By SGN | 15 Nov 2024
As a child, Joyce Tee would accompany her father to his Sungei Road stall, where he sold items like stereos, pens, and lighters to make a living. Her job was to pull in customers, which she did by standing on top of a wooden carton and shouting at the crowds that came by.
“One of my earliest business lessons was about product differentiation. I would look at the other stalls and wonder how I could make my father’s wares stand out. After all, everyone was more or less selling the same thing,” she shares.
A young child hawking wares was an unusual sight, and a conspicuous way to distinguish yourself from competitors in the area. Joyce instinctively knew this and capitalised on her unique position as a juvenile entrepreneur.
“I learned to think on my feet. I would quickly count change for customers, especially when there were long queues, and barter my services in exchange for food,” she reminisces.
“I would go to the aunty at the nearby food stall and offer to help serve customers. In return, she would give me a bowl of rice.”
She could even identify customers most likely to patronise her father’s stall. “By observing their body language, I just know that I would be selling something to them. And I was usually right,” she laughs.
A childhood full of life, love, and lessons
Most would describe Joyce’s childhood as challenging. Yet, she never thought of herself as less fortunate. “I’ve been told that I am so resilient because I’ve lived through such hardships. But it was normal to me. Everyone around me was trying to get by, to survive the day, to make an honest living. And so was I,” she recalls.
And while Joyce spent her time around characters of all sorts – “A complex community, that often used a lot of vulgarities,” as she puts it, she didn’t necessarily feel compelled to mimic the unsavoury elements of their behaviour. “People often say that bad environments produce “bad” children. I beg to differ on this.”
To further support her belief, Joyce talks about her experience helping her father collect debts from his business partners and customers.
“Of course I dealt with crooks, it just came with the territory. But there were good people too, even if many belonged to what you would call gangs or secret societies,” she affirms. “I don’t condone their actions, but I feel compassion for where they were in life.”
After spending years under her father’s wing, Joyce was herself bitten by the business bug.
“I was intrigued by the art of sales. So, I set up a cassette stand next to my dad’s shop, to complement the stereos he was selling,” she explains. “I figured people would want to buy tapes with good songs to play on their sound systems.”
At first, she had no customers. She decided to take a walk around the neighbourhood, to see how other cassette shops were succeeding. “I used this ‘market intelligence’ to introduce discounts and attractive packaging for my products,” she says. Her strategy paid off, and she was able to sell all her inventory.
Brimming with these unique life experiences, Joyce felt ready to take on her first independent pursuit – university. But first, she would have to raise the necessary funds to cover her travel costs and tuition fees. Her father offered to match whatever she raised. “I worked at AIA, tutored children at night, and scrimped and saved my way up to S$8,500,” she shares.
Forging her own path in a foreign country
Her enterprising spirit continued even when she enrolled at the University of Oregon. “I took up a campus job in my dorm’s cafeteria, where I worked my way up to the highest rank possible – managing the roster to check people in,” she explains.
Joyce excelled at mathematics, so she tutored other students, and helped them with their homework. But she stuck to her morals, and refused requests to take other people’s exams, even if they offered her money.
“Respect yourself enough to not give in to the temptation of short-term gains, even if times are hard,” she advises. “Sometimes, you might be down on your luck, and things might look bad. But if you work hard and push through, you’re still in the game.”
Gradually, things started to look up for Joyce. She was offered a consultant role for her University’s School of Business, where she was tasked to help students plan their courses and juggle academics.
Eventually, she made it onto the University’s student leadership body, where she assumed the role of Financial Controller. “Suddenly, I had all these student clubs coming to me and asking for money, or for their budgets and invoices to be approved,” she recalls.
The sheer range and diversity of these student clubs was eye-opening for Joyce. “There was every type of club you could think of, representing a wide variety of student interests and causes,” she remarks. She credits her work with these clubs as the reason for her open-mindedness.
“If you don’t venture out of your comfort zone, you risk developing tunnel vision. While I would never get too involved, I was always fascinated with the intense interpersonal politics of all these clubs at play, and how this affected my budgeting!”
Living the American dream
Just as Joyce was set to graduate, she met with an unexpected obstacle. No one was willing to hire her because of her immigration status as a foreign student.
“Luckily, my now-husband (who was studying in Houston at the time) knew someone who needed a mentor for MBA students. So, I decided to give this opportunity a shot,” she says.
