星展银行CEO陈淑珊：新加坡的成功之道、DBS的数字化转型与AI赋能

Hi everyone, I'm Nicolola Tangian, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund and today I'm in particularly good company because I am in Singapore and I'm speaking to Susan who's the CEO of DBS, the largest bank in this part of the world and not only that, Susan is one of the most important and powerful women in global finance. So big thank you for taking the time.

Yeah, I always uh yeah, it's not it's I'm I'm not comfortable with that, but okay. Well, that's just a fact. That's just a fact.

Susan, um, DBS, tell us about it.

So, we were formed two 3 years after Singapore was born in 1965. DBS was the development bank of Singapore.

Uh, really to develop Singapore in those days, we were a small uh, unindustrialized little island. Um, and I guess we have evolved um, from our development roots down to being the largest commercial bank in Southeast Asia. M

um but I like to use the D word because DBS, you know, although it stands for development bank of Singapore, I think we have evolved. I think we've gone from being a development bank now to being a very digital bank. I would like to think we are a disruptive bank, but I also want us to remain the dependable bank

and also the data bank of the future. Um and um and and diversifier bank.

How have you helped develop Singapore?

Well, in the initial days of Singapore's uh birth uh independence um in 1965, we knew that as a small country, we had nothing. We had no natural resources. The only thing we had were humans were human beings.

So, you have to open up for trade. You have to open up for talent. So if people goods and services and money financial hub if you can build a financial hub a trade hub ports you'll get people you get talent you get GDP growth you get jobs so that's how we we started and our early development routes we worked you know with we were part of the economic development board was to grow Singapore industry whether it was support authority of Singapore whether it was Singapore airlines

um all the new industrial growth growth ps industry parts uh in the 70s and 80s was a lot of manufacturing. We were financing a lot of manufacturers. We were bringing in MNC's you know from from Europe from from your part of the world from the US from Japan setting up factories here going from kind of middle uh to high-end manufacturing precision manufacturing electronic manufacturing um and then increasingly moving into services. What do you think other countries can learn from sing from the Singapore success story?

I think the bedrock of what we do is is better on trust and integrity.

So you know in in this world where where we're where where the world is getting so volatile and so bifocated and east and west and you know bridges are being broken, relationships are broken and the the the you know global order the rulesbased world is is now no longer the case. M

I think if you have a jurisdiction that's number one clean and transparent, number two steady,

uh and number three open for business

and rules based. So we stay the course, we're responsible, we're open, we're transparent, we're rules based, I think there is room for that, you know, in this volatile world, who doesn't want a sort of stable

totally

island of stability.

Is there another set of um features that make you Singaporean? What is it? What does it mean to be Singaporean?

Gosh, that's a big question. But, you know, as a Singaporean born and bred here, I would say we are law abiding. We are open-minded. Uh, we keep wanting to stay ahead. So, in

Singapore, we say, you know what, have you heard of the word kiasu?

Uh, I'm not very,

it's a Singaporean term. So, kiasu is a local slang for scared to lose. So, it's almost like a paranoia, if you will, because we're small, we're paranoid because if we don't keep moving forward, we'll be left behind.

Absolutely. Well, only the paranoid survive.

Only the paranoid survive. So, we're a little bit of a kiasu island. Um, and we keep having to evolve to stay relevant, to stay ahead. So, I like to kind of think that that's the Singapore DNA in a way, another dword.

Um, and hopefully that's and I think that's also the DBS DNA, just keep moving forward to stay relevant.

The also staying responsible.

Absolutely.

The government owns um a part of through task.

Correct.

In which ways is that important?

I think that gives us uh uh validation. Um I think it it is what I what I would like to call a tamasic halo if you will. Um

um it's stability of uh ownership. It's also support tamasic. Um has a strong stable of um tamasic linked portfolio companies. um who have an ecosystem of support for each other.

Uh they also get the best you know best of breed of people coming in and out. So we get access to talent to ideas uh to disruptive technology. Um and so their network it's not just the capital that's their network. It's their expertise and their support that's important.

You said you wanted to be haven in the sea of volatility. Is that really possible in today's geopolitical situation?

Not easy. Right.

How do you think about it? How do you think about the geopolitical fractures and ruptures that's going on just now?

I think about it as you need to to to to be diversified. So you can't rely too much on one or the other.

Right? When the tariffs came, everyone thought, "Oh, shots. If you're only selling to the US, well, you're going to be be suffering badly. You're going to have to find new um you know, new areas of growth. U so diversify your marketplace. If you're only supply if you only get supplies from one country, most people get supplies from China, then oh, you might want to diversify your supply chain as well, right? So, China plus one. So, it's a diversifying and also where you bank, right? If you think about um high net worth families in the past, they were either banking in the west or, you know, in the US or in Switzerland or Europe uh or in Asia. But today, most people want to diversify.

They want to have all three areas and they probably have gold. they might have used to have a lot of US dollars. Now they're thinking I might diversify into other currencies, different asset classes. So I guess the the the diversifier is important but how also you know I think we if if the rest of the world and it does look like quite a lot of countries are still saying we want to abide by rulesbased global order of trade

then I would like to think that trade outside the US to o t us like we call it in DBS we call it totus totus at 89% has has room to grow

has room to grow and that could be intraasia it could be Asia to the Middle East, GCC countries, it could be EU to Asia, it could be within ASEAN. We see a lot of pockets of growth potential and trade outside the US and I think we should focus on that.

