50-50 Family Business Conference

Kevin Au, Ph.D., is the Director of Center for Family Business of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).  He is also Co-founder and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.   Kevin earned his Ph.D. in Management and International Business at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include family business, entrepreneurship, international management, social network, and cross-cultural research methodology. He has published over 50 academic articles and book chapters and served on the editorial boards of several academic journals. He has provided consulting and training to different organizations. His clients include BNP Paribas, Coutts, Credit Suisse, Ove Arup, Hong Kong Cyberport, the Central Policy Unit of the H.K.S.A.R. Government, and a number of startups and family businesses in Hong Kong.

 

Besides academic work, Kevin also serves as the Director for the Hong Kong Business Network, the Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices Project, and the Family Firm Institute in the United States.  He is also a member of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund Task Force under the Commission on Poverty of the H.K.S.A.R. Government.

Karen Chan is the Vice President of Marketing & Business Development of German Pool (Hong Kong) Ltd. and Executive Director of German Pool Group Co Ltd.  Karen is responsible for planning the company’s overall business development and devising the marketing and branding strategy.  Prior to her return to the family business in 2006, Karen accumulated 10 years of experience at multinational corporations including Bank of America, Microsoft, Goldbeck Executive Recruiting, AIG and China Motion Telecom International.  In the past seven years, Karen worked hard on integrating manufacturing, marketing and branding to strengthen German Pool as an OBM and setting BUD, or Branding, Upgrading and Domestic Sales as chief objectives.

 

Karen is devoted to a number of public assignments, including Chairman of the FHKI Young Executive Council, Chairman of the Hong Kong Quality Brands Alliance, Hong Kong Representative of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Young Women Innovator, Vice-Chairman of the FHKI Group 10, Vice-Chairman of the Hong Kong Girl Guides Southern District Association. She is also an appointee of Dedicated Fund on BUD Enterprise Support Programme of the Trade and Industry Department with the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of the H.K.S.A.R. Government. In 2009, Karen was awarded Young Industrialist Award of Hong Kong by the Federation of Hong Kong Industries.

 

Karen earned double Bachelor degrees in BBA and BEcon from the University of Washington and double Master degrees in MEd and MSc Marketing from New York University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong respectively. As a strong advocate for lifelong learning, Karen continues to pursue her studies with a Doctor of Business Administration at the Hong Kong Baptist University.

Tina Chan joined the Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation as its Executive Director in 2009. Before that, Tina worked as a consultant and lobbied for multinational companies, governments and industry coalitions in Hong Kong and Mainland China through stakeholder engagement, government relations and coalition building initiatives.  She also provided public affairs, marketing and communication consultancy services to a broad range of global and local clients in the Asia Pacific Region. Prior to public affairs consulting, Tina served in project management for Saudi Aramco in China and helped establish a joint venture between Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil and Sinopec, the largest sino-foreign joint-venture in China at that time. She has also worked as a business analyst at an online merchant, and interned for the Hong Kong Legislative Council as a researcher. Tina has a M.S. and B.S. in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University.

James Chen is a third generation member and Chairman of a family owned enterprise, Wahum Group Holdings, a Hong Kong and Nigeria-based manufacturing company. In 1995, he founded and became CEO of Legacy Advisors Limited, a single family office that transformed the way the family managed and preserved its wealth.  In 2003, James was instrumental in founding the family’s philanthropic arm – the Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation – and is currently Co-Chairman. The Foundation has supported 170+ initiatives in Mainland China, Hong Kong and West Africa.

 

James has also backed numerous social ventures, founding Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, an NGO promoting childhood literacy. Further afield, he is deeply involved in the development of adjustable lens technology, both for commercial application in developed countries through the company Adlens, and to meet the challenge of correcting the eyesight of visually impaired people in the developing world through the Vision for a Nation Foundation.

 

James is a Vision for a Nation Trustee, a long-standing member of the Outward Bound Trust of Hong Kong, former Chairman of the China Exploration and Research Society, and a past president of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization HK. More recently, James has invested in Delta Health, a cardiovascular specialty hospital set to revolutionize patient care in China, and ammado, a global online donation and fundraising platform.

Ignatius (Iggy) Chong is Market Head of Hong Kong, Coutts and Chairman of Coutts Institute, Asia. Iggy has worked at Coutts since 1994 when the bank established an office in Hong Kong.  He leads the team of private bankers and staff focusing on the Hong Kong market.

 

Iggy has close to 30 years’ experience in the financial industry.  Prior to joining Coutts, he held a number of senior roles at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in British Columbia, Canada and Hong Kong between 1982 and 1994.  He moved to Hong Kong to launch RBC’s Asian private banking operations.

 

Born in Singapore, Iggy emigrated to Vancouver in 1977.  He graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1982 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance and obtained the Chartered Financial Analyst qualification in 1996.

