SINGAPORE: OCBC’s group chief executive officer Helen Wong will be retiring by the end of the year to spend more time with her family in Hong Kong – a reason she described on Friday (Aug 1) as a simple but “very important” one.
However, she will not be leaving Singapore completely due to other commitments here, such as being a board director of Enterprise Singapore.
Speaking at the bank’s earnings briefing, this was Ms Wong’s first public comments on her sudden retirement after a nearly five-year period leading Singapore’s second-largest bank.
Seated alongside her on Friday was her successor Tan Teck Long, who has over 30 years of experience in banking and joined OCBC in March 2022 as its head of global wholesale banking.
Following her retirement, Ms Wong will remain the chairman of OCBC China and a director of OCBC Hong Kong.
The 64-year-old took on the top job at OCBC in April 2021. Then, she was the first woman to head a Singapore bank.
Ms Wong said she had advised the board of her intention to retire early last year. The board “reluctantly” accepted her request to retire, OCBC had said in its statement on Jul 11.
“Because succession planning is a very serious thing. You cannot just say I want to retire, I go the next day. Nor can you say I go in six months… or one year. Everything remained normal when we plan on this,” she said.
Apart from searching internally, OCBC also conducted a “comprehensive global search” and identified potential external candidates as well.
“At the end, the board … unanimously considered Teck Long as the most suitable candidate amongst all the candidates we have looked at,” she said, describing her successor as a “key” member driving the bank’s corporate strategy, such as leaning more on opportunities in the Southeast Asian region and Greater China.
Ms Wong had in 2022 led a corporate strategy refresh for OCBC by putting forward a plan to leverage OCBC’s strength across Asean and Greater China through a “one group” approach.
This is focused on providing an integrated customer experience across the financial group’s business through collaboration across each of its functions.
“Teck Long, as you would expect, will refine our strategy. He’s very deep in looking at what’s happening to the business, to the world … and what we can continue to improve, and I’m sure he will share more details next year,” Ms Wong added.
