How a small-town boy from Malaysia became CEO of one of the top insurance firms in the world

Some leaders dazzle with charisma and showmanship. Others, like Dr Khoo Kah Siang, win hearts and minds with a generous serving of humility.

The president and CEO of Manulife Singapore is as down-to-earth as they come. Meeting at Manulife Tower, the global insurer’s local headquarters in the Central Business District, Dr Khoo is unassuming in person, but a well-respected industry figure with a little-known backstory worth telling – and retelling – in this exclusive interview.

He was born in Alor Setar in the Malaysian state of Kedah in the late 1960s. His father was a headmaster and his mother, a homemaker. Displaying exceptional academic aptitude from an early age, his family invested in his education and enrolled him in an elite boarding school in the state at the age of 13.

Living away from home for the first time, he found himself in an unfamiliar environment and an acute minority as one of the few Chinese students in a predominantly Malay community. It was here that he quickly began to hone his ability to adapt – a prized attribute that would serve Dr Khoo well throughout his career.

“Learning to deal with different cultures helped build resilience,” he recalled.

A strong independent spirit had also always been in his nature. Upon graduation, he spent his gap year in Kuala Lumpur, living with an aunt and shuffling between shifts at McDonald’s and tutoring gigs to support himself.

Having excelled in mathematics in school and with strong academic grades, he was accepted to attend university in the United Kingdom, and it was his uncle who suggested he consider reading actuarial science at university – a discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in insurance, pension, finance and investment.

And so, at the age of 19, he found himself on a plane for the first time, travelling halfway across the world to pursue his undergraduate studies, becoming the first and only of three siblings to attend university. All made possible with additional financial support from his uncle.

BREAKING BARRIERS

The first roadblock he encountered when he arrived in Canterbury in the late 1980s, however, was the language barrier.

“I was top in my school and my [standard of] English was already considered to be the best. But I didn’t converse in English at the time – I would converse only in Hokkien, Mandarin, and I spoke very fluent Malay then – so I really struggled when I first went overseas. The British accent also made it a lot more difficult to the point I couldn’t understand what the lecturer was saying,” Dr Khoo opined.

To cope, the small-town boy relied on the help of Malaysian and Singaporean friends who would lend him their notes from class. He also started reading voraciously to expand his vocabulary, train his comprehension skills, and enhance his general knowledge.

Humility played a hand in Dr Khoo’s destiny, too.

“I mixed with both the Malaysians as well as the Brits. Even though I couldn’t understand them well, being humble, I was able to mingle with them and that helped me learn the language and the culture, including the slang,” Dr Khoo explained.

He adapted well and graduated with First Class Honours in Actuarial Science. One of his professors then offered him a teaching scholarship to pursue a PhD – skipping a Master’s degree entirely – and Dr Khoo went on to graduate with a Doctorate in Statistics from the University of Kent in 1995.

Those six-and-a-half years in the United Kingdom proved pivotal in shaping his outlook and worldview.

“Adaptability is very important,” he noted. “It’s about how you can be accepted by people very different from you. It’s also about being tolerant and being able to accept different ways of doing things. Those were innate abilities within me and as a result of that, it was quite easy for me to get along with people.”

Today, the Kedah boy-made-good speaks six languages and dialects: English, Malay, Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese and a smattering of French, which his Mauritian classmate spent a month teaching him during his doctorate studies, in preparation for a trip to France he was planning with his parents back then.

A SINGAPORE START

Upon his return to Malaysia, Dr Khoo began applying for jobs and one company offered him a posting in either Malaysia or Singapore – with the same salary. He took the job in Singapore due to the stronger currency.

It was a South African firm specialising in risk management, and he had a lot of fun during his two years there in the mid-1990s.

“That job brought me to different places, including three trips to South Africa. It was an eye-opener and interesting working with the people in South Africa,” he said.

He then joined Manulife – his first stint with the insurer – as a junior actuary. When he left the company five years later, he was heading the actuarial department.

