Her response to an uncertain economy? Diversify. “If you only sell to the U.S., you have to diversify,” Tan said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday.
Last week, Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese goods by Nov. 1 in retaliation for Beijing’s expanded export controls on rare earth minerals. The U.S. president has also slapped 50% tariffs on Brazil and India, two other major non-Western economies.
On Tuesday, Tan suggested that Trump’s broad-based tariffs could be forging new links between these different economies. “China and India, historically, are not that close,” Tan said. “This might actually create more opportunities for Chinese and Indian companies to do more together, certainly on the supply chain.”
“It will take time to build trust [between India and China],” Tan said Tuesday. “But the opportunities are there.”
Yet Tan downplayed that accolade on Tuesday. “I don’t know how I feel about the word ‘powerful,’” she noted. “It really is the team that gets stuff done.”
“It’s my job as a CEO to be the chief energy officer, to give energy to the team and make sure that everyone is headed in the right direction,” she said.
“We were the worst bank,” Tan recalled. “Worst bank for customer service, worst bank for the longest queues, worst bank for product.”
“We were all marshaled to Singapore Airlines’s headquarters by the airport and taught how to offer good ‘service quality,’” Tan explained. “Our first learning was: How do you give good service, and how are you respectful, easy to deal with, and dependable?”
DBS shares are up by almost 35% over the past 12 months; Singapore’s other “Big Three” banks, OCBC and UOB, are up by 11% and 7% respectively.