Moving on to your kind of personal journey, you've been with DBS for a long time, but you've been

15 years, but you've been CEO for six months.

Yeah.

So, what was the biggest surprise by becoming CEO?

I think the fact that, you know, you had to manage so many different stakeholders. It's not just the board. And of course, I've been used to managing customers and and and and and teams um and the board, but it's investors like yourself. Um it's um the government. It's a lot of media. It's a lot of um there's a big public persona.

Do you think that's fun? Do you like it?

Um yes and no. I mean, it's fun if I get to meet people like you, but it can be quite intrusive. like you know there will be a lot of stories that I'll think like is that even a story you know so so it it it's you know you take the good with the bad I guess

comes with the territory but you have to be careful and on you know on your guard more often than not

um but having said that I it's been an honor I mean you know being uh Singaporean being I guess the first woman for DBS um not the first Singaporean my my my my my my my my my boss my previous boss was um but also inheriting

uh what I think is a really good foundation uh and um having the support of my chairman and my board uh and my shareholders has been has been good because you know what right after I took over bang liberation day happened right

and what deliberation

so it was like wow okay baptism of fire right um and um so it's been it's been um It's been it's been you know interesting.

Oh, I talked to a lot of people. I talked to so when liberation day happened I talked to a lot of my board members who opened the doors to some of the biggest, you know, US dollar traders and I talked to shareholders. I talked to um people like yourself to to get a sense of what kind of prison they were using to to to to measure risk and how they were diversifying their risk. Are you surprised by how financial markets have recovered?

Yeah, I I mean it's incredible. No.

Why do you think they have recovered so sharply?

I think there's been a lot of liquidity in the markets and I think the economic slowdown is real. I think if you look at real commercial asset growth, it's been quite tepid, right?

There was a frontloading of of of supply chain financing and trade pre-tariff, but now that's slowing down. when the pause button got pressed by liberation day that led to a drop in investments and I think that's that's showing up u in the numbers and as rates start to grind down rates have been very low in Asia already rates crashed in Asia so there's a lot of liquidity uh out in these markets particularly in Hong Kong and in Singapore so that I think has spurred quite a lot of investments into into financial assets

so in a way not that surprised but you know it's it's incredible I mean this wall of worry seems to have disappeared

absolutely Yeah, let's talk about uh Warris. I mean uh early on in your career, you demoted yourself.

I did.

Tell me about it.

So when my boss um and my chairman hired me, it was to set up the private bank. And when I came in and looked in DBS, I thought, "Wow, there's so much potential in the consumer bank um from retail to to the priority bank." And if I wanted to build a really good private bank, I can't do it standing alone. to create scale and and impact, I had to be part of the consumer bank. So, I asked my CEO, "Please downgrade me. I won't report to you. I will report to the consumer banking head."

He thought it was unorthodox. He's like, "Why the hell do you not want to report to me when I'm the CEO?" And I said, "Pumer banking head." um and uh we can create a wealth continuum and and and and my our impact can be much larger. So he said it's unorthodox. I'll have to go back to the board. So he went back to the board. They okayed my demotion. So I joined and got demoted.

One step back.

What did you do to your ego? Did you think it was was it good for your ego?

Yeah.

Why? Yeah,

I think um you know in life you often have to stick you take one step back to take two steps forward

and um it's not really you know at the end of the day you don't really choose your bosses and you don't um and and a title isn't that important. I think impacts are more important. Some people think differently

but don't you think I mean

no I kind of agree with you but some I would say I suspect I in particular men I think are very tied up to the title

probably

hopefully you know less so these days as as people as organizations become more flat

I think most people want to have impact and and and and if you really are impact driven then the title doesn't matter if you can have huge impact with a different title why not that's so much more meaningful

I think that's why a lot of men think it's difficult to retire because that's all hanging you know they have such a hang up with the title and the importance coming with a job you know so you know well done for doing that but um but then you have been instrumental in building the the wealth business in uh DBS very successfully what what does it take to build a wealth business

I think number one you need to understand your customer and their needs so Asian customers

uh have unique Asian specific needs you need to understand that number two you need to combine both that physical ical personal relationship with a great digital platform.

So digital if you will.

Number three, you need to be open architecture.

means you're not wathed to any one product provider. You want to have an open shelf so you can get the best.

If you like the US market, find the best US, you know, fund manager. If you like uh uh long short or you like um you know whatever whatever products you like make an open architecture so that you can really look the customer in the eye and say I'm getting you the best of breed or at least what I think is the best of

breed today for your needs because if you manufacture and you sell your own product

it could be a conflict of interest

per definition you deal with very wealthy people right any reflections on the common characteristics of wealthy people

very different gosh you know depends on first second third generation when they were born, what they went through.

Um, but I would say Asia wealth is generally a bit younger than European or American wealth.

And so a lot of the wealth creation has been from their business.

