Tony Cheng insurance group from staying modest in driving

However, this is exactly what happened American reinsurance group Boss, Tony Cheng, in his early years with work. Cheng has made its way for RGA over the past three decades, which helped the company to develop its current location of $ 3.9 trillion of reinsurance that covers active documentaries.

In 2025, RGA announced 1.5 billion dollars Dealing with a fair To re -secure life policies of $ 32 billion, and to secure their place as a pioneer in this field, it is expected to enhance profits for a quarter.

Sitting for an exclusive interview with luck This summer, Cheng was reflected in this most important promotion of the executive director, and the value of survival is modest even in C-SUITE.

The following is intensified and edited for clarity.

Tony, in an era often seen, as the rapid path of job growth, you have chosen a different tactic-work through RGA since 1997. Where did your business ethics come from, and what inspired your long commitment to the company?

I was born in Hong Kong, and my father – both teachers – for the future of their four children (whom I was the youngest) will provide Australia the Western education they want. So I grew up in Australia from nine months to 20 years and I did not travel abroad much.

My parents worked incredibly hard. Caring for the four children’s mother and my father, unfortunately, to give up his love for teaching because he will not pay bills. Ultimately, they opened small companies, and then, we will go to the four children, at the weekend there – 12 hours – and we did not think otherwise. I was really born in the sacrifices of parents, hard work, and all the things I want to transfer to my children.

I grew up on many of us in a western country but a very Asian family, I think I went to Asia once in my life, so (I took an opportunity) to join RGA in 1997 in Malaysia.

Between 1999 and 2002, she returned to the United States to earn a Master of Business Administration while working at RGA, before leaving to go to Hong Kong office. When you arrived, you had a 10 -year team. The Asia Pacific region now has more than 1,000 employees and revenues of $ 4 billion. Are there unforgettable job opportunities in emerging markets instead of progressing in the existing areas?

We had a very small operation, but we were actually covering about 500 million people. Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to Malaysia, Thailand, were all these countries. I went there as the Aktari expert, and after a year and a half, they promoted me to be the CEO of this work. It was hard, right?

The first time I was asked to take by my managers, I somewhat said, “No, I am very young.” At that time, I was 29 years old. Ignore it.

The equation in my mind had a 10 % chance – and it will be great – or a 90 % chance of failure, but hey, I will learn a lot of hell. I had no real estate mortgage, no children, so I just wanted to learn. Perhaps this instinct, that desire and leadership to continue learning from the fact that my parents are teachers.

In the latest financial results, RGA reported revenues of $ 22.1 billion. How did the start of the start that you learned in Asia helped develop business worldwide?

We built this work with incredible hard work. I was laughing internally that once every month or so, pest control will come, and this means that we can go home at five o’clock because what would we do with ourselves? This was the soul. In the early days, you can solve problems. I would like to say to the team: “Let’s just try. We know it is really difficult, but only let’s try.

In the United States, people usually do not create new products or create new things because the market is very large, many of them have already been operated and have been created. Any good idea has been thinking, and this is really good.

It is actually the most connected points in the United States, but with a engine not only to settle on: “Hey, here is the market, we want a share of it”, it is an engine to create new things or a new set of things so that we can increase the pie and share it in this biggest creation. This was always in the company’s spirit, it was really about bringing it back to the foreground.

Like many other executives of Fortune 500, it is clear that you have a love for learning. In a world that AI is expected to disrupt the labor market, what skills are you looking for in a new talent?

I can only think about what I advise my son, who is in his second year of his university studies. As the younger generation already knows, artificial intelligence will accelerate, and therefore the number one should be able to use it and partnership with it.

In the end, one believes that artificial intelligence will replace everything that is easier to sport. He held a conversation in one of the city’s halls with some risk specialists in the United States last week and I said all of these soft skills is really important, you still have to learn difficult skills, and you have to understand your topic experience regardless of technology, but increasingly all these capabilities to interact, communicate, join points, and be able to understand information, communicate, and bring these things clearly, it is clear that they will make it difficult for it.

Perhaps it will be one day, but then you have to continue to raise yourself. So, what is this lesson? It is a lesson for constantly adapting, and learning constantly, somewhat similar to the sports person. When they lost their passion for playing and fighting, it is time to retire.

For me, when I lost this passion for learning and growth, it is likely that you do not give it your full going, and therefore learning may be really continuing. It is not as I said before, “hey, I want to be the CEO of the company.” I was very far away, I just wanted to treat properly and enjoy the trip and growth,

So the lesson for individuals is that you should continue to learn, and you should be modest. If you are not modest, you will not listen to yourself or your failures, you will blame them for something else instead of, “Well, what is my role in that?” So I can learn.