In this episode Sophie Jackson talks to Han Leong, former CFO of AEM Holdings Ltd. Han has served as the CFO of three listed companies on the Singapore Stock Exchange and has decades of leadership experience across Fortune 200 multinationals across Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Europe. Their discussion explores Han’s vast career journey, as well as the role of CFO and benefits of working abroad.

Hello, and welcome to Ask a CFO, the podcast series that shines a light on the unique path taken to become a Chief Financial Officer.

I'm Sophie Jackson, and in this episode, we speak with Han Leong, former CFO of AEM Holdings Limited. Han is a seasoned international finance executive, who has previously served as the CFO of three listed companies on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

With decades of leader experience across Fortune two hundred multinationals across Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Europe, Han now provides business consulting and advisory services to business owners and to start-ups, helping them navigate from capital strategy to business transformation. This gives her a vast understanding of the role, and I'm very excited to share her insights with you all.

So, first of all, can I ask you to introduce yourself for me?

So, most people call me Han. I have a Chinese name known as Jia Suk Han, very much born and raised in Singapore, which is a very small, vibrant and multicultural city-state.

I've worked over 30 years in various geographies, since Singapore, in China, in Hong Kong and in Europe, etc, and in various small industries. That's very much where I am in terms of careers in international settings.

Amazing. And then I wondered if you could tell me if you could recall your earliest memory of thinking that you wanted to go into the career that you went into.

Hey, that's really a good question because when I thought about myself, what attracted me to finance, actually it's a very simple answer. What I did was when I was selecting the course or degree to pursue after my A-levels, my criteria was so basic and simple.

I wanted to pursue a degree that would basically lead to a professional qualification in the shortest amount of time. So, the degree of accountancy fits the bill. It's very much a three-year course leading to a professional qualification.

And of course, one would have to be subsequently a chartered accountant or a certified accountant with some continuous professional education post-graduation. At this stage in life, I was very keen to see the world and also leaving exams and the library as soon as practical.

So, choosing the accountancy degree was a very easy decision for me as a teenager going to university. And as I completed my degree course, my early years of external audit exposure in a big four was very intriguing for me because I observed that finance is an intersection for decision making also for operations and performance.

I mean, I was given financial statements and financial statements basically is the draw matter for me to conduct a finance career. I was able to see the finance numbers that basically connect the dots of operational strategic decisions to financial performance. So, it felt like finance gave me the blueprint of a business. And I was curious about understanding business and what transpired beneath those numbers. So that's really how I got attracted to finance and continue and pursue a career in finance, subsequently to the university degree.

Amazing. And you mentioned at the beginning that you grew up in Singapore. Tell me a little bit about your early experiences there and the people that kind of shaped you as you were growing up.

Well, I think during the time that I was growing up, we don't have things like computer games, right, or digital social media. So, I was spending a lot of time playing in terms of sports and school committees. So, sports and teamwork very much a large part of my living days. I would say that I devote more time in sports and school committees than the studies itself.

So, the environment shaped my values very much because it instilled elements of resilience, adaptability and also curiosity. So, as I subsequently progressed in my career and moved into different settings, international settings outside Singapore, I feel that those early principles give me the anchor for respect for diversity, having come from a small country, a small nation like Singapore, and also gives me the anchor for adaptability as I work through cross-cultural teams and subsequently managing complex stakeholder environment.

Amazing. And you mentioned three themes there that I think are the standout factors for all of us right now as we navigate so many changes and so on. It's resilience, as you said, adaptability and curiosity.

And one of the things I find interesting about Singapore is something you've touched on there, the kind of rapid rate of evolution of what Singapore means and represents. And as you well said, this kind of cross-cultural melting pot means that for such a small place, you can experience such a vast array of different backgrounds and life experiences amongst the people there, which is phenomenally unique, in my opinion.

