FORBES ASIA
52 | FORBES ASIA MAY 2018
Supamas Trivisvavet 43
CEO AND PRESIDENT
CH. KARNCHANG
THAILAND
Since taking over as CEO and president of CH.
Karnchang in 2015, Supamas has expanded the
focus of Thailand’s second-largest construction
company, looking to opportunities across the
region. Besides bidding on a growing network
of rail lines and roads at home in Bangkok,
she has focused on power projects, including
hydroelectric in Laos and a thermal plant and
solar photovoltaic plant in Thailand. Supamas
returned from studies in the U.S. in 2006 to
join the company founded by her father, Plew
Trivisvavet, and his four brothers 46 years ago.
(Her father is now executive chairman of CH.
Karnchang and still works full time). Supamas
has ramped up bidding for Bangkok’s MRT, the
capital’s rapid transit rail system. An estimated
$9.6 billion in contracts are expected to be
signed this year; Supamas is optimistic CH.
Karnchang will get 20% to 25% of the work.Mercy Wu 40
CHAIRWOMAN AND CEO
ESLITE GROUP/ESLITE SPECTRUM
TAIWAN
When Mercy Wu was made chairman of Eslite
Group after her father died of a heart attack in
July, she was 39, the same age as her dad was
when he opened the first 24-hour bookstore in
Taipei in 1989. Eslite is now the island’s largest
retail bookstore and lifestyle chain, with 44
outlets across Taiwan, Hong Kong and China that
combine bookstores, art galleries, restaurants
and department stores. It also has a boutique
hotel in Taipei and a residential property in
Suzhou, China. The privately held group is
opening an outlet in Shenzhen, China, next year.
Wu ofered to work for her father in 2004. When
she came onboard, with no business background,
the group’s book business was operating at a
loss. In 2010 “Boss,” as she called her father, put
Wu in charge of day-to-day operations as well
as expansion in Asia. At the time, he said she
possessed “a greater dose of both shrewdness
and romance” than his own, qualities he said were
crucial to running the business.Tan Su Shan 50
MANAGING DIRECTOR AND GROUP HEAD OF CONSUMER BANKING AND WEALTH
MANAGEMENT
DBS
SINGAPORE
Tan has built a mighty consumer-banking and wealth-management empire at DBS, clocking steady
growth since she took the helm in 2013, with her division racking up record revenue of $3.53 billion last
year. Since Tan joined the bank in 2010 wealth assets have grown 20% annually, hitting $156 billion at
the end of 2017, putting DBS among the top six wealth managers in the region.
Tan says her major accomplishment has been changing the bank’s culture to make it more focused
on innovation, earning DBS the accolade “world’s best digital bank” from Euromoney magazine in
- Her revamp includes an iWealth platform, where highfliers manage their own transactions, and a
mobile-only “digibank” in India and Indonesia.
Outside of work, Tan, a mother of two, advocates for women and children. She helps KK Hospital
bring poor kids to Singapore for complex surgeries, and during her years as a parliamentarian, from
2012 to 2014, she lobbied the government to let women freeze their eggs before marriage to help
prolong their biological time clocks, something that has not yet become legal.
As one of three women on DBS’ nine-member executive committee, could Tan one day step into
the CEO shoes? She declines to comment, calling any speculation “premature.” As for her future, Tan is
adamant she’s not quitting the fast lane—certainly not to “sit on a beach”—anytime soon.
THE EMERGENT 25