Tan Hooi Ling
One half of the duo behind Grab, Tan Hooi Ling has had quite a start in her career, and not just because of the on-demand transport mobile platform that made her into one of the most prominent young tech entrepreneurs in the region. Fresh out of graduating from the UK’s University of Bath with a Mechanical Engineering degree, Tan was hired by consulting firm McKinsey & Company back in Malaysia to advise global corporations in Southeast Asia, North America, Latin America and Australia.
Recognising her potential, the firm sponsored Tan’s MBA education at Harvard Business School where she met her future co-founder Anthony Tan, and the idea of the ride-hailing app was first mooted. With the runner-up prize money the duo won for their business plan at the HBS New Venture Competition in 2011, in addition to personal funds, they launched the mobile app—then called MyTeksi—in June 2012. Before officially taking her position as Grab’s Chief Operating Officer in 2015, Tan Hooi Ling re-located to San Francisco, California, to join the software company Salesforce after finishing her term at McKinsey, where she led high-priority strategic and operational projects. At that time, she was working on developing the company with Anthony in her spare time.
Later re-named Grab, the platform quickly grew to offer food, grocery and courier delivery, as well as digital payments, on top of transportation. Now based in Grab’s headquarters in Singapore, Tan oversees the development of the company’s new products and technology, operations and customer experience.