Yeah, absolutely. It's really a melting-pot for multinational companies and also obviously small, medium enterprises, which could be founder-led or which could be family-led offices. So that diversity of economics in terms of how businesses are set up gives us a lot of that variety, in terms of depth in this, as well as breadth of managing different stakeholders and managing different businesses. So, I have benefited tremendously from that opportunity of seeing that diversity.

Amazing. And we're here to talk about, you know, the journey to CFO. But before we kind of start into a bit of your background, I wanted to ask you, what do you think makes for a great CFO?

I believe a great CFO, this is a business co-pilot. This very much, very important. One which is I will emphasise very significantly is also about articulating the company's story.

The CFO possesses information in terms of data and data are very fact-checked, fact-based information. So, data outlines performances, outlines also the thoughts around a strategy and execution behind it. So, I think what will make a CFO stand out above the peers is really what the CFO considers from a fact-based information or articulating that company's story and keeping it calm and articulating to stakeholders and stakeholders will be multi-fold, multi-fold in the sense of internal employees, the investor community, the board and obviously regulators.

That will be the key elements of what the CFO would do beyond the roles of the traditional finance tasks, which are, say, FP&A, controls, compliance framework.

Excellent. And I mean, as I mentioned there, we're going to be exploring a little bit your unique path to become a CFO.

So, you had a background in treasury at Philips, and I know that was a key step on your career journey and has played a role in your development. How do you think that experience that you had there working in treasury at Philips prepared you for your first CFO role?

I really enjoy my time in Philips Treasury. Thanks for the question because it's a good question and it brings me memorable experience. I mean, it transpired more than two decades ago. In Philips Treasury, I had five finance treasury roles. I was working across various geographies, Europe, China, Hong Kong, and obviously Singapore, where I first started with Philips in Singapore. I was also the treasury leader for Philips in a joint venture, which is in Hong Kong. And then I had some things in the Amsterdam headquarters as well.

So, I think my time at Philips Treasury was more like, I would say a ninja training phase. Well, you're not in CFO seat because I was not a CFO then until much later in one of the business unit. But you're very much in the, you know, you're deep in the engine room. It looks very elbows deep in cash flow, obviously, because that's what a treasurer would be looking very acutely into, funding structures, foreign exchange risk, cash management, etc.

So, it's beyond more than just a technical jargon or technical word that a lot of treasurers use, but treasury teaches how to value creation and how to preserve that. The structured deals that work to manage liquidity with times are bad and also, it gives me that very crucial training, which is invisible leadership.

Ultimately, in treasury, you're influencing without having the title because you have been nudging business unit to follow policies, organising different priorities across market, keeping people calm with foreign exchange markets becomes very irrational and also managing and standardising treasury across, at least for me, during my China's stint, over thirty entities across China, centralising cash, managing foreign exchange, setting up pool structures.

So, these are very soft skills, I would say, because it's about negotiation, alignment, and touching diplomacy, which was very useful when I spoke to the CEO and COO subsequently at the end at a C-suite table. So when I really stepped into my first CFO role, I didn't really feel that I was stepping into unknown.

I'm sure I had a lot to learn, but thanks to those treasury years, I was able to know what's the essential things, really keeping financially sound while steering towards strategic goals and also the portable skillsets that I would always be able to pull out of the sleeve when I was managing as a CFO.

Excellent. I think it's fascinating. I think there's such different flavours to the kind of niche of finance that you cut your teeth in. So, thank you for sharing that.

You and I have something in common in that we've both spent a lot of our careers working overseas. And I think it's something that makes for a challenging and very rewarding experience at the same time. I think it can be the in one experience, some of the most difficult and some of the most triumphant moments.

And it's a much more extreme approach to developing, I think, on a personal and a professional level. So, tell me, I know you've spent over a decade working internationally. Do you think that working abroad has been good for your career advancements? And for those considering it, what do you think are some of the challenges that you've faced whilst working abroad? Let's kind of start off there.

