Temasek’s next president, Shangri-La Asia CEO in Forbes Asia’s list of most powerful women
BT highlights 10 prominent leaders from the list
[SINGAPORE] Several Singapore-based leaders have been named in an annual list by business magazine Forbes featuring the top 20 accomplished female business leaders for 2025.
Among those named in Asia’s Power Businesswomen list are Kuok Hui Kwong, chairman of luxury hotel group Shangri-la Asia, and Png Chin Yee, chief financial officer (CFO) of Singapore’s state investor Temasek.
This year’s list, which was released on Tuesday (Nov 4), features female leaders across 12 countries and territories in Asia. More than half of the women on the list are high-performing professional managers in fields such as banking, consumer goods and transportation. Three are first-generation entrepreneurs.
The Business Times highlights 10 prominent leaders from this year’s list.
Kuok Hui Kwong, 48
Chairman, CEO and executive director, Shangri-La Asia
Location: Hong Kong
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Kuok, who took over as CEO of the group in August this year, is the daughter of Robert Kuok, the founder of Shangri-La and Malaysia’s richest man.
Kuok, a Malaysian citizen and Singapore permanent resident, has steered the luxury hotel group through a slowdown in mainland China, which is its biggest market.
She is also expanding the group's footprint, growing its portfolio of managed properties.
Before joining the family business full-time, she was a financial analyst at JPMorgan Chase and was also previously the managing director and CEO of SCMP Group, which publishes the South China Morning Post.
Png Chin Yee, 50
CFO and incoming president of Temasek
Location: Singapore
A key figure in Temasek’s major organisational restructuring, Png will add the title of president of Temasek Singapore to her current portfolio, effective April 2026.
She will oversee Temasek’s Singapore-based portfolio, which has a combined revenue of about S$200 billion.
Png joined Temasek in 2011, and was appointed CFO in 2023. Under her leadership, the firm logged a double-digit increase in its net portfolio value in the year ended in March, which hit a record S$434 billion.
Png was previously a managing director at UBS, where she co-led the firm’s financial institutions group for Asia investment banking.
Jamie Khoo, 61
CEO, DayOne Data Centers
Location: Singapore
Khoo heads the Singapore-headquartered DayOne Data Centers, the international arm of data giant GDS.
DayOne operates 14 data centres, which are taken up by Chinese and US hyperscaler companies, as well as enterprise customers such as banks and financial institutions.
DayOne plans to build more than 25 data centres across Asia, including in Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia, with the goal of doubling its capacity to over 800 megawatts by early 2027.
Khoo worked at Singapore telco ST Telemedia for over a decade, before joining GDS holdings in 2014 where she held the title of deputy CFO for five years, and chief operating officer for another five years, according to LinkedIn.
Jane Sun, 57
CEO, Trip.com Group
Location: China
Sun successfully navigated the Shanghai-based travel giant through the pandemic and is now leading its resurgence.
With international bookings soaring, the company’s market cap has nearly doubled from pre-pandemic levels to over US$45 billion. She is now driving new AI initiatives, including a virtual concierge, to bolster the firm’s global network.
Sun joined Ctrip, now known as the Trip.com Group, in 2005 as its CFO, before rising to chief operating officer in May 2012, and CEO in November 2016.
Maggie Ng, 42
CEO, HSBC Hong Kong
Location: Hong Kong
Ng was appointed CEO of HSBC Hong Kong, the largest market of the London-based bank by revenue, in October this year. She concurrently serves as the bank’s head of retail banking and wealth in the territory.
She has spearheaded digital initiatives and accelerated HSBC’s wealth strategy, including the launch of a wealth centre for high-net-worth customers at its Hong Kong headquarters.
Ng joined the financial institution in 2020 to lead the wealth and personal banking operations in Hong Kong. She has worked with Citi and EY earlier, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Chung Yoo-kyung, 53
Chairman, Shinsegae Inc
Location: South Korea
Chung took charge of South Korea’s largest department store chain last year with a mandate to revive growth.
She is the only daughter of Shinsegae Group’s general chairman Lee Myung-hee, who is herself the youngest daughter of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chull.
Chung is now focused on growing the company's in-house cosmetics retailer, Chicor.
Lani Darmawan, 63
President director and CEO, Bank CIMB Niaga
Location: Indonesia
A veteran banker, Darmawan has led Indonesia’s seventh-largest bank to four consecutive years of record net profit, posting 6.8 trillion rupiah (S$534 million) in 2024.
During her four-year tenure, she has rebalanced the bank’s loan portfolio towards higher-margin retail and small and medium enterprises (SME) lending, which now accounts for 45 per cent of total loans.
The bank's shares have climbed roughly 75 per cent under her leadership.
Darmawan joined CIMB Niaga in April 2016 to head consumer banking.
She previously held leadership roles in financial institutions including Maybank, Citibank, Standard Chartered and American Express.
Zhou Chaonan, 65
Founder and chairman, Range Intelligent Computing Technology Group
Location: China
Zhou is one of China’s richest women, having amassed a US$5.3 billion fortune after pivoting from telecoms to data centres in 2009.
Her company, which operates 61 data centres and counts ByteDance and Huawei as clients, has seen its shares jump 38 per cent in the past year amid the AI boom.
Zhou founded her first company, Tiantong Communication Network, in 2000. It provides mobile telecommunication networks and counts telecom giant China Mobile as one of its clients.
She pivoted to data centres in 2009 when she founded her second company, Range Technology Development, which was later incorporated as a unit of Range Intelligent Computing Technology Group.
Manasi Kirloskar Tata, 36
Vice-chairperson, Toyota Kirloskar Motor
Location: India
The fifth-generation scion of the Kirloskar group, Kirloskar Tata was named vice-chairperson of the Toyota joint venture in January 2023, two months after her father's passing.
The company, which makes a range of popular vehicles for the Indian market, logged record sales of US$7.4 billion in the year ended March and is currently building its third factory.
She is also the executive director of Kirloskar Systems, and holds director roles at Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Kirloskar Technologies, and Toyota Tsusho Insurance Broker India.
Alyssa Yoneyama, 38
President and CEO, Yonex
Location: Japan
The third-generation leader and granddaughter of the founder of Yonex, Yoneyama has revived the sports equipment maker since becoming CEO in 2022.
Revenue and net profit both rose around 20 per cent in the fiscal year through March 2025, helped by high-profile athlete ambassadors. Investors have taken note, with Yonex shares surging 80 per cent year-to-date.
In 2016, she joined Yonex (North America) as marketing manager, and became deputy executive general manager of marketing for the parent company three years later.
She returned to Japan as executive general manager for marketing before taking the reins in 2022 from her father, Tsutomu Yoneyama, who remains as the chairman.
Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.
