Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and tennis player Naomi Osaka popularised it, but Evonne Tan did it before it became mainstream.
When she was a vice president at Deutsche Bank, at the height of her banking career, she packed all her belongings in a brown cardboard box and fled the corporate and finance worlds.
“I had just given birth and wanted to focus on raising my son. Initially, I wanted to return earlier, but I had a second child,” Tan, 52, laughs mirthfully. The concept of being a working mother never crossed her mind. Even though it meant giving up her promising career, Tan was dead set on being the best possible example of herself for her children.
The current head of Barclays Private Bank in Singapore had always been singularly minded. Tan recalls being a quiet, precocious child. Her father’s banking career led the family to Kuala Lumpur, where she grew up. In imitation of her older sister, she carried an empty red and black bag to the street to wait for the nonexistent school bus when she was 3 years old.
When she returned home after her first day at kindergarten, she spelled out the words “rainy day” and “sunny day” to her visibly surprised mother. The latter subsequently approached the teacher and asked if she had taught spelling to the children. The teacher said that she did not. “It turned out that I had learned how to spell those words while sitting beside my sister during her spelling revision at home,” Tan says.
She majored in sociology and geography, spurred by an innate interest in the humanities. The banking and finance industry barely registered in her mind until a nondescript job ad in the newspaper by the now-defunct Union Bank of Switzerland—it merged with the Swiss Bank Corporation in December 1997 to form UBS—caught her attention.
“So many women think they have to do everything… they should have intelligent, well-adjusted children, a thriving career, a luxurious home, and so on. Yes, if you feel you can do it all, but I also want my team to know it’s okay if you can’t. Just as I did, it is totally fine to prioritise different things at different points in your life.”
Evonne Tan believes in work-life balance and that everyone’s version of success is different
There was no job description in the classifieds, just several questions—“Do you want a dynamic and fast-paced environment? Do you want every day to be different?”—that excited Tan about its prospects. So, she applied and was asked to attend the interview, which turned out to be a mass session with close to 1,000 applicants. She had to go through 11 rounds of questioning, each more intense than the last. The final round was with the CEO of the bank.
Throughout each round, Tan was asked the same question by the interviewers, all banking veterans with hard-nosed views: why would a bank need a humanities degree? She refused to be intimidated.
“I told them a humanities degree is incredibly valuable and useful because it gives you a different perspective on life. During the first few months on the job, you can learn hard skills involving facts, figures, and analysis, but perspectives cannot be taught in the same way.”
She got the job.
A similar attitude led her back to banking in 2005 after her five-year sabbatical. Tan considered her options, mindful of her two children. She also noticed the burgeoning private banking sector and decided it was the best option at that stage in her life. It offered flexibility, longevity, and the opportunity to interact with a wide range of people. The lack of a Rolodex of ready clients didn’t deter her.
“As I presented my business plan to Merrill Lynch’s head, I told him that with a commission model, I was really variable cost, so the risk of hiring me was minimal. He hired me on the spot.”
Female Leadership
Tan is at that phase in her career now where she thinks about legacy. It’s not hubris, just a quiet sense of her mortality and the impact she’s made on her family, colleagues, and employees. Like those before her, she too wants to guide the next generation of financiers and bankers. She wears leadership like a cashmere cloak, comfortable with its weight, but aware of its potentially suffocating warmth. She doesn’t crave the power society bestows on its leaders. She just wants to get things done. If that meant stepping up to the plate, then she rose like the proverbial phoenix.
Maturity, however, has made her keenly aware that while you can go fast alone, you can go further together.
“Looking back, I think my behaviour when I was younger might have intimidated some. I was very focused on getting the job done well. But as I took on increased responsibilities and grew wiser, it is important to me to focus on developing others to reach their fullest potential,” says Tan.
Ironically, despite being in finance, she thinks that to run a successful business, it is crucial to focus on people. Profits, she says, come naturally when your staff are humming along in unison, like a Grammy Award-winning a cappella group.
Photo: Joel Low.
Her job is to maximise her team’s individual strengths so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
From years of working on the frontline, she has honed her charm and approachability while preserving the best parts of her forceful youth.
As the world shines the spotlight on gender equity and female empowerment, her gender has never hindered her career advancement, or at least she hasn’t personally experienced it.
“There might have been times when I’ve been passed over for promotion because I’m a female. To be honest, I wouldn’t know, but what’s important is that I just focus on what I do and deliver results.” If she hit a brick wall while walking down a path, Tan would either break it down, find another route or create her own.
She wants her teams to recognise that success has different faces for different people.
Unfortunately, society views triumph—wealth, success in your career, fame—through a narrow male-centric lens. “So many women think they have to do everything, so they take on too much,” says Tan. “They should have intelligent, well-adjusted children, a thriving career, a luxurious home, and so on. Yes, if you feel you can do it all, but I also want my team to know it’s okay if you can’t. Just as I did, it is totally fine to prioritise different things at different points in your life.”
However, when it comes to work, she has some non-negotiables. Tan believes hard work and resilience can take most people further than they imagined, and looks for similar attitudes when hiring.
To be part of her team, you must be hardworking and teachable. The rest can be learned on the job.
Additionally, she acknowledges that luck plays a huge role in many people’s career and personal development, but insists that good fortune only occurs when preparation meets opportunity.
“I always want to be better today than I was yesterday.”
More importantly, she wants her team to come along for the ride.
Photography: Joel Low
Styling: Chia Wei Choong
Photography Assistant: Eddie Teo
Styling Assistant: Laura
Hair: Christvian Wu, using Revlon Professional
Makeup: Wee Ming, using Chanel Beauty
Watches and jewellery: Cartier