Either they just IPOed or they've invested well in their business or they've done well in real estate etc. So it's fairly concentrated and fairly chunky. M

so for you to be relevant to their wealth you really need to understand how was your wealth created was it in shipping was it in warehousing was it in real estate was it in technology and then when you understand how the wealth was created then you can kind of get into the what are the the real needs for your family office or for your personal wealth

very often Asian wealth remains pretty concentrated if they know and love technology they want to be in technology right so you kind of also have to play your role as the trusted advisor to say really there's a lot of correlation risk in your portfolio right now. Do you want to diversify into a different currency or different different sector for example? Um

the fact that the wealth is uh newer, more recent, newer, more concentrated, more entrepreneurial, what what does that mean in terms of how uh how wealthy Asians are different from wealthy Europeans?

Well, I think a lot of them, you know, are going through that business transition today. So if their businesses uh are now moving from the first founding family, first founding generation to the next, you're now seeing a real change, right? So number one, some of them might have children that want to take over, some don't. And if they don't, then they will need a solution to sell their business or or or to find a to find a solution for liquidity for liquidity um solution. Um,

and then you've got the next generation and all they're thinking about is digital assets, you know, tokenized assets, you know, crypto assets, whatever, or the Mac 7, right? I mean, I was listening to your podcast and there's a lot of talk about, you know, investing in tech, but the concentration of of the new generation wealth in the Mac 7 is is is huge.

Um, and so how do you manage that? Right? So, the second generation tends to be more global. The first generation tends to be more local uh or regional, if you will. So being able to toggle that move provide a solution because if the first generation thinks I need to sell then you have to help them sell whether it's an IPO or a trade sale the second generation comes in how do you structure and the third generation are coming in what do you do for them so it is um it it is a journey um and also for Asians a lot of us come from we have currencies that are quite volatile

right you know you think about the rupee the rupia the the the the you know R&B Sing dollar, Hong Kong dollar, it's it's, you know, there's multiple currencies.

Um, some more liquid than others. So, we also have to think about, you know, how do you protect your your currencies as well?

When you look around here and you see the work ethics and all hard people work, you know, the kind of entrepreneurial spirit and so on and you compare this with Europe, what are your affections?

I can't say.

You don't you don't have to be politically correct. Do you know I I'm not an expert. I can't say I'm an expert on the European work ethic. Okay. So, let's just let's just um put it out there, but I've been impressed by the creativity and the innovation of Europe. Um

and um I would say that Asians tend to work longer hours. That's true on average. Um and and you're right, it's a work ethic that's kind of drummed into us into our culture from when we were young. You know, your parents tell you you must work hard. uh you go to school, your teacher says you must work hard. You start your first job, your bosses, you know, you got to work hard 996 and all that. So the work ethic is is is is pretty strong.

Um and uh but having said that you know what I think that's there is a change now and you look at how much time people spend on gaming for example the young people not just even you know adults young adults or you know middle-aged adults are also spending a lot of time on gaming

I mean um like video games and you know gaming consoles that the socializing in their virtual games as well um there's a lot of um of the move of Asian pop culture now. Um whether it's K-pop or you know demon hunter type of of um animation along with pop music along with gaming along with the blockchain and and new generative AI and AI. I think the Asian cultures evolving really quickly

and for us to stay ahead we got to look at how our young how our teenagers and young people are kind of morphing. the young Asians quite different from their grandparents and their parents honestly and it's exciting. We need to stay ahead. So for example, I've been telling my colleagues and I have been trying to figure out how do we create banking solutions for the gaming population for example

and we're setting up uh how do we create banking relationships with teenagers for example. Um how do we also create you know a whole banking ecosystem for those of us who love the digital asset ecosystem for example. So these are all new tracks, right?

Which if you want to stay relevant, you got to learn.

Absolutely.

And I think Asians by and large are quite um quite agile.

How would you uh describe the DBS corporate culture?

Um I would say our corporate cultures evolved, but what hasn't changed is really the purpose that binds us. The development roots that we have

means that you know we are bounded by a culture and our purpose of just doing the right thing. Like if you know you're doing the right thing, you don't there's no need to explain yourself.

Let's say I start working here. I'm lucky enough to get a job. I uh I work here for a couple of weeks. Just how would I feel differently here than I would in an American firm, you think?

Okay. I mean, first of all, um Asia is our home. We're an Asian bank. So the difference is this is our home. We're not going to be upping and we don't um go and and and leave when the chips are down. We stay.

We are stayer. We are a stayer. So we are committed. So when we say we're going to be in this country, we're in this country. Whether it's Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, and the rest of the Asian markets that we're in, we're in. We're committed. That's our home. Um so that's one difference. The second is I guess um it's the digital DNA that we have. So it's don't be scared to experiment, right? So and don't be scared to tell the boss she's wrong.

So I was going to

You have something here in the meeting. So we're in a meeting room now.

What is this raccoon thing?

So my raccoon, our raccoon, it's spelled W R E C K O N. So but it sounds like a raccoon like this like the animal. But we empower our young analysts or any any staff whether they're in a meeting with a senior like me or any other bosses, they have a right to put their hand up and say, "I want to raccoon your idea. I don't like your idea. I want to be I want to have that psychological safety to to tear your idea down

and speak up because if you don't then you're not doing your job."

