As part of our Leading Women series, we want to highlight the professional challenges and career aspirations of the women we work with here in Asia.  
 
In this story, we speak to Tan Bin Ru, Chief Executive Officer (SEA) of OneConnect Financial Technology, Co-Chairwoman of the Blockchain Association of Singapore, as well as the ‘Top 5 Women in FinTech’ and ‘Top 50 Asia FinTech Leaders’ at the recent Singapore FinTech Awards 2019. Here, she shares the greatest career risk she’s undertaken, what she learnt from an unexpected interview question, as well as the only thing that takes her mind away from work. 

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Q: What’s the greatest risk you’ve taken as a professional?

Bin Ru: Switching careers to something that I’d totally never done before. In my early days, I’d never done sales before. I was a mathematics student, and I started in compliance and operational work. At one point, I was looking after three or four hundred staff in operations, and I decided to switch to sales instead. It was very difficult for me. Everybody told me that it was not a wise move because I was way too senior to move to sales, and I was moving to a smaller team on a lower corporate level. The whole world was basically telling me that it was a downgrade. But I did it for the skills that I wanted to learn, and I have never looked back.  

This is an abridged version of the full interview with Tan Bin Ru. For the full version of the interview, click here.  

Michael Page