Anthony Tan (Chinese: 陈炳耀) (born 1982^[1]) is a Malaysian-born Singaporean businessman. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Grab, a publicly-traded technology company and first unicorn in Southeast Asia.^[2] In 2021, he was listed as one of Singapore's richest people with an estimated net worth of $790 million.^[3]

Early life and education

Tan was born in Malaysia. His father, Tan Heng Chew is an automobile manufacturing executive who served as the president of Tan Chong Motor, a Malaysian manufacturing company that assembles and distributes Nissan vehicles in the Southeast Asia region. Tan's great-grandfather was a taxi driver and his grandfather was responsible for pioneering the Japanese automotive industry in Malaysia.^[4] He worked on the assembly line at his father's company and attended meetings with union bosses at a young age.^[2]

Tan expressed an interest in business and entrepreneurship at a young age. He started his first business venture at the age of 11 when he began retail trading and accepting cash for X-Men comics.^[5] At the age of 14, he volunteered to raise money for the AIDS Foundation.^[5]

As an undergraduate, Tan attended the University of Chicago and earned a bachelor's degree in economics and public policy. Tan's education on econometrics, public policy and philosophy there provided him with a foundation to understand and transcend the windows of opportunity on topics like ride-hailing or traffic jams across the Southeast Asia.^[6] He later earned a Master's of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.^[7]

Career

Tan was the head of supply chain and marketing at Tan Chong Group for the automotive brands under the Tan Chong Motor conglomerate.^[8] He chose not to work for the family business and started to develop an idea for a company after a friend from Harvard visited Malaysia and complained to him about the country's taxi system.^[4][7]

While attending Harvard Business School, Tan partnered with his classmate Tan Hooi Ling on making taxis safer in their home country of Malaysia in part due to ranking as the worst cab service in the world.^[9][10] They wrote a business plan for a taxi booking app, which won the second prize at the HBS New Venture Competition in 2011. Using the $25,000 of prize money from the competition, their own personal funds and an investment from Tan's mother, the duo launched MyTeksi in June 2012 with its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.^[3][11]

By 2016, the company had rebranded as Grab and Tan was recognized along with his co-founder by Fortune and Straits Times as "40 Under 40" and "Asians of the Year", respectively.^[12][13] He was a speaker at the World Economic Forum in 2019.^[14] In 2020, Grab’s cofounders were recipients of the Nikkei Asia Prize for economic and business innovation.^[15] In 2021, Fortune named Tan and his co-founder on their list of "World's 50 Greatest Leaders".^[16] In 2021, Tan was selected as a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst.^[17]

Personal life

Tan took up Singapore citizenship in 2016.^[18]

Tan is married to Chloe Tong, daughter of Tong Kooi Ong, the founder of Phileo Allied Bank and owner of Edge Media Group.^[18] They have five children.^[19][20]

Controversy

In November 2023, Grab became a target of voluntary boycotts in Indonesia and Malaysia following the re-surfacing of an Instagram Story posted by Chloe Tong, Anthony Tan's wife. Chloe allegedly stated in the story that she was "completely in love" with Israel. This drew controversy in the wake of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. According to media reports, the story has originally been posted during a family religious heritage trip in July earlier that year, and Chloe later reiterated in a separate post that the story had been made long before she was personally aware of the conflict.^[21]

References