Moonshot

Fundamentals of Business with Piyush Gupta, Group CEO of DBS Bank

Episode Summary

DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta has built his reputation by transforming DBS from a Singaporean bank into one of Southeast Asia’s largest, with a market cap of over $90 billion. While he’s had a 40-year career in banking, he also had a short stint as a startup founder. We had the pleasure of hosting him at our annual growth equity conference, PitStop, in September 2023. In this episode of Moonshot, Peak XV Managing Director Shailendra Singh speaks to Piyush Gupta about the lessons learned from his startup journey, and the approach he’s taken to leading DBS Bank.

Episode Notes

DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta has built his reputation by transforming DBS from a Singaporean bank into one of Southeast Asia’s largest, with a market cap of over $90 billion. While he’s had a 40-year career in banking, he also had a short stint as a startup founder. We had the pleasure of hosting him at our annual growth equity conference, PitStop, in September 2023.

In this episode of Moonshot, Peak XV Managing Director Shailendra Singh speaks to Piyush Gupta about the lessons learned from his startup journey, and the approach he’s taken to leading DBS Bank.

Show notes:

• On leaving Citi to launch a startup [01:18] 
• Speed to market is overrated [03:54] 
• Make technology the core of your business [05:07] 
• Find the right partner [05:51] 
• Having a safety net is not always a good thing [06:30] 
• Change your attitude towards failure [07:39] 
• The fundamentals of being a great CEO [08:29] 
• Focus on your strategy and learn to say “no” [14:30] 
• Engaging with regulators and policy-makers [18:58]