SINGAPORE (Dec 13): He comes across as down to earth, approachable and knowledgeable. But what makes Seth Tan, executive director of Infrastructure Asia (IA), the right man to lead the year-old organisation is his 24 years’ experience in the infrastructure sector. One thing that was apparent during a recent interview with The Edge Singapore was his passion for the business. When asked to explain his role, the 48-year-old enthuses: “We make regional infrastructure cases more viable and attractive to Singapore’s private sector by helping regional government counterparts create an enabling environment through knowledge sharing and capacity building.”
The Singapore government unit — jointly set up by Enterprise Singapore and the Monetary Authority of Singapore — brings together investors and industry specialists in the region’s infrastructure sector. The initiative was launched by then Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat at the 8th Asia-Singapore Infrastructure Roundtable on Oct 23, 2018. IA, in a sense, is Singapore’s attempt to create a bigger role for itself as Asia’s infrastructure spending grows.
Creating a one-stop solution for the region’s fast-developing infrastructure sector may be a daunting task to some, but Tan says he and his 17-member team — made up of former bankers, consultants and trade promotion officials — have been hard at work. So far, they have met with over 300 institutions and are looking to double this number in the coming year.
The aim, Tan adds, is to lend a helping hand to even more companies and projects by brokering deals and sharing best practices with international developers, financial institutions and multilateral development banks.
The Asian Development Bank estimates that the region’s infrastructure needs until 2030 amounts to some US$20 trillion ($27.2 trillion). Clearly, IA has its work cut out for it — among other things, the group will have to work with its stakeholders to advice on the entire infrastructure ecosystem ranging from pre-feasibility and feasibility studies to planning, construction, building, operation and maintenance works for projects across Asia.
Still, Tan finds the challenge “exciting”, knowing that better infrastructure in the form of roads, transportation networks, electricity and buildings enable urbanisation and higher living standards.
Regional remit
IA presently handles over 20 cases in the seven regional markets of Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, India and Bangladesh. An example is the US$500 million China-Singapore co-investment platform it brokered with the Singapore-headquartered regional infrastructure and construction firm Surbana Jurong and China’s Silk Road Fund. Here, Surbana Jurong will invest in greenfield infrastructure projects that meet sustainable environmental, social and corporate governance metrics.
Such projects demand long hours from Tan, who puts in close to 12 hours each day as he touches base with different members of his teams, meets with government officials and private organisations and speaks at conferences.
Despite his busy schedule, Tan is quick to say he is “a typical person”. He says: “I am an introvert by nature, so to be able to speak to and deal with a lot of people on a daily basis is really thanks to my work exposure to different activities over the years.”
But family time is a priority, maintains the father of two young children aged five years and 18 months. “I try to head home by 7pm to spend time with my kids. My wife is with them the whole day, so I also want to give her a break.” He adds that he also rushes back after his work trips just to be with his kids. “This is a time we won’t get back — so I want to spend as much time as I can with them, in their formative years”.
Economics foundations
Looking back, Tan believes the co-curricular activities he took on in school helped shape his rigour and discipline, qualities he finds useful in his career. He joined the National Police Cadet Corps as a co-curricular activity at Catholic High School, and later did his A-levels at Hwa Chong Junior College before moving on to the National University of Singapore.
While reading Economics at the university, he did ad-hoc jobs and gave tuition in his spare time to pay for his expenses and school fees.
The job market was tight in the years leading up to his graduation and it was the norm to pursue technology-based degrees that were in demand. In fact, his uncle discouraged him from taking up economics in university and advised him to take up a trade skill such as computer science instead, Tan says. Even so, he persevered, reading up on the highly sought-after skills such as financial modelling and coding, in his spare time.
He graduated in 1996 and landed a role doing infrastructure financing at BNP Paribas Singapore, where he was an assistant to a senior banker before moving into project financing. He also dabbled in debt-steering committees as several regional infrastructure projects defaulted at that time. “It was a challenging experience [that] I am thankful for,” he says, noting that the stint also laid a strong foundation for his knowledge on infrastructure project financing.
By 2002, Tan had moved to BNP Paribas Australia, where he led the utilities and renewable energy project financing team — then a new sector of focus for the bank. One highlight, he remembers, was project financing an 80.5MW wind power facility in 2003 — the first of its kind and largest wind project in terms of project finance, at that time.
Five years later, Tan was drafted to set up an infrastructure fund in Hong Kong for hydropower and wind farms in countries such as China and India. But his heart was always in the banking sector and he found his way back with a Beijing-based role at Standard Bank of Africa in 2009, where he helped open up African and Russian investment opportunities to Chinese companies.
It was an interesting opportunity, he recalls, as it gave him exposure to projects that enabled better water sanitation and electricity consumption. “[Infrastructure in emerging markets] is very different from developed countries such as Australia and Singapore,” he says, pointing out that developed countries look at efficiency-maximising projects while developing countries look at building basic infrastructure.
Following this, Tan had a five-year stint with BNP Paribas China, before accepting another China-focused role in 2016, this time at Development Bank of Singapore where he worked on commercial real estate and healthcare. It was an exciting opportunity as it required him to alter his thinking to suit the needs of the markets, he says.
One-word reply
With his vast experience, how does he decide whether to accept a job offer? Tan’s reply: “I ask if this is one job I cannot miss. There are a few jobs that you cannot miss because of the opportunities they bring”. That kind of thinking led him to helm IA, as rewards are twofold — it brings opportunities to Singapore companies while “uplifting Asia”.
Apart from finding new ways to solve the old infrastructure problems of sourcing for sustainable water and power supply, Tan is also looking for ways to motivate the people closest to him — his team. As a leader, Tan is aware that each member of his organisation comes from a different background and is using this to the team’s advantage. “Everyone is different, and has different runways and different ways of contributing”. To work around this, Tan employs the 70-30 rule: Seventy per cent is leveraging on the individuals’ existing skills and 30% is stretching them with the aim of achieving the same goals. This way, his subordinates are exposed to new lessons while harnessing their existing skills.
Open communication — be it in group discussions or informal coffee sessions — is crucial, says Tan. This allows the team to leverage on each other’s expertise while posing their thoughts and questions freely, he adds. More importantly, Tan says that as managers it is also important to give your team the space to work, with the occasional nudges of encouragement, all with the aim of achieving the long-term goals.
He concludes: “If you get a one word reply from me, it means you are doing well. If I respond to an email with suggestions, it means you have to try harder.