Oh, well, actually, I see more draw attraction to it than challenges, because I feel that working internationally was maybe one of the most transformative times of my career. I mean, I was living in developing markets. I was also working in developed markets and other than in Singapore, which I was totally obviously familiar with, I feel that those relocations also give me the direct immersions into new ways of thinking before I go to college and also tested me to be a resilient, culturally sensitive, also building on cultural interactions.

It ultimately, all this will expand into problem solving as I see two challenges to different lenses. From a technical standpoint, maybe international experience will bring in like, okay, I need to figure out new regulatory complexity, let's say for finance, because finance or tax, you tend to have a lot more regulatory information that you need to digest and be able to internalise. But I feel that these are mental challenges that basically sharpen me, my adaptability, my learning skills.

So really in essence, I see it more a catalyst for me than a challenge because challenges are meant to be part of problem solving, right? I mean, there will be challenges regardless of where one stays, but it's more about really seeing things through a different panel of lenses at different points in time and I feel that it's definitely formative for me.

Amazing, yeah, and I totally agree with you. I mean, transformative is a brilliant way to put it. I would say that, I mean, obviously there are moments in your life when you are more or less able to have the bandwidth to move to a totally different culture and set yourself up for personal as well as professional reasons. So, I think choosing the right moment to move abroad is very important as well. And I also think doing it as young as possible can be good as well because you have less to lose.

Yeah, I totally agree with, and I had also the benefit of learning new things, right? I picked up some Shanghainese local dialect when I was living in China. I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, because most people will speak Chinese or Mandarin as their first language. But it makes me able to communicate with a lot of people who would otherwise probably not have an interest to talk to me if I was just speaking in Chinese.

So, I thought that was quite good for me because it tests me to learn something else. Okay, can I learn something conversational Shanghainese in that sense, or maybe very conversational Dutch in that case. So, I thought that was a very good opportunity for me to, to test a different aspect of my brain. So, I totally enjoyed challenging my mind to pick up different things.

And I think that's such a good point that you make there, because when I look back on my experiences, you can be an expat and that I ascribe as more of a personality than an actual term. Or you can be somebody who's moving to a new culture and experiencing it, and those are two different levels that have different rewards for them, right? And that curiosity and open mindedness and open heartedness when you're embracing a new culture adds such an element of wonder to that experience, I think, and then you can have different cultural experiences within the workplace as well, because you can connect with people on a much deeper level.

I mean, I think because my native tongue is English, there's always the option to be lazy when you move somewhere because you don't need necessarily to learn a new language or really try and absorb yourself in a new culture. But the moments when you do, I think, are so, are rewarding and stay with you forever. So, let's come back to think about your experiences as CFO.

So, I think one of the things that I find interesting in these conversations is to think about preconceptions that we have about the role. So, tell me, when you first stepped into your first CFO role, what aspects of the role were aligned with your expectations? And were there any elements of the job that took you by surprise, so to speak?

Yeah, that's a good question. There are some so-called preconceived notions about the CFO role. And I'll admit I had some of them before I stepped into that seat. I expected myself to be quite heavily, if not very heavily, involved in financial planning, compliance, capital structure. I mean, the traditional pillars of the CFO role and that did hold true.

But more so, I found myself actually at the table for M&A, divestment, digital transformation, even preparing for customers meeting before the sales team presents themselves with a major customer meeting. And even in recent years, more on ESG discussion and strategy.

So, I found that what came out really strong was really I was in a seat that basically had the ability to see everything that happens in the company, everything that matters because every decision, every strategy, every operational execution would have a financial impact. So, the scope was far broader than just finance that I had as a preconception about what a CFO is, and that, that for me was really quite interesting because I felt that, hey, I wasn't just a person ensuring financial rigor.

I'm also breaching between numbers, strategy, between internal stakeholders, external stakeholders, especially at investor relations call, results briefing, roadshows, analyst discussions. So, I constantly switch lenses, whether it's very operational detailed information or looking at high-level vision or often even within the same meeting. So that is very emotional demand the role requires.