One of these students would be the key to her future employment in the States. “They would talk to me about their business problems, or share issues they were facing at work,” she recalls. “In a way, I was being trained for the corporate world.”
These experiences made Joyce realise the importance of conversations and community. “Each conversation opened a door to a new opportunity for me and paved the way for good things to happen in my life,” she shares.
A few months later, the corporate world came calling in the form of an opportunity with accounting giant Grant Thornton LLP, where Joyce would be working with the US Department of Commerce. “I was tasked to advise and support minority enterprises, and advocate for the expansion of their businesses to city, state, and federal government agencies,” she explains.
The role brought Joyce closer to people and communities of all walks of life. “If I were to look back at my career, I would consider this job to be one of the most fulfilling,” she shares. “In my youth, I interacted with who I thought was a diverse cast of characters, but nothing compares to the sheer multiformity of experiences and interactions this role delivered.”
In Joyce’s mind, she had already achieved the American dream. “I came to America, struggled to find my footing, worked my way to the top, and fought tooth and nail every step of the way. And finally, I’ve made it,” she recalls with pride.
She eventually left Grant Thornton to pursue a role at Houston’s MetroBanc Corp, where she remained for eight years. And she had every intention of settling in America for good.
“I was travelling all over America. I got to meet key American politicians. I got to watch live NFL and NBA games. I felt like I was living the plot of my favourite American film, Pretty Woman,” she laughs.
Building a legacy in Asia
A family illness brought Joyce and her husband back to Singapore, where she secured new banking opportunities in no time.
She first served as a Vice President at OCBC, where she made a name for the bank as the go-to financier for natural rubber companies in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. She is also credited with pioneering structured financing for OCBC’s first-ever oil rig deal.
Joyce joined DBS in 2004 where she has covered various enterprise banking portfolios over the past two decades, including as Group Head of SME Banking from 2016 to 2023.
She credits her success to the many mentors and peers she has worked with over the years, and is doing her bit to pay it forward, saying, “It brings me great joy to see my mentees grow and flourish into leaders.”
At present, she is the Head of Institutional Banking at DBS China, a role she took on in January 2023. Her current role requires her to shuttle between Singapore and China.
“China is an infrastructural marvel,” she admits. “But working there has been a learning curve. My team in China often tells me that they do things a certain way, just because it’s worked in the past. But I often challenge them by asking if there’s another “right” way of doing things we can possibly explore, a new way that can guarantee even better results.”
Given that Joyce spends the bulk of her time in China, she has taken to mentoring her colleagues in the DBS China team, citing it as “beneficial both ways.”
“I find myself learning from them as much as they do from me,” she shares. “For a mentoring relationship to be meaningful, it’s important to be aligned on intent. Ultimately, we want to help each other become more successful holistically. As a Singaporean in China, Joyce finds that she commands a certain amount of respect. “Despite Singapore being a small country, we’ve been able to achieve a lot in a short amount of time,” she says.
Her Chinese colleagues often chat with her about Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, and Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, whose videos they love to watch. “They always tell me when he’s talking about education, or some other important topic, and are so eager to listen and learn,” she notes.
Their receptiveness to new ideas has encouraged Joyce to slow down and take in their viewpoints without jumping to respond or take on a new course of action. “Being respectful is key to making allies,” she advises. “Ground yourself and make the effort to understand how things work in a different culture and context. Remember that at the end of the day, no matter what career you’re in, you’re fundamentally dealing with people.”
“To other Singaporeans considering an overseas move she says to, “always keep an open mind and adopt a growth mindset.”
Balancing two homes
Joyce’s hectic travel schedule makes it challenging for her to spend time with her family. So, her husband splits his time between Singapore and China, flying over as often as he can. Her friends have flown over as well.
“I have such a strong support system,” she shares. “Right before we were set to leave for the US, my husband took me on my first-ever flight trip to Kuala Lumpur. He knew I had never been on a plane before, so he wanted me to get accustomed to the process.”
Despite being physically away from Singapore, Joyce feels like she is still part of the system. “I know I’ll return someday, but for now, I want to be an effective leader and continue building a solid legacy for DBS in China,” she affirms.
Meet Joyce
Joyce’s banking career has taken her to Texas, Singapore, and China, where she is currently building up DBS China’s institutional banking infrastructure. Under her leadership, DBS was recognised as the world’s best bank for SMEs by financial publication Euromoney in 2018 and 2022. Joyce was also recognised by The Asset as SME Banker of the Year in 2018.
Connect with her here.
