Purviz Shroff, who belongs to the distinguished Shroff family behind Wan Chai’s Ruttonjee Hospital,  is an ardent philanthropist and the managing director of the Ruttonjee Estates Continuation, a company her family has invested in. She is also the vice-chair of the Hong Kong Tuberculosis, Chest and Heart Diseases Association, which was founded by Jehangir H. Ruttonjee, uncle of her late husband Rusy Shroff. As a longstanding patron of Mother’s Choice, she has devoted her time to babies under the charity’s care for more than 25 years. In fact, she’s so fond of babies and children, who she affectionately calls “pumpkin”, the licence plate for her Rolls-Royce is “PUMPK1N”.  She’s also a prominent member of the city’s Indian community and has received a Medal of Honour from the Hong Kong government in 2018 for her contribution to Hong Kong Tuberculosis, Chest and Heart Diseases Association and Mother’s Choice.

Gillian Choa had always been drawn to performance. In fact, as a child in the sixties she performed a solo at the Hong Kong Music and Speech Festival. As an adult, she has had a long and storied career in theatre, advertising and film across Asia, the US and the UK. And when she was named director of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) in 2021, she became the first woman, and the first Hongkonger, to head the organisation. Since then and under her leadership, the HKAPA has been ranked first in Asia, and among the top ten globally, in the performing arts category of the QS World University Rankings three years in a row.

When Siobhán Haughey won her first silver medal at the 2021 Olympics in the 200m freestyle event, she also won Hong Kong’s first medal in Olympic swimming. And when she won her second silver medal in the 100m freestyle event two days later, she became the city’s most decorated Olympian ever. That same year, Haughey also set a world record at the Fina World Swimming Championships in the 200m freestyle category. However, the 25-year-old doesn’t only excel in water, she also studied psychology at the University of Michigan on a scholarship, and plans on returning to her studies to become a child psychologist. 

Vicky Lau, who is known for bringing artistic finesse to haute cuisine at her fine dining restaurant, the Tate Dining Room, was named Asia’s best female chef in 2015 by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, and is the first female chef in Asia to be awarded two Michelin stars, in 2013 and 2021 for Tate. In 2022, she opened soy-focused restaurant Mora and reinvented the humble ingredient by putting it through a fine-dining lens. She continues to get diners excited about soy with the launch of Ān, a collection of homemade soy products.

In a 2015 interview with Tatler, Lau told us that she was born on a day in the lunar calendar that is dedicated to food, which is why her mother keeps telling  her that the “God of Eating” has always followed her.

Not only is she the creative driving force behind Carnet Jewellery, Michelle Ong is also a philanthropic phenomenon who works tirelessly to improve Hong Kong’s arts and culture scene. She founded the First Initiative Foundation in 2010 to raise funds for promoting arts and education in the city, and in 2022 she co-organised and co-presented The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: The Big Eight—Dinosaur Revelation exhibition with the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and the Hong Kong Science Museum. 

On the jewellery front, she has designed pieces for A-listers like Kate Winslet, Glenn Close, Wendi Murdoch and Michelle Yeoh, and has been hailed as one of China’s most renowned jewellery designers. Her jewellery was even featured in Crazy Rich Asians (2018), and in The Da Vinci Code (2006), the fleur-de-lis cross key in the movie was designed by Ong and contains an important clue for the story.

Known for her signature east-meets-west approach to fashion, Vivienne Tam has designed for the likes of Lady Gaga, Jill Biden, Paris Hilton and Jessica Alba. Her work is housed in the permanent archives of museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. She has numerous awards under her belt including the International Designer of the Year (2017) at Mercedes-Benz China Fashion Week and the Lifetime Achievement Award (2016) at Beijing InStyle Expo. In 2023, Tam brought blue-chip NFTs to New York Fashion Week with her collection, “Weaving into the Metaverse”.

Tam is also someone who pushes herself. For example, she is afraid of heights, but when her friends took her on a Ngong Ping 360 cable car ride in Hong Kong in 2021, she enjoyed it so much that she based her fall-winter 2021 collection on that experience.

As the CEO of Rosewood Hotel Group, Sonia Cheng is responsible for managing more than 40 properties across four continents. And under her guidance, Rosewood has repositioned itself as a brand that attracts younger travellers thanks to its environmentally friendly and sustainable policies. Also, as a mother of five, Cheng understands the unique needs of new mothers, which is why Rosewood’s wellness studio Asaya offers specific pre- and post-natal care. In 2021, Rosewood Hong Kong also partnered with local NGO ImpactHK to address three key necessities for homeless people in the Special Administrative Region: finances, food and job training.

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