Dennis Jaffe, Ph.D., is Professor of Organizational Systems and Psychology at Saybrook University in San Francisco. Dennis received his BA in Philosophy, MA in Management and Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University.  As both an organizational consultant and clinical psychologist, he is one of the architects of the emerging field of family enterprise consulting.  As a founding member of the Family Firm Institute, he has presented at many of their annual conferences, served on their board, written frequently for their journal Family Business Review, and was awarded the Richard Beckhard Award for contributions to practice. In 2007, he was named Thinker in Residence for S. Australia, where he worked to help the region design a strategic plan for the future of their entrepreneurial and family businesses. Dennis is the Advisory Board member of CUHK Center for Family Business.

Annie Koh, Ph.D., is Vice President for Business Development and External Relations at Singapore Management University. She received her Ph.D. in International Finance from New York University (Stern Business School) in 1988 where she was a Fulbright scholar. An Associate Professor of Finance, Annie also holds the position of Academic Director of the Business Families Institute. Instrumental in bridging academia and the industry, Annie has spearheaded many major partnerships between SMU and the business world. Her research interests include family office and family business, investor behavior, alternative investments, and enterprise risk management. Current projects she is working on include studies of private wealth investor behaviour, cases on family business and family offices. Annie is also author for International Enterprise Singapore’s book on Financing Internationalization – Growth Strategies for Successful Companies (2004) which has been translated into Chinese.

John Mok, D.Mgt., Co-founder and Chairman of Automatic Manufacturing Limited (AML), has over 40 years of experience in engineering and manufacturing of electronics and biomedical products. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science from University of Hong Kong in 1968. John is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (SMIEEE), a Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineer (FHKIE) and Hong Kong Institute of Directors (FHKIoD), where he sits on its Council and chairs the SME Committee. He is also the founding Chairman of the Medical and Healthcare Devices Association. He is Visiting Professor at Jinan University, industry advisor, past committee chairman, and Adjunct Professor in several universities in Hong Kong.

 

John led the AML Group in setting up its Corporate University and in winning the Innovative Technology Achievement Award, the Corporate Social Responsibility Award, the Mold and Die Award and several Hong Kong Industries Awards in Quality, Productivity and Machine Design. He also received the Year Award of HKIoD and the Outstanding Entrepreneurship Award of APEA.  John serves the community as Independent Non-executive Director, SME Governance Coach, Entrepreneurship Mentor, and Angel Investor. Currently, John is an Advisory Board member of CUHK Center for Family Business.

Stephanie Tan is a Senior Vice President of Asia Financial, a Hong Kong listed company that focuses on insurance, investments in retirement funds, health care providers, and other sectors. Prior to joining Asia Financial, Stephanie worked at J.P. Morgan Private Bank in New York.

 

Stephanie is a co-founder of Table for Two (Hong Kong), a non-profit that addresses global food imbalance. She currently serves as a Director of Tung Wah Group of Hospitals and is a Next Generation Representative of the Family Business Network Asia. Stephanie received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Claremont McKenna College and her Diploma in Culinary Arts from the French Culinary Institute.

T.J. Wong, Ph.D., is the Dean of the Business School and the Choh-Ming Li Professor of Accountancy of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is also the Director of CUHK Center for Institutions and Governance. He received his B.A. in Economics (summa cum laude) from Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, and MBA and Ph.D. degrees from UCLA. Before joining CUHK, he has taught at the University of Maryland - College Park, USA, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. TJ has published numerous research articles in top finance and accounting journals such as Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research. TJ serves in numerous editorial boards including Review of Accounting Studies, and as consulting editor for China Journal of Accounting Research. He was the president of the Chinese Accounting Professors’ Association of North America, 2006-2007 and has been an honorary professor of University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China since December 2009.

Victor Zheng, Ph.D., is currently Co-Director of the Centre for Social and Political Development Studies, Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Victor received his Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong and joined its Centre of Asia Studies in 2003 as Research Assistant Professor. His research interests include development and inheritance of Chinese family businesses and social indicators and social development in Hong Kong and Macao. Victor authored ‘Chinese Family Business and the Equal Inheritance System: Unraveling the Myth’ and ‘Gambling Dynamism: The Macao Miracle’ and published a number of papers in international academic journals. He also co-authored and edited a number of Chinese titles including ‘香港華人家族企業個案研究’, ‘華人家族企業傳承研究’, ‘家族企業與股票市場’, ‘才德之間：華人家族企業與婦女’, ‘香港大老：周壽臣’, ‘香港大老：何東’, ‘香港將軍：何世禮’, ‘何家女子’, ‘婦女遺囑藏著的秘密’, ‘一代煙王：利希慎’, ‘香港赤子：利銘澤’, ‘山巔堡壘：何東花園’, ‘滙通天下：香港如何連結中國與世界’, ‘香港身份證透視’, ‘香港米業史’, ‘香港股史’, ‘澳門社會實錄’, and ’澳門特區新貌’.