So we have meeting mojo as well. Mojo is spelled M O J O. The meeting owner and the joyful observer jo. So the meeting owner sets the agenda. The joyful observer has the right to say hang on, we're going down the wrong path or hang on, let's get more voices in the room to be heard. So I would like to think that at DBS we empower people to speak up and and and and no matter how junior your voice is heard because that's embedded in our processes and in our culture.

How do you maintain um this culture of innovation in a 40,000 people company?

Not easy. Um but a lot of it is just practice, practice, practice. Do fail, fail fast, move on. So um what I inherited as CEO is really a digital mode and a data mode. So we started the data lake in 2016 called ADA. Um and we changed the way we we we managed to manage through customer journeys. So as as opposed to vertical product journeys is customer journeys. Account opening is a journey. Applying for loan is a journey. Getting a transaction done is a journey. Doing a a supply chain financing is journey. So when you

organize around journeys and you have data, live data dashboards that informs you uh the turnaround time's too slow. The customer is complaining. Uh the system's hanging. Oh, the pricing is wrong. Oh, the customer likes the journey. Oh, they're buying more products now. So having that feedback loop, we have screens in all our meeting rooms because we check the data all the time. We try and have data informed meetings. So it's standups, quick meetings um and we call it managing through journeys. And I think the way we manage uh the data lake that we have has enabled us to create that framework in which we now bring in new stuff. Right? So you're telling me about agentic AI? Okay, I'll bring it into my my my MTJ my journey, my customer journey. Generative AI, okay, I'll bring it into my journey. And now watch the feedback loop on the machine. How does the customer like it? Are they liking it? Does it work? Does it not work?

Where where did you learn this obsession with client satisfaction?

Oh, we just keep Oh gosh. You know that was um in 20 long time ago about 15 14 years ago uh when we first joined we were the worst bank for service like l and you know where we went

how bad was it?

Bad. So um you know who's the best in Singapore? Singapore Airlines, right? Singapore Airlines. Amazing.

Yeah. So we went to Changi. We went and we learned Changi is the airport. Changi is the airport. But near the airport there's something called SQ called service quality run by the by the wonderful folks at Singapore Airlines.

And we call it red. I wear red and black a lot because that's our colors. But red stands for respectful e to deal with and d dependable. So Asian cultures we have to be respectful right. So we learned that from SIA like you know how when they serve you if they're

oh well they they turn the glass and

no no they look you they give you eye level they don't look down on you

and if you're angry they they taught us how to at least accept and acknowledge the fact that the customer is not happy have acceptance and acknowledge it and be respectful in how you deal with them

um and then be easy to deal with don't make life very difficult you know sometimes banking going to a bank is like worse than going to a dentist right so we try to make the banking journey as painless and as joyful as possible and then dependable which is you know when you need us most don't don't remove the umbrella you know when it's raining you know come up with the umbrella and help us through so through co through all the tough times

but it's not like just uh you you take the whole staff to the airport and and one day right it's

no it's it's a it's an evolving journey it's an evolving journey

and how did you manage to change an organization

so you have a lot of these ambassadors. Actually, you know what? We we actually hired quite a lot of um uh retired SIA staff. All right?

And we put them in our uh in in our branches. Um and you create pride, you know, like it's like Ritz Carlton, ladies and gentlemen, certainly ladies and gentlemen, we want our staff to be proud. You know, you come to work and you're happy and you're proud to be working for DBS, for POSB. Um, and we want um it's that Asian culture of treating people with respect,

especially if they're older than you. It's it's it's it's really an Asian sort of, you know, culture. Um, but also um learning from each other. So, when when we have read heroes, we got red stories, we, you know, I I just wrote a thank you to someone who's been with us for 40 years, and she got so many compliments from our staff, from our clients, and I said, "You're my ambassador." and she is our ambassador you know and um so it's having all these service ambassadors show the younger staff you know this is the way forward

are there any other companies you're learning from or any other people

all the time we learn from you know anyone from from I don't want to upset anyone by missing them out but all the big tech companies we're constantly learning um you know whether they're from China from from the US from India wherever we we bring them in we spend time with them we learn from them we go and visit Um Korea for example uh we've always been really you know inspired by what we see in Korea whether it's you know Hannah Bank Caka you know neighbor um obviously Amazon AWS Google um Microsoft we're spending a lot of time with the with the AI guys the generative AI guys as well um and of course in the banking industry you know ING is a a great great example of how they they were managing through journeys a lot earlier than us, right? So,

so given all this, what do you think DBS will look like in 5 to 10 years time? How are you going to be different?

Our aim is to be the best AI enabled bank with a heart. So, we're still human. I still believe that humans want humanto to human relationships,

but a lot of the mundane boring work like writing reports, you know, filling up KYC forms and doing mundane transactions can be done by an AI or bot. So, and it can be done more accurately probably by an AI or a bot, but keep those humanto to human relationships, keep those customer relationships,

um, take out the mundane work, but also uh, have empathy and have respect for our customers and stay there for the long term.

Let's drill down a bit more on the on the AI side. Last year, you said that you saved $750 million on the use of AI. just how have you made the bank AI ready? What's the

remember Nikolai what I said about managing through journeys and and using data dashboards to measure.

