Macao News

Pamela Chan

Vivianna Cheong — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 14:51:58 +0800

For over a decade, Pamela Chan has devoted her career to bringing new hospitality concepts to life, from ultra-luxurious properties such as Altira Macau to integrated resorts like City of Dreams. In her current role at Taipa Village Destination Limited, the marketing, public relations and event manager has tapped into her own artistic spirit to transform the village into a veritable destination of art, community, culture, dining and shopping. Surprisingly, given her role as a marketing executive, Chan is not naturally outgoing. Born in December 1979, the Macao native says she’s been an introvert since childhood. “I was reticent and didn’t talk to people a lot. I occupied myself with reading, drawing and writing in primary and secondary schools,” she recalls. Though she didn’t come from an artistic family, Chan says her father inspired her to appreciate arts and culture. “My father is more of a cultural person who likes reading and writing. He draws well and has a good hand, but he’s not a professional artist,” says Chan. “He always has a strong will and determination in doing things – his perseverance, willpower and mentality to never give up have influenced me.” When it comes to her career, Chan chose tourism and hospitality because she saw the growth potential in Macao. “Since there weren’t that many other industries to choose from, I thought, ‘Why not?’” After earning a degree in tourism business management at Macao Institute for Tourism Studies in 2001, Chan worked as a flight attendant with Air Macau for three years. And though it was a “dream job” growing up, she says the reality was tougher than she expected. “Flight attendants seem like they are always travelling around the world – well-paid and well-groomed with a lot of freedom,” she says. “But it’s not as easy as it looks.” While challenging, the job taught Chan a great deal about hospitality, communication and customer service. “Working for Air Macau enabled me to open up more, be more extroverted and improve my patience,” she says. “I also picked up more skills in customer communications and problem-solving.” [caption id="attachment_43583" align="alignnone" width="1335"] Seeing the writing on the wall in Macao, Chan gravitated towards tourism and marketing[/caption]

Venturing into hotels

In 2003, Chan switched careers because flying got too exhausting. At that time, many new hotels were popping up in Macao, so she applied for jobs in hospitality. She joined Sands Macao as a host at the Paiza Club, an ultra high-end gaming area that opened in 2004. Shortly thereafter when the opportunity to join SJM Holdings Limited’s Casino Marketing Department arose, she jumped at the opportunity. Chan worked as an assistant supervisor in the marketing department, then later joined Crown Macau, now Altira Macau, in 2007, ahead of the hotel opening. “My manager took excellent care of me and treated me like a daughter, teaching me so much,” recalls Chan. “I was lucky to have her coaching me, giving me the courage to try new things and to stand out.” As an events coordinator, Chang handled a wide range of tasks – she dealt with paperwork, material sourcing, vendors and suppliers and events coordination. “Working at Crown Macau broadened my horizons and helped me look at things from different perspectives,” she says. And soon enough, her hands-on experience led her to new opportunities within the same group [Melco Resorts]. Next, Chan joined the pre-opening team of City of Dreams in 2008. “I gained tremendous skills and experience working with Jennifer Lam, who was the head of marketing during my time there,” recalls Chan. “She was my mentor.” Under Lam’s coaching and guidance, Chan learned a lot about strategic marketing, integrated marketing campaigns, public relations, professional presentation skills and top-line management. After a departmental restructuring, City of Dreams assigned Chan to the entertainment and events team. It was an exciting position in which Chan contributed to the operation and production of several shows, including The House of Dancing Water. [caption id="attachment_43586" align="alignnone" width="2000"] Chan joined Taipa Village Destination Limited in 2015 with a vision to unite the community and create a relaxing, laid-back destination[/caption]

It takes a village

In 2015, a local destination development and marketing company, Taipa Village Destination Limited, set out to promote Taipa Village as a “sustainable heritage” destination. Essentially, the company had a vision to develop the area into a cultural and gastronomic destination where the new and old coexist in harmony. That same year, the company hired Chan to manage the marketing team and promote the village, which she calls “her proudest achievement so far”. “I had reached a bottleneck at my old job – my progress was slowing down, so I thought it was time to make some changes. I like embracing the unknown and taking on the challenges,” she recalls of the decision. When she joined the company, Chan recalls that the village did not have a clear identity. While there were many existing shops and restaurants, they did not relate to each other or have any clear sense of community. “I wanted to create a place where visitors want to stay longer and spend time relaxing, drinking coffee, taking photos… This is my vision,” she says. To create this laid-back atmosphere, Chan introduced “lifestyle concepts” to the Taipa Village, developing a more cohesive experience throughout the area. To do this, she launched marketing campaigns, enlisted artists to create street murals, established contemporary art galleries, debuted new cultural events, organised festivals and invested in community relationships. As one example, Chan worked hard to build connections within the village. She poured her passion and energy into storytelling, arranging video interviews with many shop owners and chefs. They told tales of their families, crafts, businesses and the history of the village, which she then published on social media. “This village is a place of human footprints,” says Chan. “There is much history behind many places – the architecture, residences, family-run restaurants, Iec Long Firecracker Factory, workshops, and more.” [caption id="attachment_43584" align="alignnone" width="1440"] A painter herself, Chan believes ‘art is living’ and ‘art is everywhere’[/caption]