But what I enjoy is it's no longer just about looking at numbers. It's just about how important to be thoughtful, consistent and transparent in communicating. I think that to me is what I have found myself to be involved with in that journey and the technical side of the job more familiar.

But this is the most interesting part about really knowing the business and dissecting the business, like peeling the onions for the lack of a better word. One layer, one layer, one layer over time.

Amazing. And I love that you've also mentioned the importance of communication because I think the ability to create narratives that are comprehensible and galvanise a whole organisation behind you is also so important, right?

Yes, absolutely. Especially some of the roles that I took up in having that investors relationship conversations are quite important in shaping up the communicating, the articulating of the company story. So, I felt that I had benefited a lot from the experience because then I switched not only my lenses, but also my thinking around what an external party will look at. Think about when they look at numbers and see whether the company walks the talk in terms of their strategy with the financial outcome.

Amazing. You've had various CFO roles. Tell me a little bit about some of those experiences and how you arrived at where you are in this moment in your life.

Well, to begin with, my CFO roles were pretty diverse across different industries. So, I have moved between industries from oil and gas to consumer electronics to technology, also covering different regions. Some are more South-East Asia centric, some are Middle East, some are China, US, Europe. All these roles require lots of, I guess, what any C-level executives will do, problem solving, being agile, and also being future oriented in terms of how to build a business and to be sustainable.

I would say that each move I made is built upon the last, and it's always about learning to grow personally from living through uncertainty, especially in today's context, and as well as the complexity and change. So, every role for me is new to my toolkit.

If I really look at my first CFO role was with a listed company in Singapore called Rotary Engineering, subsequently delisted it, it is a company that is largely in oil and gas infrastructure services and serves the oil and gas companies like the Exxon Mobil, the Shell equivalent, and the Middle East oil companies with footprints largely in oil-centric geographies.

So, the opportunity for me was really the company had a mix of shareholders, sovereign fund, and founder. So, that gives me the opportunity to navigate lots of boardroom dynamics, walk through organisational changes, and eventually delisting the company, which was one of the milestones that I have completed for the company. So, I got lots of opportunities to learn new culture and working with different experiences. So, I totally enjoyed that hands-on approach towards embracing changes within the organisation.

Excellent. And, you know, curiosity has come up a couple of times in our conversation, and I think in every conversation that I'm privileged enough to have with CFOs across the world. I think it's something that was a little bit overlooked as a skillset until the last few years. Why do you think curiosity is so important and how can financial professionals seeking to be leaders use it to their advantage?

I think we do not know what we do not know, right, most of the time as a human being. So, if we are curious, then we want to know what we do not know.

So, I think therefore, if one is curious, one would want to understand more or a bigger picture or what beyond the status quo, beyond what the numbers say, and looking beyond and what's behind the whole scheme of matter, dig deeper, look beyond spreadsheets, look beyond just what ERP system pushes. And also being curious actually builds strong partnership across the organisation.

Because then I engage my other C-level executives to understand the business better. I get invited to conversations too, and that gives it a very compelling element because I noticed when I was working through with a lot of the other leadership team members, they are very keen to share information, but they're probably sharing information from a certain pair of lenses, and when a finance person comes in and connect the dots together the execution of the operations team or the technology team into financial data.

Then in connecting the dots, I felt that there is a lot of camaraderie that you can see from the other non-finance colleagues, and that engages a lot of engagement. So, I felt that that was also one way for me to stay connected, especially with non-finance individuals who really appreciate simplicity and the complex matters. So, I absolutely think curiosity makes the job a lot more fun and it also engages your internal customers.

Yeah, I think you're so correct. I mean, I learned in my twenties that when you have a conflict, you can't be curious and defensive at the same time, and so that kind of open mind approach to where other people are coming from in organisations is such a critical skill in communication.