So we do a lot of AB testing. So send an offer this way, don't send an offer, price it this way, don't price it this way. So all these AB testing, we put it into our dashboards and there's a con there's an instant feedback loop. Customer liked it, didn't like it, transacted, didn't transact and that is instructive. So the incremental revenue for all the nudges that we give out to customers gets captured by this AB testing and that is what we measure as a sign of whether the machine learning is working whether the AI is working and so that was 750 last year hopefully over a billion this year in incremental revenue.

How do you get um people to really use it properly in the organization because it's it's difficult to get people to change habits.

It is

how do you do it? Well,

just you know really keep nagging them, right? Or and making it okay. You know what the key is to make it um first of all as a boss you have to do it.

Okay.

Right. And I remember in 2012 when I tried to digitize the wealth business um I realized I can't just leave it to my digital head. I have to as a business owner own the wireframes, own the UX, own the app, your own end to- end journeys and I think it's making everyone in the organization own their own journey make them proud that oh you know my app that I came up with the experiment that I came up with worked right so we all went through the process of trying to make our own app and now we're making sure everyone goes through the process of doing your own generative AI journey um and and just do learn by doing

don't learn theoretic Learn by doing, make your mistakes, share your mistakes, and more importantly, if you had a good idea and you worked it and it worked, share it. So, like I was in Taiwan last week. Um, you know, Taiwan, we bought the uh, you know, City Bank's um, wealth and cards business. The cards team, cards team said, "Oh, we're experimenting with converting our service calls to our card customers into text." So, voice converted to text. And in that conversation, the service staff was saying, "Oh, you know, madam, do you need um uh an estate plan? Have you thought about your children or your grandchildren? How are you planning for the future?" And when we turn that voice to text, it goes into the AI machine learning model. It comes up with a propensity score, which then instructs us, oh, this is a potential wealth client or not. And it's quite, you know what, it actually works. The journey works really well. the customer gets called if they have a high score and they are converted to a a wealth customer.

How do you think the AI will change the business in the long term?

It will change the way we work

in what ways?

I think the way we organize you know because right now as I said there's a workflow and the work process

but if the AI takes out a lot of the mundane work it could be reading documentary trade it could be writing the report writing the call report. It could be spitting out the pitch book. I don't know it it could be a lot of things and some of these jobs will move. So for example I told you the service center now a lot of the service calls can actually be answered by a very good generative AI enabled bot

in your post login.

So if we can do that and do it well soon you can have agents that do transactions for you right?

So it's a matter of time before that happens. So if that happens then a lot of those jobs will will will disappear. M

what does it mean for our service center people is they have to they have to do something else. So, in fact, they were the ones that said to me, "You know what? This job's gone. I'm going to do something else." And as it as it is, I have 200,000 clients. Not everyone has a has a relationship manager. Hey, wouldn't it be great for all of them to have a relationship manager? So, hello. If you used to do service, can you now be a relationship manager? Can you now look after the theme clients? So, then you you basically will own a pool of clients that hitherto had no relationship managers. Do you remember what I said about humanto to human interaction? I think this enables a lot more humanto to human interaction whilst the mundane job gets done by a bot.

Talking about uh humanto to human interaction and moving on to your leadership style. How would you characterize your leadership style?

Um inclusive hopefully empathetic um curious um

why is that important?

Is it important? I don't know it's if it's important but I like to learn

um and you know whether it's learning about gaming or the digital asset ecosystem or about healthcare or whatever I think um learning keeps like I think you're a learner too. I can see that you're definitely very curious.

Um and I think if if the leader is curious and they're open-minded and they learn then that keeps the company um um relevant. M and moving forward.

How has your leadership style changed with with experience and age?

With age, I guess I've learned to be more straightforward. So, just say it as it is. Tell the bad news up front. So, if

if it's a deal I don't want to do, you get a no from me quite quickly. So, I don't waste your time

and you don't waste mine.

Um, how has it evolved? I think I have become a better communicator. I've learned to frame my ideas first, think big and then go small, then delve small. So, think about that helicopter view. What does the world look like? Where do we want to play?

What do we not want to do? I think about what we don't want to do a lot,

which is as important as what you want to do. and then delve into the details.

You are known for working extremely hard. I think I heard a story that you even brought your Bloomberg terminal to the hospital when you were giving birth.

That was because I had a margin call.

In those days there was no Bloom I didn't have a there was no smartphones, right? So we had to bring our laptop with all those Bloomberg stickers.

Do you expect other women in DBS to work as hard as you do?

You know, I think if you love your job, you don't think you don't see it as work. Um, and um, it's fun and you enjoy it. So, we don't dictate hours and we're quite flexible. You know, men or women, you have a kid, please, you know, stay at home, look after your kid. If you need to go to a concert for your child, please. If you have an aging parent, please look after them. So, we're not dictatorial about FaceTime.

Um, and do I expect women to work as hard as me? There are a lot who work harder than me and there are others who don't and it's it's fine as long as we have, you know, we have outcomes to show. I'm I'm I'm not, you know, who are we to dictate what kind of what kind of work they do?

You mentioned the importance of being both direct and empathetic. Is there a trade-off between the two?

Is there a trade-off between being direct and being empathetic? I think you can be direct and still empathetic because if you're not direct and then you're not being empathetic, right? because you could be beating around the bush and wasting their time. That's not being that's not showing empathy.

I've heard you talk about reverse mentoring. Why is that important?

