Why Samuel Tsien was selected best CEO in Asia Pacific for his work 2013-2016

The reasons why Samuel Tsien of OCBC Group Singapore was selected the winner of The Asian Banker CEO Leadership Achievement award for the Asia Pacific region for the three-year period from 2013 to 2016 are important to explain here:

- We look at the financials. Although all the banks in Singapore were profitable (a gift from the MAS, Singapore NIM was particularly favourable to all its banks) the profitability of OCBC in the past three years was broader-based across the different countries and business lines it operates in (others depended a lot more on their home base and/or one to two core businesses.)

- We like the fact that the bank made money from its business lines rather than from treasury or proprietary trading. We consciously penalise leaders who fall into the temptation of quick top line numbers from treasury or big ticket pseudo investment banking deals (remember Peter Sands?) that detract from the core businesses that reflect actual customer interaction.

- We believe that leadership is best validated in the most competitive or difficult marketplaces - there must be a degree of difficulty. So developing countries with generous NIMs or high GDP growths are unlikely to throw up plausible candidates (although I personally liked the winners from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who demonstrated considerable leadership in areas like integrity and diligence in cleaning up their bank's books in very difficult political environments.)

- Proven successful M&A integration, especially large scale and cross-border ones is an indication of an ability to tackle a degree of difficulty. The private banking and commercial banking business he acquired in Hong Kong were achieved quite commendably and the value of previously integrated entities have started to show up in the numbers - these are not a mean feat. In private banking, if your relationship managers leave, you are left with having acquired just tables and chairs.

- Relative standing against formidable competition on key operational numbers is subjective, but we base our assessment on an overall narrative that reflects where the CEO is taking the organisation. For example, OCBC's number one competitor in its home market, DBS, does have a stronger customer cross-sell ratio, and top-line numbers, but it achieves them at a much higher cost base because of a greater reliance on a cumbersome sales force model. OCBC has arguably experimented more on self-directed investing over time and may not even have succeeded in building its sales force to a similar scale. But it is exactly this that makes it less likely to get into mis-selling fiascos of the kind that DBS had in the past. The bancassurance deal that DBS struck with Manulife hints at an aggressive reliance on hard selling and is product and not customer centric. Although OCBC's selling capabilities are relatively more passive, and its channel innovations are not pumping in hard sales numbers aggressively, we are able to see that OCBC is setting the stage for a more sustainable culture of "farming" Gen-Y customers, especially as the world moves more towards self-directed financial services.

- Great CEOs are also characterised by the people they surround themselves with - their management bench strength.  We see CEOs creating three types of management dynamics (i) an all stars team (DBS, CBA)  (ii) top-down star CEOs (Shinhan, Axis Bank, BCA) (iii) mutually supportive teams with no particular stars (OCBC, BPI Phil). None of this is right or wrong, as each leader brings his own her own personality into the arena and in some cases, are required for the moment. Without censuring any one in favour of another, we thought that an all-stars team might have its issues (remember Brazil in 2014 World Cup semi-finals) and top-down leadership puts a lot of focus on the leader at the expense of its people. Samuel Tsien represents a personality that has brought together team players with a very strong sense of ownership at the functional level and still with a unity in purpose. Here, we err on the side of institutions that we believe are best placed to take on future challenges in a dramatically changing world. We don’t want to recognise a leader only to be proven wrong two years later. We chose leaders who are building malleable organisation – allergic to high costs, team spirit, sustainable customer propositions, multiple revenue streams. We might even be unfair to visionary ones on these points by putting them up to even more scrutiny.

- Making diversity a strength of the organisation - male/female, ethnic/cultural and professional bias (CEOs in Asia have run out of excuses for hiding behind cultural biases. Their peers in the West still exhibit professional biases – investment bankers remain investment bankers even when the lead commercial banks etc. It takes conscious effort to build the strength of personality to incorporate diversity into strategy, and is an area that is far from satisfactory, but we recognise effort).

The other outstanding CEOs shortlisted for the Asia Pacific award were from Shinhan Bank Korea, DBS Group Singapore, China Construction Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Axis Bank India. I must stress that there is no right or wrong in any one of them, and some of them are inspiring in their respective realities.

The leadership awards programme puts chairmen and CEOs on notice that their leadership styles must stand scrutiny because the word “sorry” can potentially cost taxpayers a lot of money and thousands of employees their livelihood.

The full methodology of our assessment process is found on our website www.theasianbanker.com and our research staff based in Singapore, Philippines, Beijing, Dubai and Delhi contributed to this study which took about five months and is validated by our Council of Advisors. This award is made only once every three years so as to give time for strategies to be executed and for the more enduring qualities of leadership to become evident. We assess CEOs from banks across 30 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, so it is a major undertaking.

Although I originated this programme many years ago, and set in place the methodology, I am personally no longer involved in the evaluation process, and certainly not in the selection. My staff, under the able leadership of managing editor Foo Boon Ping and head of research Mobasher Kazmi take full ownership. They will be publishing their own full report in the next month or so. But the integrity of this process is very personal to me and I write these notes to help me internalise what I see them saying and more importantly, set ourselves up to scrutiny to any comments and disagreements so that we can learn and sharpen the process to make this the most desired leadership awards in the industry.

Congrats to Samuel Tsien.