Tan Hooi Ling

Tan Hooi Ling (Chinese: 陈慧玲; pinyin: Chén Huìlíng) is a Malaysian internet entrepreneur. She is best known as the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Singaporean ride-hailing company, Grab Holdings Inc.[2] Tan was a business analyst at McKinsey & Company before she co-founded Grab with Anthony Tan while attending Harvard Business School.

In this Chinese name, the family name is Tan.
Tan Hooi Ling
陈慧玲
CitizenshipMalaysia[1]
Alma materUniversity of Bath (BEng, Mechanical Engineering)
Harvard Business School (MBA)
OccupationInternet entrepreneur
Known forCo-founding Grab
TitleCOO, Grab

Raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tan moved to the United Kingdom to attend the University of Bath, where she received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. After graduation, she landed a job at McKinsey in Malaysia. McKinsey later sponsored Tan's MBA education at Harvard University, where she met future Grab co-founder Anthony Tan.[3]

Early life

Raised in a middle-class Malaysian Chinese household in Kuala Lumpur, by a civil engineer father and a remisier mother, alongside an older brother, who is a software programmer and lives in New Zealand, Tan is the youngest of two children in her family. She went to state-schools while living in Petaling Jaya.[4]

Education

Tan attended the University of Bath and graduated in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. She later graduated from Harvard Business School with a Master of Business Administration in 2011.[5]

Career

Eli Lilly

While studying at the University of Bath, Tan took a year off school to do an industrial placement at Eli Lilly in Basingstoke. Her time at the pharmaceutical company taught Tan that decisions were made at the management level and motivated her to change her career trajectory and research graduate finance and management programs in order to incorporate engineering perspectives into business decisions, thus having the power to make changes at the management level.

McKinsey

Despite not knowing what the company did, Tan signed up for an event held by consulting firm McKinsey & Company in Malaysia, eventually landing a job with the company where she performed well enough that they sponsored her MBA education at Harvard Business School - where she met fellow Malaysian and future co-founder of Grab, Anthony Tan, in the class of 2011.[6]

Grab

While at Harvard Business School, Tan worked on a business plan with HBS classmate, Anthony Tan, for a "mobile app that connects taxi seekers directly with taxi drivers closest to their location in the chaotic Malaysian urban environment", which would later become GrabTaxi. The inspiration came from a comment by Anthony's friend about the safety issues facing female taxi passengers in Malaysia.

The pair's business plan was the runner-up in the HBS New Venture Competition in 2011, winning $25,000. Using the proceeds from the competition and their own personal funds, Tan Hooi Ling and Anthony Tan launched the mobile application, first called MyTeksi, in June 2012.[7]

Although the pair had started the company, Tan had to return to McKinsey after graduation to serve out her bond with the consulting firm as a condition of sponsoring her education. She later moved on to San Francisco-based software company Salesforce, while taking time out of her schedule at the company to help out Anthony with Grab in Southeast Asia. She returned to work full-time on Grab in 2015.[8] Upon returning, she took on the title of COO, and focused on 3 key areas - product, human resources, and customer experience.[9]

Personal life

Tan is a self-professed introvert, keeping a lower profile than her co-founder, Anthony Tan, but admitted she likes it that way. She also considers swing dancing, which she picked up in San Francisco, as one of her life accomplishments. Tan also plays the piano and violin, having a diploma in the former and a Grade 8 in the latter.[10]

References
  1. "Hooi Ling Tan". Forbes. Retrieved 15 September 2020. CITIZENSHIP: Malaysia
  2. Choudhury, S. R. (2017, November 29). Grab co-founder Tan Hooi Ling shares what her ride-hailing firm has learned during its dramatic rise. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/grabs-co-founder-on-what-her-ride-hailing-firm-has-learned-in-asia.html.
  3. Soo, Z. (2019, June 7). How Grab's Tan Hooi Ling climbed her way to success. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://www.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/article/3013316/grab-co-founder-tan-hooi-ling-has-had-work-hard-embrace-spotlight.
  4. Tan, S. (2018, March 26). Lunch With Sumiko: Grab whiz Tan Hooi Ling happy to stay low-key. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/grab-whiz-happy-to-stay-low-key.
  5. National University of Singapore. (2019, May 31). Grab Co-Founder Tan Hooi Ling joins the NUS Board of Trustees. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from http://news.nus.edu.sg/press-releases/new-nus-board-member-2019.
  6. Ambler, P. (2019, September 25). Asia's Power Businesswomen 2019: Cofounder Tan Hooi Ling Steers Grab Into New Markets. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamelaambler/2019/09/23/asias-power-businesswomen-2019-co-founder-tan-hooi-ling-steers-grab-into-new-markets/#6d5a9c3d4081.
  7. President & Fellows of Harvard College. (n.d.). Anthony Tan MBA 2011. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://entrepreneurship.hbs.edu/founders/Pages/profile.aspx?num=195.
  8. Tan, S. (2018, March 26). Lunch With Sumiko: Grab whiz Tan Hooi Ling happy to stay low-key. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/grab-whiz-happy-to-stay-low-key.
  9. Scott, M. E. (2015, November 17). GrabTaxi's 'Other' Founder Talks About Return to Company. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2015/11/17/grabtaxis-other-founder-talks-about-return-to-company/#1a77739b2d64.
  10. Tan, S. (2018, March 26). Lunch With Sumiko: Grab whiz Tan Hooi Ling happy to stay low-key. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/grab-whiz-happy-to-stay-low-key.
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