earn him a Distin-guished Financial Industry CertifiedPractitioner (DFICP) Award this yearin the consumer banking category.
Mr Han’s mission to simplifycomes as Citibank cements its posi-tion as a major player across all seg-ments of Singapore’s banking land-scape. Citibank Singapore, the locallyincorporated consumer unit of theAmerican banking giant, started oper-ations as a standalone entity in 2005.
It has since been classified by regu-lators here as the country’s fourth sys-temically important financial institu-
tion, after the three local banks. Thebank holds capital far above stipulat-ed requirements, with its total CapitalAdequacy Ratio standing at just over28 per cent as at Dec 31, 2012, versusthe 10 per cent required.
Its current status caps the transfor-mation of Citibank from a niche play-er serving affluent customers to onethat now cuts across all customer cate-gories – offering everything from anSMRT co-branded credit card for themass market to the exclusive Ultimacard aimed at clients with assets un-der management of at least $5 mil-lion.
“In the 1980s, we were a niche
bank for the affluent. We invented Citi-gold, which became the gold stand-ard for premier banking for Asia. It’snot that we didn’t like the rest of themarket, but at that time, we couldn’topen enough touch points to give con-sumers from all segments a taste ofwhat Citi could do for them,” he said.
After the enforcement of theUS-Singapore free trade agreementin 2004 allowed it to expand its pres-ence here, Citibank has grown to of-fer over 1,500 touchpoints island-wide, including branches, ATMs atSMRT Stations, Cold Storage Super-markets and Esso Petrol Stations.
Mr Han has witnessed much of
that evolution as a 20-year veteranCitibanker, although much of thattime was spent in the corporate, rath-er than consumer, part of the bank.
He began his career with Citi Pri-vate Bank as an intern in 1990 andmoved on to a management associaterole in 1991 with the markets busi-ness. Since then, he has run differentbusinesses in a variety of roles, includ-ing head of global cash and trade,and head of global relationship bank-ing Singapore.
He was appointed head of retailbanking in August 2011, and sixmonths later later was promoted tochief executive officer and country
business manager of Citibank Singa-pore.
He leveraged on his experiencedealing with large corporates to cre-ate CEO Conversations, a recentlylaunched wealth advisory serviceaimed at entrepreneurs and C-suiteexecutives.
Recognising that many of thesecustomers had their own funds tiedup in the companies that they own orrun, Mr Han and his team devised aservice that would marry their person-al investment needs with those relat-ed to their businesses.
Addressing needs“We launched CEO Conversations toaddress the needs of both the entre-preneurs and senior executives incompanies. No bank has approachedthese people to say ‘We will workwith you on your investments, and tai-lor it to your business, and give you asense of risk and return collectively’,”said Mr Han.
Such innovations have been a hall-mark of Citibank’s consumer busi-ness, and one that Mr Han very muchintends to maintain. While CitibankSingapore is able to leverage on a glo-bal operation to bring new productsto the local market, it has also oftenconceived new ideas that have beenexported to the region.
One such innovation was allowingcustomers to activate and deactivatetheir credit cards by sending an SMS,which has now been adopted in othermarkets.
“We have innovations that were in-vented here then made available tothe rest of the markets in Asia. So it isthe reverse of what happens typically,where we import innovations,” hesaid.
One thing that Mr Han doesn’twish to change is his employer. Evenas many of his peers have gone on tosenior positions in other banks, he re-mains very much a loyal Citibanker.He cites his own path through thebank as evidence of the trust it placesin its employees.
“Citibank is an organisation thatvalues you and empowers you fromDay 1. I’ve never felt for a momentthat I have not been given an opportu-nity to take a risk on my own career.”
Family matters: Mr Tan, with his wife Michelle Lee, and their children (from left) Kylie, Sarah and Brian. In an industry where sacrificing thepersonal for the professional is considered par for the course, Mr Tan has stood out for his dedication to his family.
Asia’s top private equity professional,Apollo Global Management’s Tan Chin Hwee,defines himself first as a family manand social advocate
Mr Han: Says that his mission to simplify comes as Citibank cements its position as a major player acrossall segments of Singapore’s banking landscape.
Citibank Singapore CEO Han Kwee Juan has put simplifying the bank’s processes and products at the heart of his mission
Extra-curricular activitiesOn top of his full-time job as a partner at global private equity firm Apol-lo Global Management, Tan Chin Hwee serves on the committees of com-munity groups and other charities.
He is president of the CFA Society in Singapore and a member of theboard of trustees for KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Lien Aid,a foundation associated with the Nanyang Technological University(NTU) to address water and sanitation issues in Asia.
He has volunteered his time with regulators in Asia and the US onforensic accounting and is an adjunct professor to Masters-level stu-dents at the Singapore Management University, NTU and at ShanghaiJiaoTong University.
A traditionof innovationWith CEO Han Kwee Juan atthe helm, Citibank Singaporehas launched a host of newproducts and services over thepast year aimed at making lifeeasier for its clients.◆ November 2012: Consumerscan pay their Citibank creditcard bill via SMS on theirmobile phone. The service,known as Citibank SMS Pay,sends customers a mobile SMSmessage when their creditcard bill is ready and allowsthem to make a minimum orfull payment on their Citibankcredit card bill by replying tothe SMS message.◆ January 2013: CitibankExpress is a 24/7 self-servicemachine that allows customersto conduct almost all theirbanking, including openingaccounts and applying forloans, cards and cashier’sorders without visiting abranch. The functionalities ofthe machine will be rolled outin phases.◆ February 2013: Citibanklaunches Singapore’s firstcontactless payment tag forcredit card payments. It toutsitself as the world’s firststicker tag that has the samelevel of security as the creditcard and is an additionalpayment mode that can belinked to any existing CitibankVisa credit card.◆ April 2013: CitibankSingapore unveils CEOConversations, a specialisedprivate wealth advisory servicefor high net worth clients whoare business owners or C-levelexecutives. The new serviceoffers a holistic approachtowards the investmentadvisory process that alsotakes into account the risksthat these individuals face inthe businesses that they ownor run. CEO Conversation ispart of Citibank’s CitigoldPrivate Client segment cateringto clients with liquid assets of$1 million and above.
Keeping it simple for success
32 FICS AWARDS 2013 The Business Times, Wednesday, May 29, 2013
