Q&A with co-founder Tan Hooi Ling on her leadership journey with Grab.
In Tan's final video interview series with Grab, she reflects on a decade of hands-on entrepreneurship. Read more on Inside Grab: ...
Advisor, Grab Holdings
Search every verified Hooi Tan interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Tan Hooi Ling, co-founder and advisor at Grab Holdings, has reflected on the company's journey from a startup focused on taxi safety in Malaysia to a Southeast Asian "super app" offering ride-hailing, food delivery, and financial services. In a 2024 video interview series, she described the early years as a struggle for survival, stating that "the majority of startups actually fail" and that Grab was "one of the lucky few." She attributed the company's resilience to a "super app strategy" that allowed it to pivot during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she emphasized the importance of defining success metrics before launching experiments to avoid delaying difficult decisions. Tan also discussed her partnership with co-founder Anthony Tan, describing their complementary working styles—her as an introvert focused on internal and analytical tasks, and him as an extrovert handling external-facing roles. In earlier appearances, Tan spoke about Grab's growth trajectory, including its 2021 merger with Altimeter Growth Corp. via a SPAC, which she said enabled the company to attract long-term investors. She highlighted the company's focus on expanding financial services in a region where "six out of ten Southeast Asians are still unbanked or underbanked," and noted that Grab's core businesses had a total addressable market of $180 billion by 2025. Tan also discussed the company's diversity initiatives, stating that Grab monitors wage parity quarterly and has employee resource groups such as "Women at Grab" and "Pride at Grab." She advised entrepreneurs to embrace "the joy of missing out" (JOMO) to maintain focus, and cautioned that startup life is "far from fancy and glitzy."
In Tan's final video interview series with Grab, she reflects on a decade of hands-on entrepreneurship. Read more on Inside Grab: ...
To foster recovery, Southeast Asia needs to build up digital capabilities and arm small businesses with the tools to harness ...
Leading the Charge is a series featuring women entrepreneurs who are changemakers, leaders and innovators. Through ...
Super-app Grab has just made its market debut on Nasdaq. But co-founder Tan Hooi Ling is happy to stay low-key. In a rare ...
Grab co-founder Hooi Ling Tan says the ride-hailing company's super-app strategy is more resilient to Covid-19 threats and sees ...
Join us live with Tan Hooi Ling, Co-Founder, Grab at the 21st Nikkei Global Management Forum. ▷ More on the forum: ...
Session Topic: Executing the SuperApp strategy in Southeast Asia - with Tan Hooi Ling, Co-Founder, Grab - In conversation with: Henny Sender, Chief Correspondent, International Finance, Financial Times Description: With its diverse and fragmented markets, can Southeast Asia have a super app like China’s WeChat? How is Grab, Southeast Asia’s first decacorn, working its way towards becoming one? How different will Southeast Asia’s super app playbook look? Join us to hear directly from Grab co-founder Hooi Ling.
Hooi Ling Tan, Co-Founder of Grab speaks with Bloomberg's Yoolim Lee at Bloomberg Sooner Than You Think in Singapore on Sept 5th, 2019. #STYT Stay Connected Twitter: / bloomberglive Instagram: / bloomberglive LinkedIn: / bloomberglive More From Bloomberg Live: https://www.bloomberglive.com
Apr.22 -- Hooi Ling Tan, Grab co-founder, discusses the company's latest funding round, partnership strategy and growth potential ...
Keynote speech "Big Startup and How To Manage It" by Tan Hooi Ling at Thinkubator.
"Competition ultimately is a by-product of trying to serve customers the next new, better alternative," said Tan Hooi Ling, Grab's Co-Founder. When asked about competition from Uber and Didi Chuxing, other ride railing giants, she said, "They decided to invest into us because they know that Southeast Asian needs are best served by Grab." At this year's Singapore Summit, she talks about competition from global giants and how the company is best serving the Southeast Asian markets. ------- Subscribe to CNBC Life: http://cnb.cx/2wAkfMv Subscribe to CNBC International: http://cnb.cx/2gft82…
Jul.19 -- Hooi Ling Tan, Grab co-founder, discusses the company's expansion plans and competing with Uber. She speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology."
Sign in to search the full transcript archive, filter by topic, and access every quote from Hooi Tan.
The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →
Pro unlocks every transcript in full, plus unlimited search across every executive and company we cover.
50% off appliedPulling data at scale? The Data API gives you 30,000 transcripts a month over REST, MCP and JSON.
Compare all plans