And I think as everybody's role is facing great evolutions and we're against the backdrops of more uncertainty than ever. Being curious will allow professionals to not be defensive as perhaps their role needs to evolve, as perhaps their organisation is evolving, and as perhaps the very world around us is changing too. I think it's such a critical skillset for those who want to thrive in times of change.

Yeah, and especially in recent times, we really see what are the key things that are taking the centre stage. It's about ESG, it's about AI, geopolitics, right? And nobody has really gone through this because these are very new topics, right? So, it's about being curious and walking through the journey together.

It is just like COVID times as well. I mean, nobody knows how to handle COVID because there's no textbook study for that. You just have to figure out, be curious about how to be practical and deploy methods that make sense during periods of uncertainty, during periods of changes. And I think just being curious would be the most relevant, it doesn't have to be the smartest person in the room, but the person with the most curiosity. Would, together with the team, be able to excel beyond that, just focusing on technical excellence or technical competence?

Absolutely. And as you mentioned that, particularly I think when it comes to implementation of AI, it needs a kind of a curious, innovative mindset in order to come up with use cases and to see what the impact can be. We need to have an open mind because as you say, there is no textbook, and I know that financial professionals have a background in certainty and formulaic approaches, but the two married together are what will separate leaders from followers, right?

Yeah, absolutely, just normally I will ask myself, what if and the so what questions? That helps me internalise. Is it practical? Is it workable? Does it make sense? So, I tend to ask myself that question a lot with my ideas and also with ideas that they will present it to me, the what if and the so what questions.

Amazing. And we've also, I mean, the curiosity is one part of being a great leader. The other that's come up many times for us is this ability to communicate strongly, which you have mentioned frequently as one of the skillsets involved in being a leading CFO.

For those who want to master this ability to communicate well and to be able to articulate the company's story, what are some of the skills that you think financial professionals can develop? Because I think that's something that maybe earlier on in your career is not so necessary and later on becomes more and more critical. So, what advice would you offer those who want to master this strength?

One of the things, and I have also seen myself at times in that situation is as finance practitioners, we need to really translate complexity into simplicity. Sometimes finance people tend to speak finance jargon. So, we need to be very comfortable to really humanise the language to what matters most to the audience, because otherwise we lose the audience. And finance likes to throw data, so we need to use data to paint the picture.

So, when it comes to articulating a company's story, it's not just to report, but actually is to engage and lead, which means equivalent of influence, to influence the outcome. So, I honestly believe good company story is not just like standard stakeholders too, right? Because sometimes we have a lot of internal town hall meeting, internal teams as well.

Especially, when you're a listed company, every time after a quarterly results to the external public, you also tell your internal stakeholders, your employees, what does the company do? How does their work connect to the bigger picture, which I think is very important. So that's when as finance community, we should really become business partners or co-pilots of the business. So not just number crunching. So, while we have the data, I think that's great.

We need to translate that storytelling or articulating the company's story into actions, into decisions taken, and into what people will buy-in terms of vision. And when finance can do that, there will be very much leading to two-part business partnership.

Thank you so much for that. Everybody's role has evolved a lot in recent times. The CFO role, I think as much as there is talk around how much it's changing, there are elements that remain the same and essential. What are some of the most notable changes you've seen to the function and what do you see as the driving forces behind any transformations?

I'll talk about the transformation first, because the transformation is noticeable to everybody, finance and non-finance. I mean, the transformation that have really taken place is driven by a few things that we have all seen, technology, globalisation. And again, I'm saying the same thing, ESG, because I have never seen so much ESG discussions until the recent years.

ESG didn't used to be so much corporate ownership until the real recent years. And that also pushed finance to take very holistic view of value creation. I mean, the E, the S, and the G.

So that basically, I spent a lot more time on the ESG elements of it and also technology because the automation of some of the finance tasks and then freeing up for time for higher value creation work and how to basically staff some resources towards business partnership roles. So, that to me was the essence of the change in transformation.

