In a heartfelt post on LinkedIn, Neal Cross said goodbye to DBS Bank, and welcomes new adventure

After almost five years heading DBS Bank’s innovation initiatives, Neal Cross has announced his departure from the bank. Cross mentioned that saying goodbye to his team has been the hardest part.

Cross announced the promotion of Bidyut Dumra as the new Chief Innovation Officer, followed by Mark Evans to run the experience strategy team.

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Cross is known for his candidness in sharing his journey in articles and talks. He also shared his leadership journey and gave his two cents about what he has learned during his time with DBS. He prides himself on setting ambitious goals and working towards accomplishing the tasks. He also believes innovation is about creating innovators instead of things.

“If you can create, inspire and educate the entire workforce to do their career’s best work and to constantly strive to create the amazing then the company is unstoppable,” quoted Cross.

He continued adding that being unreasonable is necessary. “I am not a big believer in the mantra of “Don’t change the world, change yourself”. This world was created by people and people can change it again, highly relevant for these disruptive times,” said Cross.

Finally, he reminded his avid followers to focus on needs, not desires. “Try to focus on what the company needs rather than what the company wants and put the company’s future above your own career or bonus expectations. That’s not to say you never do what is expected but sometimes the company just knows what they want next and your role as an innovator is to think two or three steps ahead,” he said, emphasising fellow innovators.

After stepping down from DBS, Cross now is the Chairman of Perth-based fintech Picture Wealth, the neo-wealth startup that Cross and his partner David Pettit started in Australia several years ago. He also shared that he plans on continuing to work on his passion for Orangutans and conservation through his two hotels in Indonesia, Hotel Orangutan, and Pulau Weh Paradise,

People can also expect Cross’ book about building Hotel Orangutan and the philosophies he learned from the jungle and how this was applied to his corporate innovation journey. He managed to merge the seemingly two worlds apart passion for jungle and corporate innovation, all to be seen on his YouTube talk.

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“Everything I have learned while at DBS is not only valuable but also transportable to completely different industries,” said Cross.

Cross’ final word in his note is a firm belief that DBS will continue to be an innovation powerhouse.
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