DBS Group Holdings has named Soh Kian Tiong as its chief risk officer (CRO) on Oct 25.
Soh’s position will be effective on Nov 4. He will report to DBS CEO Piyush Gupta, and will also be accountable to the board risk management committee.
In addition, Soh will be a member of the group management committee as well as the group executive committee.
Soh is a career DBS banker with over 25 years of experience in business and risk roles.
He has been based in Hong Kong as senior risk executive for DBS Hong Kong since June 2019.
He is also concurrently chief credit officer for DBS’s Greater China office, overseeing the bank’s credit and risk functions in China and Hong Kong, as well as credit risk for Taiwan.
Soh is currently a member of DBS Bank (Hong Kong)’s management committee and chairs the Hong Kong risk executive committee.
Soh began his career as a DBS trainee officer in 1995 in the corporate banking department.
Throughout his career, he has held roles such as head of credit risk as well as head of DBS’s financial institutions group. In the latter role, Soh oversaw DBS’s banking relationship with GIC, Temasek, as well as Singapore’s universities.
Soh will take over the role from current CRO Tan Teck Long, who will be leaving the bank to join OCBC as head of global wholesale banking.
See: DBS CRO Tan Teck Long to join OCBC as head of global wholesale banking
“Under Teck Long’s leadership, DBS has further enhanced our credit underwriting capabilities, multi-year credit architecture programme, and strengthened our attention on ESG risks, financial crime risk, and cyber security and data protection. While he will be sorely missed, we respect his desire to return to a customer-facing role,” says Gupta.
“Kian Tiong’s appointment is testament to our ability to groom leaders from within. Over the span of his longstanding DBS career, he has been rotated across markets, and embraced a mix of business and risk roles. I am confident that he will bring this experience to bear meaningfully in his new role,” he adds.
As at 9.01am, shares in DBS are trading 11 cents higher or 0.35% up at $31.48.
Photo: DBS
