Salzburg Global Fellow May Tan advocates for ethical AI and inclusive corporate leadership
May Tan is the Board Director of Hong Kong-based CLP Holdings Limited with over 30 years of experience as an investment banker, CEO, and executive director across various transnational companies.
AI, the Internet, and all things inevitable
When asked to reflect on the program theme “Promise or Peril? Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Corporate Governance,” May Tan underscored that in today’s highly digitized world, the dominance of artificial intelligence (AI) is inevitable since it can be used as a catalyst to enable different kinds of businesses. Against the backdrop of geopolitical issues and corporate governance, May strongly believes that AI will become more relevant in the future.
From a corporate perspective, she asserts that companies should work with various sectors to regulate AI, not in a way that restricts advancement but rather encourages the “right” type of innovation. She cautioned that AI may be susceptible to various kinds of abuse, as it can also be misused for personal or political ends, saying, “I’m from the financial industry, I’ve seen how crypto and other instruments have been abused. So, I suppose that’s where the ‘peril’ comes in.”
Despite this, May believes that AI holds great promise in the way that it can be utilized as a transformative tool to foster innovation. She compared the rise of AI to the emergence of the Internet decades ago. She added, “I cannot imagine a life without the Internet. I imagine us having another conversation ten years from now, and we’ll be like: ‘Can you imagine life without AI?’”
According to May, we should not look at technological advances from a simplistic binary view of good versus evil. She believes that “for us to move forward in the future, we need both the human and the machine”, especially at a time when there has been a growing trend of corporations utilizing AI to analyze various metrics such as customer data, delivery processes, and pricing. As a board director, she emphasized that “it’s really about using these tools to look at the strategy of the organization and to make sure that it continues to fit its purpose while also maintaining checks and balances.”
On identity, authority, and (re)claiming space
When May began her career, she did not see many people who looked like her represented in boardrooms. May further explained, “When I was entering the banking industry in the eighties, there were not many female role models. I was happy to do the work and I learned a lot along the journey. But I never really expected to get to where I got to in terms of my career.”
The representation of women in top executive positions is severely lacking despite their undeniable potential. In fact, a report revealed that women in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are underrepresented in leadership positions and are less likely to be promoted compared to their male colleagues. This glaring reality was something that May personally experienced in her career. For her, rising through the ranks necessitated making the most out of the environment that she was subjected to daily. “Was it tough? Yes, because I always felt like I had to work harder to prove myself. I had to show that I deserved to be in the same room as a lot of my colleagues,” May added.
May asserted that a person’s background does not determine what can become of their career. For May, you become deserving of the place that you are occupying in the workforce through hard work and results. However, she also believes a person’s identity provides a more nuanced lens for seeing different perspectives. “Sometimes it is very difficult to assert yourself when you're a woman because, more often than not, you're the only different voice in the room. So, it's not as loud as ten of the men in the room. It helped that I was Asian. I was giving a perspective that a lot of my white male colleagues could not give. I knew the language and I knew the culture. My corporate clients loved me because my approach was quite different,” she recalled.
In describing her brand of leadership, May stated that as a person in a position of authority, there is a stereotype that women are "soft" and that you must be authoritative to be respected. But for her, there is value in being firm with what you want to achieve while still maintaining empathy for other people. She further explained, “I take the view that people have pride and self-respect. So, if I have to deliver a tough message, I tend to do it one-on-one and in private. Is that showing softness? No, I think that's showing respect for the individual. You don't want to shame them, and you should always put yourself into that person's shoes while making sure that you try to nurture them as much as possible.”
May’s lived experience is also what prompted her and two others to establish ACcelerate—a program intended to bridge the gap in senior female representation in the C-suite and accelerate the progression of women to senior management roles. Since its inception, they have been able to train and equip over a hundred women, and in 2023, the program commenced with its fourth cohort of aspiring female executives. She considers this non-profit work her way of giving back the opportunities she was afforded throughout her career.
May Tan is among the 35 Fellows who participated in the Salzburg Global Corporate Governance Forum from October 4-6, 2023, at Schloss Leopoldskron. Salzburg Global Seminar’s 2023 Corporate Governance Forum on "Promise or Peril? Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Corporate Governance" explored the complex geopolitical considerations and risks posed by AI and whether corporations should (or must) adopt artificial intelligence (AI) approaches in their corporate oversight functions and in their business operations, internal governance, and management of human capital.
