POWER WITH THE PEOPLE WHAT CAN CHARM BRING?

For some: a free meal. For the more enterprising: followers on social media. For the exceptional few who know the value of charisma: billions in revenue.That’s what Kathleen Tan did. “In 2004, Tony told me to ‘go change China.’ I went there. And I charmed them,” she says, unabashedly. After all, why be bashful when one has achieved the improbable, given China’s domestic aviation market then and Tan’s own industry inexperience at the time? That was the year Tony Fernandes bought over debt-laden AirAsia. Whatever she knew of budget airlines at that point, the former managing director of Warner Music Singapore learnt from books. With no industry background or connections, she cold-called airports and provincial government offices. She was one woman from a Malaysian low-cost carrier diving into a male-dominated China aviation industry. Yet, within half a year, AirAsia became the first budget airline to fl y to China, a market that contributes some 40 per cent to the group’s revenue. In the first nine years of her tenure with AirAsia, the company’s fleet swelled from 17 to 143 aircraft. Revenues surged more than 10-fold. Since 2011, AirAsia has been reaping annual revenues of over US$1 billion (S$1.4 billion).Call it the Midas touch. Call it EQ. Call it mojo. Whatever you call it, Tan’s clearly got it – and she isn’t afraid to use it.

OUR FIRST MEETING

We were told we had 60 minutes with her. That is probably enough time for an express laundry cycle, but not enough for getting under the skin of a new acquaintance. But, when we arrive that Monday morning – late, even – Tan, who had just returned to AirAsia as president for the North Asian markets after a year-long sabbatical, does not chide us for letting precious minutes slip by. Instead, she is as gay and relaxed as one might find her on a work-free weekend. She compliments our editor’s choice of chunky lemon-hued heels. She pulls us into her new office on the 29th floor of 6 Battery Road so that we can take in the sprawling view of the civic district and beyond. She enthuses about her naughty plan to ambush Fernandes’ speech at an upcoming executives’ meeting with a viral video of AirAsia cabin crew Assraf Nasir gyrating to a Britney Spear’s tune, which broke the Internet the night before. She prescribes coffee for all at the lobby-level cafe, and regales us with stories of surprising potential business partners with her capacity for stiff drinks. She shares cooking tips (soup should be boiled for one-and-a-half hours at least, if you want full flavour), talks about her love for fashion, and her weekend indulgences of spa and manicure. In between the candid, casual banter, she drops nuggets of business world wisdom, dissects marketing strategies, discusses the need for a paradigm shift in approaching consumers. We expected an hour. She gives us four, during which she opens up to us like a girlfriend. Just like that, we fall under the spell of Kathleen Tan, as hundreds of thousands before us have. 

“MY SECRET IS THAT I AM A WOMAN. AND I CAN CHARM MY WAY THROUGH.”
But she understates the strategic planning and critical thinking behind her actions. In every meeting she attends, she keenly studies the body language of every person, especially how each respond to her. “You need to know who is the real decision maker. And this might be a junior person who has a lot of influence.

And engage she does. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the Singaporean practically grew up in a coffee shop operated by her Malaysian adoptive parents, observing people from all walks of life come and go. Perhaps it is her roaming the HDB estates as a teenager, peddling encyclopaedia sets door to door that few can afford (“You can’t say ‘I am here to sell encyclopaedias’. Nobody will open the door. You have to think about them as parents.

So you say ‘I’m here to talk about your child’s education’.”) In the same vein, before she went to China, she made sure she thoroughly understood the people she would have to deal with. She didn’t just sell the provincial governments in China a budget carrier service. She sold them the benefits of increased tourism revenue, and told them about benefiting SMEs with greater accessibility, of attracting investments. And once she got the doors open, she went straight into their hearts – and guts.

“Books about doing business in China often talk about Chinese businessmen scheming to get you drunk. But these are books written by Caucasians and, when I went to China, I realised that it is not an evil scheme, but really just the local food culture. It is the same reason why nothing gets done near lunch or dinner time – food is very important!”

Leveraging on this understanding, she wined and dined with gusto, winning potential partners over with her vivacity, connecting with them via valiant attempts to speak in Mandarin, impressing them with her knowledge of Chinese history, and wowing them (and herself) with her capacity for strong baijiu. Tan always asked for something in return for drinking, and once downed 22 shots of Maotai in one seating.

One can only guess the sweet deal she clinched. In a male-dominated aviation industry, she stands out like a bright spark, and the men are charmed.

“Women are always hung up about being women. They think that it is a disadvantage. But I say:

Turn that into an advantage. I walk into a meeting dressed nicely – it is a refreshing sight for them.

And during the presentation, I show I have the smarts, I know what I am talking about – and they are impressed,” she says. “I don’t label myself as a woman. I am just Kathleen Tan, doing my job. But it is a fact that men and women are made different and work differently. Women tend to not have corporate rules on how to behave as a leader, so we can be more flexible. For example, if my VP needs to look after the kids while his wife is away, he can come in late.” Tan’s spell goes beyond the boardroom, or the private rooms of restaurants, for that matter.

Dubbed a social media queen in China, she has over 400,000 followers on Sina Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. Her seven-year-old account is also ranked one of the Top 2000 Most Influential Accounts on Weibo, which has 300 million users. Years ago, a casual post on Weibo asking if anybody wanted to meet for coffee in Beijing gathered responses from a few hundred followers. Today, she has fans who travel for miles just to shake hands with her. They thank her for enabling them to take their old parents on an overseas holiday. They off er to cook chicken soup when she posts about having to eat instant noodles for dinner.

THE EMPRESS WEARS GUCCI

Previously the divisional head of marketing at FJ Benjamin, managing coveted high-end labels such as Gucci, Coach, Fendi and Lanvin, she maintains the Kathleen Tan image carefully. “When I joined, Tony said: ‘Eh, I know you come from the fashion world, but can you not wear designer stuff to work?’ I refused to compromise.” She kept her wardrobe, suiting up in designer threads – even when her daily commute to work in Kuala Lumpur was an RM9 public bus ride that she shared with migrant workers. One might mistake her insistence for being vain, but Tan sees a lot more to looking good. “I told Tony that just because we operate a budget airline doesn’t mean we have to wear budget clothing.

This applies not just to work, but even to her personal life. “I used to be a chain-smoker. Nine years ago, I decided that I won’t let cigarettes control my life, and I quit just like that. Lots of people tell me that it will be very difficult, that there will be relapses, so on and so forth. But it was not so for me. It is all in the mind.”