And the evolution of it, if I do see, is no longer really like what the traditional role is about, which is reporting, explaining what has happened last quarter, explaining what happened last year, business year. But now it's much more about anticipation, about what's coming next and really changing the direction of the business.

The conversations are now very much data-driven in my perspective and finances ask for insight because using the data of the past to drive into insight, what we're looking to change market dynamics or at least influence dynamics in competitive position. So, I feel that the roles are so much more encompassing, all business partnership, this was when I first started out, where the matters were more centre towards compliance, financial reporting, tax, etc, yeah.

Amazing. And then what advice can you offer to those who aspire to reach that role?

Not sure everybody who started a finance career plan to be a CFO. Well, I think it's not, the destination is not the focus, but it's about building that bandwidth, building that range that I think is important. And sometimes I would say even stepping away from a finance role could be equally rewarding.

I did a role when I was in a US MNC, which is more towards a business partnership, business development with some customer front-facing role. That to me was very different role. I didn't have to take care of P&L totally during that role, but it gives me a different perspective of really understanding what customer engagement is, what the customers were thinking, and then stepping into the shoes of how can I help customer benefit and yet also at the same time, they will buy our services.

So, I felt that that was a very good path for me, that short stint of being away from direct finance role to do something else, going into a different zone that one may not be familiar with, but can be tested and then figuring out how to be in a position to be comfortable.

So, I think that there will be great building in terms of finance, in terms of book depth and as well as breadth in the business. So, for anyone, I will just really say, just have to stay curious, which we discussed earlier, stay adaptable because changes are always happening, business world keeps changing, and the CFO will evolve with changes as well, as we have seen. And by doing that, then that's really being a co-pilot to the CEO and the other C-suite members at the table.

Amazing. And then my final question for you is around once you've reached that role, we've been fortunate enough to interview CFOs past and present, and some of them have spoken to me about the journey afterwards. So, tell me, what's your advice for those thinking beyond the role?

Well, some would pursue a different role. Being a finance person, the next chart or box for some is continue being a CFO, which is then therefore being very, very finance driven or being in a role that is more operational, a CEO role or COO role.

I think that they are both very good roles because to be a good CEO coming from a CFO role, that's basically enhancing that level of execution in terms of rallying people around to support the business strategy towards execution and making it happen. And I feel that most CFOs would be in the position to be in that role, to be a CEO or COO equivalent. It's just whether the affinity interests the individuals.

But all in all, I think whether the roles are to, whichever C-suite positions, it's all about problem solving. It's also just about looking to become confident in decision making and making decision based on fast and long decision. So, I would say that that's this one, some of the roles that I've seen some of my peers join and get into, and they are obviously equally rewarding for different people, different career aspirations.

Amazing. Is there anything else you want to share with our community before we wrap up today's amazing conversation?

I was just saying that the CFO role has really evolved from being really the numbers person to being a strategy co-pilot. And that's really true a lot of transformation, sustainability, managing stakeholder trust, and also shaping business model. So, it's still back to finance person, the focus will be problem solving and problem solving is not just, it's never about just, it's problem solving at finance level, but problem solving through different facets of operations through the business.

And that's what really keeps finance roles very exciting because that evolution will always be constantly changing. The bar could be raised higher, could be raised different. And that's where I think the CFO could be a Chief Insights Officer, getting insights from business data, from data, etc. So, I think the finance is really an interesting roles to be in, and I hope people continue to have aspirations to seek finance as a career.

Amazing. Well, all that's left for me just to say is thank you so much for being part of the Ask a CFO community, for lending the wisdom of your experiences with everybody, and for sharing your journey. Thank you ever so much, I've loved speaking with you.

Hey, thanks, Sophie. It's good to speak to you, and thanks for having me in this discussion.

A very big thank you again to Han for taking part in our Ask a CFO series. Please do subscribe and share any episodes you found relevant and stay tuned for the next episodes in our series as we continue to share the personal journeys and professional experiences of current and former CFOs across the world.