Tan Su Shan

Tan Su Shan made history in March 2025 as the first woman to lead DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank by assets. With more than 35 years of banking experience, she previously headed the bank’s institutional banking and consumer banking and wealth management businesses, following senior roles at Morgan Stanley, Citibank and ING Barings.

Taking the helm amid geopolitical uncertainty and rapid technological change, Tan is focused on reinventing DBS for the AI era. Her ambition is to build an “AI-enabled bank with a heart”, fundamentally rethinking how employees and technology work together while preserving the human relationships at the centre of banking.

A key priority is DBS’s Operating Model Transformations, which redesign entire workflows around collaboration between employees and AI. Having completed nine such initiatives in 2025, the bank is expanding its efforts to free employees for more creative, judgement-driven work and deeper customer engagement.

Tan also sees herself as the bank’s “Chief Energy Officer”, responsible for giving employees the confidence to embrace change, experiment and continually develop new skills. Beyond DBS, she believes Asia has an opportunity to play a greater role in shaping the global economy, with the bank connecting customers to opportunities across the region and beyond.

A longstanding advocate for women in finance, Tan co-founded the Financial Women’s Association Singapore in 2001. She also serves on the boards of the Singapore Economic Development Board and Climate Impact X, and was appointed to Singapore’s Economic Strategy Review Committee on Global Competitiveness in 2025.