Career
In 1992, at the age of 27, Tan founded Healthway Medical Group with a group of friends, through a bank loan of S$90,000 and an initial capital investment of S$5,000 from each of the initial stakeholders. As co-founder and chairman of the company, he grew the group to become the second largest private primary care group in Singapore. In 2004, he successfully divested the group to British United Provident Association Healthcare.
In 2004, Tan joined Parkway Holdings as the chief operating officer of Mount Elizabeth Hospital and was eventually promoted to as the executive director of Pantai Holdings, chief executive officer of Pantai Hospitals Division and the head of Malaysia operating division of Parkway until 2008.
From 2010 to 2019, Tan was the group chief executive officer and managing director of Parkway Holdings and Parkway Pantai Limited. From 2014 to 2019, he was also the chief executive officer and managing director of IHH Healthcare BHD. During his tenures, some of his contributions included delisting Parkway Holdings in 2010 and relisting IHH Healthcare in 2012 into one of the largest initial public offerings in the world in 2012, expanding and growing the group from 15 hospitals in 2009 to 84 hospitals as of the end of 2019, leading the mergers and acquisitions of Acibadem Healthcare (Turkey), Fortis Healthcare (India), and multiple hospitals across Asia. Under his leadership, IHH Healthcare Berhad has won multiple awards, including the Best Managed and Best Overall Corporate Governance Poll awards by Asiamoney in 2016.
In 2019, he retired from the position of group chief executive officer and managing director of Parkway Holdings and Parkway Pantai Limited.
Over the years, Tan has held numerous ministerial advisory and medical committee appointments. For instance, since 2009, he has been a member of the board of trustees of the College of Family Physicians Singapore (CFPS). He also served in various capacities with CFPS Holdings Pte Ltd, including as its chairman from 2008 to 2010 and vice president from 2011 to 2013. In November 2013, he was appointed by the Ministry of Health as a member of the MediShield Life review committee.
Moreover, he has maintained active involvement in academia through board memberships and appointments. From 2011 to 2019, he was adjunct assistant professor of Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore, Office of Education. He has also sat on the advisory board of Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University.
Apart from the medical field, he has also contributed to the business scene. In 2012, Tan was appointed a council member of the Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council. The council aims to deepen Singapore's engagement with China's Guangdong province and benefit Singapore businesses through joint exploration of new opportunities in the region.
