OCBC has named Helen Wong as its new chief executive, replacing Samuel Tsien upon his retirement on April 14.
Wong becomes the first female chief executive of a Singapore bank, in an appointment that makes greater sense of her departure from HSBC in August 2019.
Wong, who rose to be chief executive of HSBC Greater China, started her career at OCBC in 1984 as a desk manager and her return bookends a career spent mainly in Hong Kong and China, including a spell as chair of the Hong Kong Association of Banks.
Her departure from HSBC, coming so close to the ousting of John Flint as chief executive, was closely watched.
At the time, HSBC was under exceptional scrutiny from every angle. It was worrying about China’s expected list of unreliable organizations, and the pressure that had been put on other Hong Kong-linked iconic corporates such as Cathay Pacific.
At the same time, it was being pushed to help the US Department of Justice in its investigation of Huawei. It was perhaps not the most stress-free place to earn a living as a China executive.
HSBC insisted the timing of her and Flint’s departures was coincidental, and that she had an opportunity elsewhere, one she wasn’t even telling her colleagues about.
There was some conjecture Wong might be headed to Bank of East Asia to shake up an ageing executive rank, but then she arrived at OCBC in February 2020 as deputy president and head of global wholesale banking, and things began to make sense.
Tsien, who is approaching nine years at the top of OCBC, is 66, and the bank’s chairman Ooi Sang Kuang has been looking at succession planning with his board for some time.
It is significant that Singapore has its first female bank CEO
Wong is an interesting appointment for OCBC because she is indelibly associated with Greater China, not southeast Asia. In truth, she has done most things over the years – debt capital markets, wholesale banking – but, still, she is first and foremost a China name.
Ooi said in a statement on Friday that “Helen’s experiences and expertise extend beyond corporate banking, Greater China and North Asia… We are confident that Helen will be able to lead the OCBC Group to greater heights in an increasingly complex and challenging environment.”
When she joined OCBC, she co-led the bank’s Transform for Future taskforce, which is exactly the sort of job you give someone who is spending a year in the wings learning the inside of an institution: that role was all about OCBC group strategy.
Among the things she will have digested in that role, and which she will need to communicate a plan for, will be:
the bank’s Hong Kong subsidiary Wing Hang Bank, which represents its bridgehead into Greater China;
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its Bank of Singapore wealth management subsidiary, which is a vital engine of growth and earnings;
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its strength in SME banking, a local differentiator;
its technological and digital standards, where it is perceived to lag DBS and UOB;
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the threat of the new digibank entrants into the Singapore market;
the strength of the loan book and the balance sheet in light of Covid – fine so far, but the coronavirus is not going away as quickly as many would have hoped;
and making the best of opportunities in Asean at a time when cross-border trade has been so badly disrupted.
Diversification
Tsien will leave with the group in good shape – and he does always insist that people recognize it is a group, not just a bank. It has strength in insurance (Great Eastern Holdings), asset management (Lion Global Investors), brokerage (OCBC Securities) and, increasingly under his watch, private banking, bolstered by the acquisition of the Barclays business.
He set out to build a universal bank and his belief that this diversification is a protection in difficult times has been born out through the last 12 months.
However, OCBC is said to be slow to change and somewhat siloed. If Wong thinks a change of direction is necessary, it will be a challenge to get all participants onside. It was notable that, of the three banks, OCBC was the first to urge its staff back into offices in force, which perhaps suggests a certain lack of flexibility.
It is significant that Singapore has its first female bank CEO. A year ago, the smart money would have been on DBS’s Tan Su Shan as the first, whenever Piyush Gupta decides it is time to retire; she is certainly in the mix for that job, but is probably one of three in contention internally.
Who knows, perhaps before too long two thirds of Singapore’s banks will be run by women. UOB seems more of a reach: only one woman, group technology chief Susan Hwee, sits on the bank’s eight-strong management executive committee.
