Christine Tan is synonymous with the show Managing Asia. Her secret to getting CEOs to open up is a soft and honest approach
By Wong Kim Hoh
ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM
CHRISTINE Tan sputters and nearly chokes on her prawn dumpling.
'It was not me, I have never posed for FHM,' she declares in mock horror, referring to the men's magazine synonymous with provocative pictures of scantily-clad women.
'And I would never pose for FHM,' Tan adds, in the chi-chi surrounds of the China Club on the 52nd floor of The Capital Tower.
Straightening her business jacket which she wears over a ruffled blouse, she says: 'You have mistaken me for Christine Chan, a lawyer and a stunner.'
Apart from the similar English name, the confusion has arisen because both these good-lookers used to read the news on Channel 5 in the 1990s. But while Chan has disappeared from the limelight presumably to focus on her legal career, Tan, 38, has gone global.
Since joining CNBC Asia in 1999, she has hosted some of the network's most popular financial shows including Squawk Box and Asia Market Wrap.
But Tan is perhaps best known as the charismatic host of Managing Asia, where she interviews CEOs of top firms doing business in Asia. The programme reaches out to 150 million viewers in the continent.
She grimaces at the suggestion that her interviewees might be impressed if they knew she had graced the pages of a lad's magazine.
'You may give the CEOs a heart attack,' she wisecracks. 'I think they would be more impressed with my homework, the questions I ask.'
The Catholic Junior College alumnus never thought she would one day traverse the globe in pursuit of financial stories or grill captains of industries on the secrets of their success or reasons for their failures.
'I've always thought I would end up doing administrative work in a corporation,' she says.
She did not even think she had the gift of the gab.
Although she once played a singing Mother Mary in a Christmas play and was one of three cackling witches in a production of Macbeth, her energies as a student were channelled into more physical pursuits.
She was a school sprinter as well as an adventure camp and canoeing instructor.
'My husband always asked me what happened,' says Tan, who has been married to her university sweetheart, a banker, for 15 years.
She grew up in Serangoon Gardens with her parents and younger brother, a 31-year-old media researcher.
Her father - a retired post office superintendent - was her running coach, her mother - a former secretary - made sure the boys were kept at arm's length.
'She imposed curfews, screened my calls and interrogated boys with questions such as, 'What is your name? How old are you?' 'she recalls with great amusement.
It was while reading sociology and English literature at the University of Auckland that she started to enjoy speaking up and expressing her opinions.
And former newscaster Kenneth Liang - now vice-president of programming and production for Channel 5 - must have been bowled over by her potential when he went scouting for talent in New Zealand. He offered her a job on the spot and when told that she wanted to do a post-graduate degree, threw in a scholarship as well.
She joined the then Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS) in 1994 after completing her master's in sociology and media studies.
She cut her teeth as a reporter, 'covering everything from health to crime to disasters'.
Three years later, she became one of the station's youngest newscasters before moving on to anchor programmes such as Money Mind.
She was primed to play a big role in Channel NewsAsia but quit just a couple of weeks before the news channel launched in early 1999 to join CNBC. Her resignation was a 'delicate and sensitive' affair.
But the CNBC offer was too good an opportunity to pass up.
'It was a journey I had to go on. I would be hosting a global business show. I knew I was being thrown into the deep end but it would establish me as a business journalist.'
She adds: 'Unlike journalists in the United States who cover just one market, we have so many markets, currencies and companies in the region.'
Tan is drawn to the drama of financial news.
'Take the Asian financial crisis. How did something seemingly so small trigger a financial meltdown?' she says, referring to the devaluation of the Thai baht in July 1997 which triggered off a recession in many regional economies.
She made her mark pretty quickly. She was a finalist for Best News Anchor in 2001 and 2002 at the New York Festivals Award.
In 2004, she received the Best News Programme award at the 2004 Asian Television Awards for a series she did with The Asian Wall Street Journal. The same programme also won a finalist award at the 2004 New York Festivals for Coverage Of A Breaking News Story.
