(Bloomberg) -- DBS Group Holdings Ltd. said Tan Su Shan will take over from Chief Executive Officer Piyush Gupta in March, becoming the first woman to lead Southeast Asia’s biggest bank.
Tan, currently head of DBS’s institutional banking group, was given the additional appointment of deputy CEO, according to a statement from the Singapore bank on Wednesday. She will succeed Gupta when he retires at the next annual general meeting on March 28.
The appointment caps speculation over who will succeed Gupta, one of Asia’s most high-profile bankers who has led DBS for more than 14 years. Gupta, 64, is credited with multiplying returns at the Temasek Holdings Pte-backed bank, while transforming its culture and technology to face growing competition from digital lenders.
Read: Singapore’s Star Banker Creates a Succession Dilemma for DBS
Tan, 56, is the only female banker among the four contenders who were being groomed to replace Gupta, Bloomberg reported in 2023. She’s credited with expanding the consumer and wealth businesses, which accounted for about a third of pretax profit by the time she moved to her current job in 2019. Gupta hired Tan from Morgan Stanley in 2010.
“I am very confident that she has all it takes to lead this institution to great heights,” Gupta said at a briefing, citing her management skills as well as expertise in all operations from wealth management to technology.
Her appointment is the culmination of a decade-long succession process, according to the statement, which added that the Singaporean was deemed the strongest of all internal and external candidates following an evaluation.
“Having worked at the bank in multiple roles for 14 years including wealth, consumer and institutional-banking, Tan ensures continuity of the bank’s strategic agenda,” said Sarah Jane Mahmud, senior industry analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Tan would become the second woman to lead a major bank in Singapore, after Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. appointed Helen Wong in 2021.
“I’m doubly delighted that a homegrown female talent has been promoted to this role, not because she’s a woman but because she’s the best person for this job,” said Stefanie Yuen Thio, joint managing partner at TSMP Law Corp. in Singapore.
Tan’s appointment comes as the lender reported results that surpassed analysts’ estimates as fees from wealth management jumped.
Gupta guided for continued 2024 profit growth. He said net income will expand in a mid- to high-single digit percentage, driven by both lending and fee income. While acknowledging heightened uncertainty in financial markets and geopolitical tensions, he said “we have built resilience against risks of economic slowdown and lower interest rates.”
--With assistance from Serena Ng.
(Updates with analysts’ comments from seventh paragraph. Previous version corrected attribution for a comment)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