Because you need to look at the trends going forward. And as you age, you may have you may create that intergenerational gap. And like the Koreans always say, you want to identify the future trend, look at your teenagers. So having, you know, surrounding yourself with young people, making sure they teach you what's going on, what are the trends, what are they seeing, keeps you relevant and keeps you fresh.

Um, you said you were a learner. What are you trying to learn now?

Now I'm Well, obviously I've been trying to learn a lot about how Gen AI and Agentic AI works. That's for both, you know, I'm curious and I I and then and I need to learn that for work. I'm also now trying to learn about gaming and how because I don't game, but I think it's important to enter the gamers ecosystem. So, I'm trying to learn about that. What's Twitch and Discord and these communities and why they how they can play a game and talk to each other at the same time and how that community evolves. Um,

and why do you need to learn that? Just

as you know when we were growing up um we were playing and and going to movies and stuff and people thought maybe our parents said oh don't go to movies or don't don't spend too much time on on TV or movies but actually it became very big industries content became a very big part of our world you know gaming is now already a big part of the the the the new generation but it could be something else um and also in a time where a lot of mundane work gets done by robots. I think there will be this unleashing of

creativity upon us.

So being creative is important and so left brain right brain I think CEOs need to have both.

So let's so now you want to learn about gaming. How do you do that? So it's like hey I wake up it's just like hey I'm uh Susan I want to learn about gaming. What do you where do you take where do you take it from there?

So yesterday I invited the the former CEO of the biggest gaming company in Korea and Japan for lunch.

Right.

I made him sit down with me for an poor guy an hour and a half and I was like explain to me what is the guy thinking of when they go into the game and he's like you really don't know so I don't know you know what what are the games that are hot today and he gave me the names and then what do they do how much is the console and what kind of chair do they sit on and how much time do they spend and then they they shared with me what was fishing do you know what's fishing

I don't

you see you can fish in a game

okay you can go fishing What is it?

It's when you can you can date a friend. You can say to another friend, "Hey, let's go fishing." So, you're actually in the game and you actually go and fish in the game. You're literally fishing and it's a quiet moment.

All right.

And and and people do dates, virtual dates, fishing in a game.

I clearly need to learn about gaming. Talking about quiet time, you also meditate, I gather.

Well, I had a bad spat in my life. um in my mid to late 20s um when I lost my job, I lost my home, I lost my then relationship um and I thought my world was going to crumble down upon me and that's when I learned um some friends of mine taught me to to meditate because it enabled me to see myself as a third party to see the world as it was and to realize you know what calm yourself down, the world isn't so bad. You got your health, you got your family, you got your friends, you know, everything else will be okay. And I found it very useful to kind of detach myself from my own situation to see myself from third party eyes and to calm myself down and to tell myself, you know, it's going to be okay. M

so whilst I don't have a lot of time to meditate nowadays I should do I do have I mean I do yoga I go for long runs I listen to a lot of podcasts

um I'm more of an a listener than a reader I love I love listening and I love music so

um yeah so those quiet moments um I think when you take yourself out of your everyday you know noise just to see things from a third party perspective it gives you perspective

this period you you talk about what do you think it did to you as a person?

It made me more resilient.

Um it made me appreciate the ups with the downs. It made me realize that when things are very good, don't lose your head. When things are very bad, don't lose your heart.

Well, these are good uh good pieces of advice. Now, you also talk about often the importance of sleep.

Yes.

Tell me about it. Do you know who was Oh, Ariana Huffington. Do you know her?

I don't know. I know of her.

The Huffington Post.

We invited her here to to give a talk to my colleagues and I and she proudly went on stage and said, "Sleep your way to the top."

And of course, we all laugh, but what she meant was

in the old days it meant something different, I guess.

I know, right? But what she obviously meant was if you have good sleep, you perform well.

Absolutely. You perform well, you do well, your company does well, you get promoted, your company does well, the company, you know, goes up in value. It's a win-win situation for everyone. And it it's true, right? Don't you feel like

No, I sleep I I have a nap in the middle of the day. So,

I wish I could. What time do you have?

Probably 2 to 3 in the afternoon.

2 to three. Yeah, that's a good So, do you have a

So, I really believe in this. Sleep your sleep your way to the top. I really believe in that.

Well, you're at the top. So, do you have a bed in your room? Yeah, I have a sofa.

You have a sofa. So, you sleep from 2. So, 2:30 to 3 is your quiet time.

Well, yeah. Uh, so I do like 15 20 minutes.

Okay.

But you have to you have

So, we have sleeping pods here.

Yeah. But you have to tell everybody that you do so that they don't think you are slacking, right?

Yeah.

Um,

I think I'll do that

because it's not really slacking. It's getting more energy for the evening and afternoon.

Yeah. This catnap is so important.

Where do you go? When do you go to bed?

Too late. Don't ask.

Too late. and and and that's my my my my resolution is to start going to bed a bit earlier.

Uh yeah, but on the other hand, why do you want to change? I mean, it's not like you're doing badly.

So why are you sure we should have are you sure you should have resolutions to change your life when you are doing well?

Only because I want to work out, you know, I want to get up earlier and do do a workout,

right? What's your morning what's your morning ritual?

I do actually do a small workout. Mhm.

Um and then I come to work and you know I read the papers, I come to work. Um and then it's bang bang bang.

