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Engaged entrepreneur

Michelle Teo Published on Mon, Dec 19, 2016 / 11:17 AM GMT+8

Neal Cross, chief innovation officer at DBS Bank

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From practising kung fu to saving orangutans and driving innovation at DBS Bank, Neal Cross is charting an unconventional path as chief innovation officer.

Leaning back in his chair, Neal Cross waxes lyrical about Asian martial arts and their nuances. “I used to do wing chun, same as Bruce Lee, which is a hard art — [it] uses muscle and physicality to be effective. Tai chi uses energy, qi, and that’s a soft art. It’s all about flowing and submissiveness; you use [your adversary’s] own energy against them, but it’s very slow,” he muses. “Xing yi — very, very hard energy, you hit them like a spear. You can virtually leap halfway across the office with one stride,” he adds, gesturing at the distance. “It’s quite interesting to watch.”

Unshaven and clad in loose, rumpled khakis, Cross, who still practises tai chi, is quite the opposite of what one imagines a bank employee, or a martial arts expert, would look like. The brown cotton jacket he has on during his interview with Enterprise is well-worn. Cross recalls he was attired similarly at the G20 Summit in China earlier this year, seated between the German finance minister and the governor of the Bank of England. “I was the first ever [speaker] not to wear a shirt and tie.” In August, he was pictured wearing the same jacket with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, after being recognised as the world’s most disruptive chief innovation officer.