Org Chart: How Grab Financial Group fits into the picture

Org Chart maps out the people at the top of Asia’s most prominent tech companies. Who are the key decision-makers? How are the teams organized? What does it tell us about the company’s priorities? We continue this series with Grab Financial Group, the fintech arm of Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing firm.

This is the updated version of our previous Grab org chart published on December 20, 2021.

Early this year, Grab made a major hire when it onboarded former HSBC CEO Alex Hungate as its new COO, relieving the burden for co-founder Hooi Ling Tan who had taken on the additional role since 2015.

Hungate’s appointment highlighted Grab’s increased focus on financial services after a decade of conquering the ride-hailing and food delivery industries in the region. While Tan continues to oversee Grab’s overall operations and corporate strategy, Hungate is expected to create synergies across business lines, thus strengthening the integration of the company’s core services with its fintech arm, Grab Financial Group (GFG).

See also: Grab’s financial health in 9 charts

GFG encompasses the firm’s fintech arm (now rebranded as GrabFin) and digibank vertical, which are managed by Kell Jay Lim and Reuben Lai, respectively. The two executives are in charge of several products and services such as e-payments, insurance, and investment solutions.

GrabFin operates across Southeast Asian markets as the parent brand for all of Grab’s financial services outside digital banks. However, such a consolidation of its fintech services doesn’t mean that GFG is not prioritizing its digibank vertical.

Earlier this year, GXS Bank, a joint venture between Grab and Singtel, was part of a consortium that received a digital banking license from Malaysia’s central bank. For this digibank alone, the group plans to hire more than 200 people across verticals, including product and design, data, technology, risk, and compliance.

See also: Pleasant surprise in Malaysia’s digibank race

Here are a few more observations:

• Although Kell Jay Lim currently manages all GrabFin country heads, sources tell Tech in Asia that a potential GFG restructure could take place next month, which would put GrabFin country heads under their respective country managing directors.
• Grab Malaysia country manager Sean Goh also manages the country’s GrabFin businesses and reports directly to Russell Cohen, the group’s managing director of operations and head of mobility.
• Both Ming Maa, Grab’s president, and CFO Peter Oey report to CEO Anthony Tan. Maa oversees strategic partnerships and investments, while Oey manages finances in general.
• Jerry Lim, who spearheaded Grab’s expansion in Vietnam from 2016 to 2020, is temporarily back in the leading role for Vietnam after his successor, Nguyen Thai Hai Van, resigned in April.
• Two senior GrabFin executives, Chris Yeo and Jeffrey Goh, have recently left the company, Reuters reported. Both Yeo and Goh previously worked under Kell Jay Lim.

Grab has declined to participate in this story. We have validated the chart with our sources and publicly available information.

You can also check out our coverage of Grab here. If you find any missing or inaccurate data, do reach out to budi@techinasia.com to help us fill in the gaps.

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