What are your charging stations? Where do you where do you relax?

I run.

So sometimes I run by the bay. You can see the bay, sometimes I run at home or if I visit a new place or I visit I like to run when I can or if I have little pockets like last night between end of work and going to to a dinner I had a quick run as well. I run, I swim, I do yoga. Uh and uh whilst I'm doing that, whilst I'm running, I listen to podcasts. I love, you know, listening to Kathy Woods or to you know, Peter Diamontes, Singularity, Salem. So, it's just that that's my kind of when I'm relaxing, I'm also learning, absorbing information, and learning new stuff.

Well, I also know another podcast you can listen to going forward if you want to.

I'm listening.

And I'm going to add Nikolai Tangent to that running list. Well, you're very kind, Susan. It's been uh tremendous talking to you. Uh what a pleasure and you are very impressive and it's been great.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you.

So, Nikolai, now that you've interviewed me, I feel that I can't waste this huge opportunity to to to to reverse interview you. So, thank you for agreeing even though it's so last minute.

Fantastic. Love it. Um, so

how does it feel to be the manager of the world's top and number one sovereign wealth fund? Is that a huge responsibility?

It's a huge but it's a huge responsibility of course but I don't feel I don't think much about it to be honest.

You don't?

No. Uh it's an honor to kind of manage the capital for the for the country because the fund is very important in a Norwegian context,

but I have so many great colleagues who help me do this and so I don't feel that I'm particularly important.

Wow. But how do you set the tone for for for the fund and for for your colleagues? How do you what is the what is the role of a CEO in a in a sovereign wealth fund?

Okay. The C the role of a CEO CEO stands for chief energy officer.

Oh, energy.

Yeah. I like that.

So I think it is to give energy. It is to give direction. It is to give

you know impulses. It's to transmit learning. I'm sorry.

Inspiration.

Yeah. Totally. It's to inspire and it is to make people go somewhere they may not don't want to go uh initially.

And so it is to motivate them, give them responsibility and um and make sure it's fun.

Yeah. Have you had to take your team somewhere that maybe was challenging and they didn't want to go? Totally.

Oh, and and how did you do that? How did you motivate a whole team to go down a path that they were reluctant to go down?

Well, I think you have to explain why they should go in that direction and why it makes sense. So, for instance, we

we are a much more open organization than we were in the past. We are the most transparent fund in the world. And in the beginning, I thought, you know, that's good because then other people can see what we do. But I think transparency and openness is so important because it makes us absorb impulses from the world and technology from the outside in a much better way.

So one thing is the openness. The second thing is the whole you know level of ambitions. I think if when you tell people about your ambitions if they don't start laughing they are not high enough.

They don't start laughing.

They must laugh. When you tell them what your ambitions are

laugh

when you

Okay. So tell me what you said and then everyone laughed.

Well in the beginning I said listen we want to be um we want to be the number one large investment fund in the world.

And everyone laughed.

Yeah. because it was just such a

at the time how what size were you?

This is 5 years ago. Uh now people don't laugh. Um so I think that's important and um I like that and and and then it is so it's an ambition and then is with with performance which is important you know how you define performance how you get there um how you work with uh with methodology and process and then speed you know to make sure this there's a high speed. Speed is a mindset and you need to you really need to drive it all the time, you know.

Yeah. So, chief energy officer giving inspiration, giving speed.

Um, then what drives you? What how why how do you have so much energy, you do this huge day job, then you have this fantastic podcast, you're famous. Well, I mean, you know, the podcast, so the podcast is part of the transparency we do and we learn a lot from the podcast which we are taking into the organization and to share all that information with the Norwegian people and people who are interested across the world. I think it's a big plus, right?

So, you know, our applications are going through the roof. We have a lot of very clever people who want to work with us and so on. So, I think that's that makes a lot of sense. But energy, where does it come from? You know what? It's interesting. There's very little research that has got into where energy comes from. But it's probably a combination of us want to show the world. I mean, you want to show the world. I want to show the world.

We want to do the we want to be the best we can.

We want to do something great.

But earlier you shared with me that you take this catnap from 2:30 to 3, which I think is fantastic. I want to say that also in my reverse podcast. Um because you're right. I mean, you have ups and tides, you know, you have apps and flows of energy and sometimes in the day after lunch, for example, it's going to be low and you take that quick catnap. It just propels you forward, right? It gives you that more energy for the second half of the day.

And what inspires you?

Um, it inspires me to meet people like you,

to meet leaders across the world.

I read a lot of books. I read a lot of

What are you reading these days? Well,

I'm on the I'm I'm on the jury of the Financial Times business book of the year. Oh, wow.

And so I got 16 books not too long ago. So I'm reading those 16 books through 16 books.

And actually tonight we have a meeting in the jury.

Oh wow.

To take the 16 down to six. Okay.

Do I have a sneak peek of which ones you like?

It's okay cuz by the time I I

But there are some really great but there are some some incredible books. I do read a lot of those type of books, but I try to read very widely because I think that's part of being open-minded to learn from to learn from science, to learn from psychology, to learn from sport, from art. I think that's how you how you become more innovative and more creative.

