When Bing De Guzman became the independent director of JG Summit in 2015, when he had nearly four decades of experience in banking. In the 1970s, after graduating from Ateneo de Manila with a degree in management engineering, and from Belgium’s Katholieke Universiteit Leuven with a Masters in Business Administration, De Guzman worked at Bancom International, a Filipino investment bank.

He then went on to work at Banque Nationale de Paris, and then at the Dutch bank ING in 1990. By 2000, De Guzman moved to private banking in Asia, when he was tasked to start ING Asia Private Bank. By 2009, De Guzman was named CEO of the Bank of Singapore, which had just been created. By the time he retired from the Bank of Singapore as CEO in 2015, De Guzman had already developed a reputation as an exceptional leader, and one of the best and brightest in private banking in Southeast Asia.