Integrating Social Impact into Core Business Strategies: Opportunities for Future Social Innovators

Dr Irene Ho is a faculty at CUHK Business School and the Associate Director of an MSc programme in Sustainable Global Business. Before joining academia, she worked for financial institutions such as HSBC, Fidelity Investments, and AIA. Irene always supports students to start their businesses and provides consulting services to companies in the healthcare industry. Dr Ho’s research interests include sustainable business model innovation and environmental impacts on mental health.

My sustainability goals for 2023:

Nurture business leaders with 3Ps (people, planet, and profit) mindsets to co-create a sustainable ecosystem.

May is a Registered Social Worker in Hong Kong and a seasoned professional in strategy planning, marketing, project management, and communications strategy.

Prior to joining Chow Tai Fook to drive the social impact strategy, May was the Head of Family Foundation at Lee Kum Kee Family Foundation and drives philanthropic impact for a brighter future via collaborative projects with partner organizations, as well as strategic philanthropy with its clients beyond grant-making. She is in charge to steer the foundation to illustrate the organization’s impact through co-creating research and study with the tertiary institutions and demonstrating and telling the impact story using publication and multi-media.

May is also a part time lecturer for Innovation in Philanthropy at the School of Management, Tung Wah College. Graduated from The University of Hong Kong, Master of Social Sciences (Non-profit Management), May is currently also a student of Doctor of Public Administration.

My sustainability goals for 2023:

1. Promote inclusivity, specifically addressing to the ageing trends, facilitating intergenerational communication across generations in the corporate setting.
2. Enhance employee wellbeing and increase community engagement and development initiatives at our Mainland and Hong Kong Office.
3. Establishing robust internship and mentoring programs, enhance youth talent development and encourage innovation especially for the Jewels craftmanship.

Jennifer is a change-maker who believes Creating Shared Value (CSV) is the new business future. She drives the launch of Share for Good, Hong Kong’s first city-wide crowd donation platform born in just three weeks during the fifth- and the worst- wave of COVID-19. It has since become a s88 charity, partnering with 120 NGOs, to efficiently distribute much-needed supplies to those in need. Intertwining business mindset to the CSV mission of New World Group, she continues to drive various partnerships both in the business and charity landscapes, to address the most pressing societal needs in time.

Jennifer has nearly 20 years of experience in strategy and marketing, and has worked in Taiwan, Singapore, UK and Ethiopia being the regional head of property strategy at a listed conglomerate; head of strategy at a global apparel company; and various strategy roles in real estate, energy and communications industries.

My Sustainability Goals for 2024:

A sustainable community means tying business goals to social progress. Hong Kong is at its best position to leverage the assets of each organisation and to find the common grounds in achieving win-win ESG results. Our goal is to call for more partners in alleviating societal problems together in a more efficient manner.

Ms. Queenie So (蘇冠嵐) is the Founder & CEO of SyZyGy, a Cyberport incubated creative technology company that builds B2B and B2G digital experience solutions. The team primarily serves the brands and events industry, as well as specializes in creating digital user experience for the automobile industry.

One of the signature solutions is EF-Portal, which is basically an AI digital human solution presented in hologram that users can interact with.

Queenie has also initiated Creating Shared Value (CSV) and actively led all teammates and partners collectively contributing to tech talent cultivation through the provision of STEAM courses and VR learning experience. The team is also working with UBC research team on applying creative tech solutions for Gerontech use.

While leading the team to continuously gain several industry recognitions, Queenie is also personally being recognized by Gen.T List as the 2021 honouree.

My sustainability goals for 2023:

I hope to see more industry leaders especially those from emerging fields can activate local young talents to build a more sustainable Hong Kong together. To achieve this, we need to first empower the younger generations with structural planning. We can always start with engaging youth in our own business or other works as the first baby step.

Janice Sue Wong believes in the transformative power of business and technology to create value and drive positive change.

Janice has 10 years of experience across corporate innovation, strategy consulting and social innovation. Janice is currently the Senior Innovation Lead at Jardine Matheson, a diversified Asian-based conglomerate. Prior to that, she worked as a Strategy Consultant and Corporate Social Responsibility Lead at Accenture, a global management consulting firm.

Janice specializes in innovation, digital transformation, venture building, investment, and sustainability. Janice has extensive experience helping companies redefine their business strategy and operations by identifying new opportunities that arise at the intersection of business, technology, and sustainability. She has led a wide range of initiatives covering topics such as growth strategy, new business launches, digital strategy, and sustainability innovation.