So, changing tank, let's talk about the markets. Where do you think uh we're headed now? I think it's incred I think it's incredibly difficult to know because

you know um last weekend I was up in the mountains with um seven of my cleverest friends and we do these once a year and we record what do we think about various parameters

for the next 12 months and you climb the mountain you

were we were we were listening to the uh to the recording from last year

okay

and we were 80% wrong

80% wrong%

wrong none of us predicted did the tariffs of course

the situation between US and Europe the fact that India is now closer to China you know you just you name it and we didn't predict any of these things

now had we predicted all these things we would have thought that stock markets would have been down 20 30% and it's up there

they would have got it wrong right

totally wrong so you you get it wrong and wrong

and so I think what it's all about now is

you cannot predict anything

you need to make sure the organization is extremely agile

that it is robust in all different types of ways and robust I mean robust in a cyber from a cyber point of view from a balance sheet point of view

to have redundancy in various places and then I think is to work on speed so to me this these these um uh you know three things

so uh

agility speed and resiliency

yeah no that sounds like what we're we're going for as well you know we

it is so important to be resilient in this day and age but also to have the agility and the speed to just take on new stuff, right? And to pivot when you need to.

And so, how how do you see the geopolitics? I mean, you invest in Asia, don't you?

So, and you're now visiting Asia. Do you come to Asia every year?

Yep.

Okay. When you come every year, as someone from the West, what surprises you about Asia and what maybe worries you about Asia?

Well, it's very impressive. Um, innovation is very impressive, work ethic is very impressive. Um, the the way you navigate the geopolitics these days is very very impressive. I mean, you you talk about uh, you know, the bank wanting to be the safe haven. In a way, this is kind of the safe haven compared to a lot of other places.

So, I think you're well positioned and I think you're making the most of it.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think a bank like DBS can do more of to do can to to be better?

Well, I think you my impression is that you're doing a lot of the right things. Uh, of course, the big the big thing now is is the the AI and to which extent that could dislocate uh, you know, the banking landscape. You have a new entrance. You need to be on top of your data stack and the data quality u relentlessly focus on customer satisfaction.

Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, which you are.

So, uh, it's interesting. Do you worry about um you know the weaponization of data and also the weaponization of technology? I mean we were seeing the weaponization of everything right from payments to trade to supply chain to chips and increasingly the east and west tech stack is kind of bifocating

if you will. We're trying to diversify and make sure that they're both interoperable.

Um but how are you seeing this whole tech bifocation in your world?

No, it's extremely interesting and you know I kind of think it started in you know to be serious let's say five years ago and um technology is now embedded in in kind of uh weapons so in the in in the power struggle uh pharmaceutical research self-driving cars battery technologies you know uh technology is embedded everywhere

and uh you are you know in a way the as you said the world is a bit splitting in And it is uh it is it is a clear negative.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't optimize on cost anymore, right? You got to have, you know, you have to have just in case, not just in time, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

And um I guess, you know, that brings us to also the

um the way one invests in this sort of you know, when because you're global, right? You you invest globally.

How do you think about allocating assets? Do you look at companies more above countries and above currencies?

I think you have to be very diversified and very long term.

Very long term.

Yeah.

Which is how long?

Well, we are, you know, 50 50 to 100 years.

Wow.

At least we try to be, but it's difficult. It's diff. One of the toughest things in life is to be longterm.

Long term.

Because you come into the office on Monday and it's just like you don't do anything. Tuesday, you don't do anything. Wednesday, you don't do anything. You come home to your husband or wife and say, "Hey, what did you do today?" Uh, Sujan, "No, I did nothing

and five days in a row you don't do anything." So that kind of the the ability to sit still is very very hard.

That's very hard.

Yeah.

Wow. I never thought of it that way. It's so interesting. But that that means when you move, you really have to do your work before you move.

Yeah. No, we are helped because we have uh a mandate from the ministry of finance which tells us in broad terms how we should be invested.

So we don't need to make uh these large asset allocation decisions ourselves. We are really helped by

by anchoring in the in the parliament and and a good and a good process behind this.

So tell us about what Singapore and and and Singapore can learn from what what can Asians and Singaporeans learn from Norway?

Well, I think that's a very tough one because I don't do politics and so I look at Singapore and I admire the long-term thinking,

the planning, uh, the

Well, Norway has long planning. Norway is very green, very sustainable.

No, we have a lot of We have a lot of great things in Norway, right? We have a lot of great things.

I think it's um

You all speak great English for a start. Why is that?

Well, because we are very small nation and we

That's like us, so we all had to learn English.

Yeah, sure. Of course. Uh absolutely. You are what family? You are

We're five.

We are five. We are five or six now.

We're also five. We have a bit more space. Uh in Norway.

We have a lot more space.

So it's easier. It's a lot of it's easier to get up in the mountains or in the forest and be on your own. You know,

you more places to meditate.

Yeah.

But uh No, I think you know I think Singapore and Norway are two they are two great places.

Yes. Very good education system, right?

Yeah. It's pretty good. I think that's the bedrock is is is you know being open um being open-minded and and um being international but also um embracing you know embracing learning and staying relevant.

Absolutely.

Totally agree.

Well, it's been a great pleasure. Thank you for allowing me to interview you.

My pleasure.

Um and I look forward to next time we meet.

Absolutely. Likewise.

Thank you so much.