Beyond Boundaries: Catalysing Cross-Sector Collaboration for Sustainable Change

Jenny Leung started to offer cultural tourism in Mexico in 2009 and is now the co-founder of a global culinary cultural-sharing platform – World Kitchen Club. The company offers live, global food & beverage events and virtual food tours, featuring chefs and mixologists, to foodies from all over the world. World Kitchen Club was founded for foodies during the 2020 at-home lockdowns. It currently advances Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by hosting educational food workshops for NGOs, corporates, schools and universities.

She embraces and delivers on sustainability. She has been a voluntary “Development Director” for the NGO “The Hummingfish Foundation”. Together, with the late founder Daniel Groshong, they used their creativity and relentless effort to help the people at Timor-Leste maintain sustainable well-being without damaging the environment. She also works on spreading the SDGs message through TEDx talks, SDG programs, and interactive sustainable culinary experiences. She is now a lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and external advisor for Hong Kong Metropolitan University.

My Sustainability Goals for 2024:

• Increase social awareness of SDG 12 (Responsible Production and Consumption) in Hong Kong.
• Promote diversity and inclusion through the exchange of culinary cultures globally, in support of SDG 5: Gender Equality and SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

Matt Friedman is an international human trafficking expert with more than 30 years’ experience. He is CEO of The Mekong Club, an organization of Hong Kong’s leading businesses which have joined forces to help end all forms of modern slavery. Mr. Friedman previously worked for USAID and the United Nations in over 40 countries. Mr. Friedman offers technical advice to numerous governments, banks and corporations working to eliminate all forms of modern slavery and is the author of fifteen books. In 2017, Mr. Friedman won Asia’s prestigious “Communicator of the Year” Gold Award.

Strategic Growth & Sustainability Advocate

Having spent 25 years in the office furniture industry in the United Kingdom, Andy has recently joined the team at JEB Group, where he will based at the head office in Hong Kong office.

Andy is a passionate advocate for transformative change in the office interiors sector, consistently developing business strategies that align purpose with profits. Whilst his expertise primarily revolves around commercial furniture projects – delivering some of the UK’s flagship installations – he has also pioneered innovative solutions to promote sustainability within the built environment.

Andy developed a bespoke SaaS platform that tracked embodied carbon and its movement, whilst establishing a comprehensive circular furniture recycling facility that housed over 20000 items of second-hand office furniture. These initiatives were designed to simplify the adoption of circular practices, providing meaningful data insights to customers and highlighting the positive impacts of choosing circularity over traditional linear procurement models.

In addition to his professional achievements, Andy holds executive certifications in Business Sustainability Management from the University of Cambridge and Strategic Leadership from INSEAD.

My Sustainability Goals for 2024:

• Circularity – Emphasise design for disassembly and the principles of the circular economy through keeping products and materials in use and regenerating natural systems.
• Fostering a culture of sustainability – Education is at the heart of sustainable change. Increase exposure to climate related topics across the built environment sector so that we can shift mindsets to thinking differently about decisions we make.
• Improve waste management – with a focus on circularity, reuse. We need to make a ‘circular shift’ to focusing on reusing products and materials. Identifying what we really need at the outset, with regard to, what we already have.

Johnny Wei is the Head of Wholesale Banking for OCBC Hong Kong, overseeing the Bank’s corporate and commercial banking as well as financial institutions business franchise.
In 2016, Johnny joined OCBC Bank as Head of Corporate Banking. Following the management integration of OCBC Hong Kong Branch and OCBC Wing Hang Bank in 2021, Johnny was appointed as Head of Wholesale Banking for OCBC Hong Kong; and has further expanded his role as General Manager of OCBC Hong Kong Branch and Alternate Chief Executive Officer of OCBC Hong Kong in 2023.
A seasoned banker with over 30 years of experience in the financial industry, Johnny’s career includes a spell of over 20 years with Standard Chartered Bank; holding various senior positions including Managing Director & Head of Commercial Clients.
Johnny holds an MBA degree from Monash University, Australia, and a Bachelor of Social Science degree (majored in Economics) from University of Hong Kong and is a CPA Australia.
My Sustainability Goals for 2024:
For greater collaboration in Hong Kong to allow much needed capital to help sectors most in need with their transition to a sustainable low-carbon world.

Natalie Wu has joined Hongkong Land Limited since 2020. As the Head of Corporate Social Responisbility, she is responsible for the development and implementation of the Company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy and policy.

A seasoned CSR practitioner, Ms Wu has more than 25 years’ experience in managing CSR and communications functions at multinational firms in the APAC region. Prior to joining the Company, she was APAC Head of Global Inclusion and Corporate Citizenship at State Street, overseeing grantmaking, volunteering and community sponsorship programmes. Before then, she held senior positions in UBS’s Community Affairs team and at AIA where she managed the company’s corporate communications function and charitable foundation.