Next, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) came calling. It was the early 2000s and the Deputy Director role provided Dr Khoo with the opportunity to gain a greater breadth of experience beyond the actuarial domain.

“Those four years were very meaningful,” he said. “MAS is such a progressive organisation. It gave me a fresh look and I learned so much in terms of understanding the part that regulations play. Policymaking requires strategic thinking and we introduced a slew of policies that still exist today, which influenced a change of the environment in which we operate.”

As compelling as the work at MAS was, the call for Dr Khoo to return to his true vocation grew too loud to ignore, and he quit without another job lined-up.

“My ambition was to be the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of an insurance company. That was my goal in life,” he shared.

Great Eastern promptly scooped him up in 2006, and Dr Khoo held several local and regional positions during his eleven-year tenure including that of CFO with the homegrown insurer.

“My dream had finally come true and I was very happy,” he said.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE LEAP TO CEO

A year-and-a-half into the CFO position, however, the company underwent a corporate restructuring and Dr Khoo was offered the opportunity to step into the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO), which he held until 2016.

“The board recommended me to take care of the Singapore office. It was a big step up and an interesting period for me, moving from the CFO role to a business role,” he said of his first CEO appointment at Great Eastern.

Suddenly, Dr Khoo felt “real stress” for the first time in his career.

“I was very comfortable doing the CFO job; it was in my comfort zone. As CFO, I'm proactive in supporting the business [objectives], but I'm not the one executing. The truth is that execution can sometimes be really tough. You may know what you need to do, but getting there is actually very tough. It’s easier said than done,” he confided.

It was a different playing field that required Dr Khoo to cultivate and flex different skillsets. Like change management, for example.

“That was the most eye-opening time in my life. When I was entrusted to run the whole business, the pressure became real and it really opened my mind and my view on distribution,” he said.

“[Up until then], I had done a lot of things well and had been blessed with a fairly smooth career. No matter how difficult things were, it was within my control and I could solve it. But suddenly, I had no control. And I had to convince a lot more people. Convincing a few thousand [insurance] agents is tough. Convincing the bank is tough. Convincing customers to change? That’s tough,” Dr Khoo continued.

He learnt quickly.

“In business, trust is very critical. It's not [about] how much you know or how smart you are, it’s not [about] how charismatic you are – which has some value to a certain extent – but ultimately, can your partner trust you? To build trust is not an overnight thing,” he said.

SERVING THE PEOPLE

In 2018, Dr Khoo’s career came full circle when he returned to Manulife – this time as CEO.

Under his stewardship, the company workforce has grown 40 per cent in the last five years, with a headcount that is more than 600 today. And what he finds most rewarding these days is seeing his people grow and empowering them with the autonomy to resolve problems on their own.

His leadership style has also evolved over time.

“I used to be quite task-oriented and very execution-focused,” he revealed. “I’ve moved on to become more focused on cultivating people and giving them enough authority to get things done. And I think the results are a lot more effective because there tends to be ownership.”

The biggest misconception about leadership, Dr Khoo believes, is the notion that all decisions ought to be made unilaterally at the top.

“Leadership is about how a leader is able to galvanise the team to come together and generate the energy and the innovative juice to be able to serve customers,” he said.

Indeed, serving customers well remains his top priority and Dr Khoo’s passion is palpable, even after more than 20 years in the business. He hopes to see the industry continue to evolve, and sees it as his personal mission to help elevate the standards of culture and conduct in the insurance industry through his role as chairperson of the Singapore Insurance Culture and Conduct Steering Committee since its founding in 2019.

“Insurance serves an intangible social need,” he observed. “The value comes firstly in giving you peace of mind, and secondly, when you really need to use it.”

He continued: “As an industry, we have room for improvement. We can be more efficient from a distribution perspective and sharpen the quality [of our products] to meet the needs of the individual more optimally. If you do it right – and make it less transactional – we can really help more people and build a better world.”

His uncle must be proud.