Turning points: How a career choice shaped Singlife’s Chin Wei Lin

The most important professional moves aren’t always promotions but those that build trust.

When Chin Wei Lin returned from Shanghai, she faced a crossroads that could have sent her deep into the fast-paced world of banking.

Instead, she chose to step back into a legal and compliance role during a critical bank acquisition, leaving behind a conventional “fast-track” path.

“It was both a moral and career dilemma,” Chin, now group head of people at Singapore Life Holdings Pte. Ltd. (Singlife), told Insurance Asia.

Would she continue chasing a banking career, or would she accept an offer from an ex-boss in the legal team who had invested in her professional growth?

“I decided to say no to a banking career and went back to governance,” Chin said in a video call.

Her decision to prioritise impact over title ultimately expanded her perspective, giving her oversight of legal, compliance, and governance functions.

For Chin, the experience underscored a broader lesson for talent management: the most consequential professional moves are not always the ones that look like promotions on paper, but those that build experience, trust, and the ability to lead across complex challenges.

“It turned out to be one of the best things for my professional growth,” she said.

Here’s the rest of the interview.

What steps has Singlife taken to ensure promotions into leadership roles are fair and equitable?
At Singlife, we are very clear and transparent in terms of the criteria, which are centred on KPIs (key performance indicators).

For promotion, it is always based on three key points. Firstly, whether there is a business need for a more senior person at that level. Secondly, the person’s ability to perform at the next level. And No. 3, whether the person has a portfolio that matches the size of the promotion.

These are very clear promotion criteria that we always put in place. On top of strong performance, we also look at the person’s ability and the culture fit with Singlife’s values. We have five values: agility, collaboration, empathy, innovation, and trust (ACE-IT).

How does Singlife support flexible work, especially for senior women?
We still have a flexible work policy. That’s something we are very proud of. I see it working for myself, as well as for all the mums in my team, new mums, and even new dads in my team, where they are allowed to work from the office or remotely.

One of my team members works outside his daughter’s daycare because her daycare closes at six, I believe, so he has to be there early to make sure he doesn’t miss the timing. We have a work-from-anywhere policy, as long as you keep within the usual standards of confidentiality and ensure you don’t leave your laptops unlocked, and things like that.

Our hybrid working arrangement allows employees to work from the office or remotely. That hasn’t changed for us.

Looking back, what difficult decision had the biggest impact on your professional growth?
When I came back from Shanghai, I was, as with a lot of talent management programmes, placed on a track to become a full-fledged banker. 

The next role for me after I came back from Shanghai was actually a restructuring banker. That was a really good move because when I was in litigation, I was in insolvency and restructuring on the business litigation side of the legal house. So that was quite an ideal job for me.

But I went back to legal and compliance, and that was a pivotal moment. 

At that time, the bank was in the midst of acquiring another bank. My ex-boss in the legal team suddenly had his head of legal quit in the middle of the acquisition, during a very important transition stage. 

He really needed my help because finding someone external, or even [training] someone from within who would have been very junior would not have been ideal given the importance of the acquisition. It was a very large-scale transformation.

I felt very strongly that going back to help my ex-boss, who had given me so many opportunities and was the one who actually put my name forward for Shanghai, was the right thing to do. 

At that point, there was both a moral and a career dilemma. Do I help a boss who had done so much for my career in his time of need, or do what is technically or objectively right for my career, which was to continue on the business front?

In the end, I decided to say no to a banking career and went back to governance. It turned out to be one of the best things for my professional growth.

When I went back to the team, my role covered both legal and compliance, which added to my governance perspective.

To this day, saying no to a banking career remains one of the best things I did for my professional growth because I acted on what I felt was right and where I felt I could add the most impact.

I decided to take a step back from the fast track of becoming a banker and return to what is traditionally seen as a back-office role, which is how the legal department is often described.