Rosaline Chow Koo Part 2 - Founder and Chief Executive Officer - CXA Group

Intro  0:13  
Many aspire to reach the upper echelon of the healthcare industry, but few are able to successfully navigate the corporate ladder. As Asia becomes the world epicenter of the healthcare industry, C-Suite Partners sits down with international healthcare executives asking the tough questions and unpacking the personalities of the top industry leaders.

Welcome to the boardroom.

Intro  0:30
Previously, on In The Boardroom.

Rosaline Chow  0:32  
the third ability, its leadership skills to be able to convince and compel a large group of people to follow you to execute your vision. But shit happens every day and every hour. So how do you get the team to adapt to all the changes.

Michael Murray  1:03  
What about if you went back 10 years? What advice would you give yourself?

Rosaline Chow  1:07  
I think I would have done a lot of things differently, people issues, I would have moved much faster on them. Culture really, really matters. So I cared too much about specialists versus the overall culture and now that I have my own startup culture’s everything.

Michael Murray  1:31  
it’s very, very hard to develop. Culture isn’t from the vision is there, but as you put it into practice, and you can see that there might be a flaw here or there. Because a lot of businesses now sell the culture rather than logo or the esteem, it’s about you coming to, you know, a way of life.

Rosaline Chow  1:51
Exactly, exactly.

Michael Murray  1:53  
How did you establish that?

Rosaline Chow  1:54  
We’re very mission-driven about health. As a matter of fact, we’re running a trial with the entire company, where we split into 25, groups of 10. And were actually eating our own medicine. So took a blood test, we’re about to take another blood test now, eight weeks later. And we’re seeing how much healthier we’ve become over the eight weeks really. So health matters. We weighed ourselves and to blood tests. But we’ve done all types of challenges over the last eight weeks in terms of exercise, changing all of our diets, our mental mindset, as well as sleep. So we’ve done a lot of different types of activities to actually educate everyone, and we’re going to see the results. Secondly, I really believe in empowerment, we have so many superstars, how do we empower them to actually take over a part of the firm and run things? Then you have huge engagements when that happens. Third, it’s important that we have fun, and also collaborate well.

Michael Murray  3:22  
And what do you look for, for people coming into work? If you had three attributes.

Rosaline Chow  3:27  
In a startup, it’s so tiny that every person matters. So there are certain things you need one, I think the specialisation, we need some expertise. But secondly, it’s an openness to new ideas, and the adaptability to really listen and take those ideas to document. But the third piece, I think it’s the hardest piece. This is the component where in Singapore, they call it die, die, must deliver. But I believe that there is a valid excuse for every failure. You have to find the people who can overcome those valid excuses. Yes. So this third trait is very, very hard to find. It’s there are naysayers and victims everywhere.

Michael Murray  4:38  
And how do you manage the growth? That is a really, really big challenge for any executive as the business grows it’s great successful. How are you managing that?

Rosaline Chow  4:46  
So I have an opposite view for most people. I will get smaller over time in terms of numbers of people, because I actually acquire brokerage firms. Which I will digitize and there’ll be less and less people. It’s very different from large firms where you think about your empire, we’re taking every single process, incoming either eliminating it or coming up with a way to use technology to do it instead, then we can scale globally.

Michael Murray  5:23  
Was there a mentor along the way that has helped you in some moments where there was potentially a little bit of self-doubt or as business-related,

Rosaline Chow  5:31  
I’ve always had great mentors everywhere. I think people felt sorry for me. So, really good mentors in every single firm, every single year. They helped me see things because you know, everyone has blind spots. But a mentor or coach can always see, especially after getting feedback and you know, the 360 feedback so,

Michael Murray  5:55  
And gender diversity, I want to bring that up because people potentially look to you as a mental moving forward, especially in the Asia market. What advice would you give to females in leadership that want to take the next step in their career?

Rosaline Chow  6:10  
When I was first pitching CXA five years ago. A, the head of one of the biggest PE firms in the Silicon Valley told me when men pitch, he usually divides their estimate of how big they’ll be by 10. When women pitch usually multiplies by 10. I think women underestimate themselves and for women, take that next role. I mean, that’s what got me here. I always took those roles. Because what’s the worst that can happen? You can fall down but you can always get back up. The only way you’ll grow if you take roles that are beyond what you can do where you’re out of your comfort zone, and you can stretch because skills is a muscle that have to be exercise. Otherwise, you don’t grow. If you’re always taking roles that you’re over already overqualified for 

Michael Murray  7:14
It’s comfortable. 

Rosaline Chow  7:15
Yeah, then there’s no learning.

Michael Murray  7:18  
Great way to end it. Rosaline, thank you for spending time with C-Suite Partners in the boardroom.

Rosaline Chow  7:21  
Sure. Pleasure.