A Worldwide Exchange viewer posted this comment about her on the Internet: 'Tan is simply the least self-promotional financial host(ess) on air today. The guests are Asia- and Europe-based analysts whose agendas seem to have been left at the door. Very refreshing... and informative.'
Tan talks with the confidence and briskness associated with highly organised and efficient people. She unabashedly admits she is both.
'I have to be very disciplined about partitioning my life into time schedules.'
She gives an example: 'For three years when I was doing Squawk Box, I had to excuse myself from dinners at 8pm so that I could get home to sleep and wake up at 4am.'
She loathes doing things at the last-minute and will work through weekends just so she can rest easy.
Good looks help?
FORMER TCS colleague and now good friend Nicolette Rappa-Tjoa says: 'Christine is one of the most principled people I know. Workwise, she is intense, focused and very conscientious.'
CNBC producer Dorin Lim, who has worked with Tan for about six years, agrees.
'She is the quintessential professional. Producing Managing Asia is quite an adventure. We have dealt with typhoons, zero temperatures, van breakdowns yet she has braved them all, doing stand-ups with a smile and no complaints.'
Indeed, Tan - who does her own make-up in 10 minutes flat - takes great pains to emphasise that she got to where she is through sheer professionalism and hard work.
Surely her good looks help?
'I do not think I got here because of looks. Good looks may make people notice you and may open doors but for the doors to be fully open, you really have to work hard.'
She is particularly proud of her work on 'her baby', Managing Asia, a programme she has managed for eight years.
'When you make a CEO sit in that chair, you had better know him and his organisation inside out. In fact, you should bring up things that he thinks you do not know. If you do not, you are wasting his time,' she says.
She has honed her skills over the years, preferring a soft but honest approach.
'I tell them what I hope to achieve instead of going straight for the jugular. You would be surprised at what they tell me,' she says.
'If you make them uncomfortable, they are not going to tell you the things you want to know.'
Not that she is a pushover. She has encountered business leaders who avoid talking about failures or sweep scandals under the carpets.
'People who are cagey are those heading multi- national corporations. They are coached so well by their public relations staff that everything they say sounds as though it is straight from a brochure.'
She has been known to stop interviews when she does not get the answers that she wants.
'I tell them respectfully that they are not answering my questions. I tell them if we do not talk about tough times honestly, both he and the show will lose credibility. After all, the show is for them to reflect upon what they have achieved and impart lessons that viewers, including other CEOs, can draw upon.'
The easiest to interview, she says, are the big-time billionaire business leaders such Las Vegas Sands Corp owner Sheldon Adelson, and Mr Gordon Wu, chairman of Hong Kong-listed Asian infrastructure firm Hopewell Holdings.
'I am just amazed at how humble they are. They have been through a lot while building their empires. They are the ones who will give you the little pieces of themselves that you would not normally get with other CEOs.'
She says she goes to work with a smile on her face every day and does not harbour dreams of running an empire herself.
'It is not a path everyone will or should take. I have thought about setting up a business, maybe something to do with pets,' says Tan who has a golden retriever called Ally.
Ms Tjoa-Rappa, who now works in the financial services industry, says: 'Work keeps her busy and it is not often that you find her relaxing. However, she makes time for the ones she loves, including her dog and mine. You could say she is almost militant in ensuring their happiness over her own.'
But when Tan does relax, it is always with her 'soul mate' of a husband, Mr Daniel Lee. He heads an Indonesian investment bank here.
'We love to take long walks around the neighbourhood. And we go on skiing holidays every year. We have skied almost everywhere - Japan, New Zealand and the Italian Alps.'
They are not closing the door on babies, she replies when asked if motherhood is part of her gameplan.
'That will be another journey when it happens. I will just go where life takes me.'
kimhoh@sph.com.sg
