Tan Su Shan / DBS Group CEO

Three generations: one taught herself to read. One became a pharmacist. One runs SE Asia's largest bank.

There's a detail about Tan Su Shan I haven't been able to shake since I first read it.

She brought a Bloomberg terminal into the hospital delivery room. She was giving birth. The yen was crashing. She said she had "no choice."

Most people would call that workaholism. But when you hear where it comes from, it makes a different kind of sense.

Here's what I didn't know about the woman who runs Southeast Asia's largest bank.

Her grandmother was widowed during the Japanese Occupation. Denied schooling. She taught herself to read. Raised seven children alone. Insisted every daughter excel academically, get a job, never depend on anyone.

Tan calls her a "hurricane force."

Her mother became a pharmacist. Same philosophy: you build your own floor. Nobody builds it for you.

She studied PPE at Oxford. Came back to Asia. Landed at Barings Bank in Hong Kong.

Then February 1995 happened.

Nick Leeson blew up Barings with rogue trades. A 233-year-old bank, gone. Tan was 26. In one week, she lost her job, her landlord evicted her because he doubted she could pay rent, and her long-term boyfriend broke up with her.

Job. Home. Relationship. All gone in seven days.

Here's what she said about it: "I still had my health, my friends, my family. Even without a job or a house, life still goes on."

That's not optimism. That's her grandmother talking. Strip away everything external. What remains? That's your foundation.

She rebuilt. Morgan Stanley. Citigroup. In 2010, DBS recruited her to build wealth management from near-scratch. Under her watch, wealth AUM hit $488 billion.

In March 2025, she became the first female CEO of DBS Group. $637 billion in assets. Fortune ranked her the most powerful woman in Asia.

But here's the thing that keeps coming back to me:

This isn't a glass ceiling story. It's a three-generation blueprint. A grandmother who couldn't read built the philosophy. A mother who became a pharmacist proved it worked. A granddaughter who brought a Bloomberg terminal into the delivery room lived it to its extreme.

The lesson wasn't "women can do anything." It was "women must never depend on anyone." And that lesson was forged during the Japanese Occupation, by a widow with no schooling and seven mouths to feed.

Some lessons take three generations to fully arrive.

What's something your grandmother or grandfather taught you that you didn't understand until decades later?