An artist at heart

Among the many developments within Taipa Village, Chan feels most connected to Art Space. Established in 2016 in the centre of the village, the intimate gallery exhibits various forms of contemporary artwork – primarily paintings, installation and sculptures, and sometimes photography and films. Chan not only oversaw its renovation from a traditional shop into a gallery, built a marketing team, applied for government funding and worked at the Art Space on weekends. In collaboration with Macao-based Portuguese architect João Ó, Chan curates all of the exhibitions – most of which feature local artists. “I believe ‘art is living’ and art is everywhere. Many people think art is something out of reach and incomprehensible. To me, it is part of life,” she says. “The Art Space provides a sense of cultural interaction and brings art to the community.” This is important, she says, since there are only a handful of non-governmental art spaces in Macao. “In Taipa, there are even fewer.” In the future, Chan hopes to establish more arts space, galleries, and public installations across the village. “Our plan is to promote more art – this helps to attract more visitors to this historic destination,” she explains. The company is also open to working with the government to initiate new events and reboot the area’s economic revival post-Covid-19. [caption id="attachment_43576" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Vitorino Wong's stair mural in the Travessa da Boa Vista - Photo courtesy of Pamela Chan[/caption] In the meantime, Chan has encouraged street artists to paint walls and stairwells across the village. For example, she commissioned local artist Pat Lam, who painted the exterior wall of the Art Space gallery, and Vitorino Wong, who created the cats on the stone steps of the Travessa da Boa Vista.

Painting her world

Chan’s passion for art is not just limited to her professional life. In her free time, she also invests in creative pursuits. A couple of years before joining Taipa Village Destination Limited, Chan attended weekly oil painting classes – an interest since childhood. [caption id="attachment_43578" align="alignnone" width="1024"] An avid painter since childhood, Chan says art helps her relax and restore her mind - Photo courtesy of Pamela Chan[/caption] “I was so busy working before. I wondered if there was anything else I could achieve, so I picked up painting properly,” she says. “I like the Western oil painting styles; I mostly take photos of landscapes and then paint them.” Painting gives Chan room to relax, enjoy a moment of tranquility and restore her mind. “I love the smell of oil and really enjoy mixing colours – it’s like mix-and-matching outfits,” she says. “Oil painting allows me to mix different colours, create different patterns and textures. That’s the fun of it.” [caption id="attachment_43581" align="alignnone" width="891"] Beam of Light by Pamela Chan - Photo courtesy of Pamela Chan[/caption] Though she’s not attending art classes at the moment, she continues to paint at home in her free time. Chan also celebrated her first solo exhibit, “The Spectacle”, in December 2020. Presented by Ark - Association of Macau Art at 10 Fantasia, the exhibition displayed eight of Chan’s oil landscape paintings – each showcasing different Macao landscapes. Chan uses expressive, fast brushstrokes and bold, rich palettes with different perspectives. In one painting, she depicts a bird’s eye view over the city of Macao. In another, the painting seems to look upwards towards the traditional buildings in Taipa Village. For Chan, it’s always important to look at the world from various angles, see the possibilities and keep an open mind. Much like her work with Taipa Village, Chan says it’s all about “showing a different perspective” in both work and life.

Manuel Geraldes

Catarina Brites Soares — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 12:38:17 +0800

Not many people can say they have witnessed the most pivotal moment in a generation, but Manuel Geraldes was part of not one, but two historic shifts: The 1974 Carnation Revolution and the 1999 transfer of Macao’s administration. Both changed Geraldes’ life in different ways and led him to his role today, as the face of the Macau Military Club, one of the region’s oldest institutions. Born in the northern Portuguese town of Morais on 12 February 1950, Geraldes was one of five children: two girls and three boys. He left home after finishing primary school in 1960 to attend the Seminário da Congregação do Espírito Santo (Seminary of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit), first in Régua and later in Braga. He abandoned his religious studies in 1966 at the age of 15. Wanting to follow another path, Geraldes did everything he could to get expelled. “I was severely punished. I ended up working in the fields as if I were just another farmer,” he recalls. Geraldes moved to Bragança to finish secondary school, then applied for admission to the Portuguese Military Academy in Lisbon. He wanted to be a pilot, but flat feet (a condition in which arches collapse, leading to muscle strain and instability) disqualified him from enlisting. Instead, he worked as a manager at an elderly home in Bragança and then joined Porto’s Finance Department before attempting to enlist in the army again in 1969. This time, he was admitted. Geraldes then completed a military administration course in the summer of 1973. “The academy was a very good school,” he recalls. “I had great teachers, men whom I still admire and respect to this day. I was fortunate to meet many of them again during the lead-up to the 1974 revolution.” Among the teachers he admired most was Captain Manuel Monge, who would later serve as Secretary for Security under Macao’s last Portuguese governor, General Vasco Joaquim Rocha Vieira. “It was a very good school, where I gained life experience. It had a very healthy environment where the values of camaraderie, loyalty and openness were very much appreciated,” he says. “I had great teachers, men who still have great respect and admiration to this day. Some of them I was lucky to find years later when preparing the coup d'état.”

Joining the revolution

In early October 1973, Geraldes entered the Escola Prática de Administração Militar, or the Training School for Military Administration (EPAM), graduating with the rank of student-lieutenant (aspirante). During his second and third years at the academy, he began to build closer relationships with some of his professors. This is when the “anti-regime, progressive and democratic Manuel Geraldes” started to emerge, he says. And when two superiors shared a conspiracy by army officers to overthrow the regime with him, he joined the group. In December 1973, Geraldes became a military administration representative on the commission responsible for coordinating the Armed Forces Movement, spearheading the coup d’état ending 48 years of dictatorship in Portugal. At the age of 23, he was one of the youngest of the so-called ‘Captains of April.’ When the regime fell on 25 April 1974, Geraldes had been commanding his first conscript (a group of soldiers drafted into the military). He was part of the group occupying the Portuguese Radio and Television (RTP) building, a strategic point in the operation. “It was an unforgettable night. It was worth a lifetime. If I had nothing else to carry over to the other side, this would be enough.” In 1974, he became the administrative director in RTP’s programming department, joining a military team headed by António Ramalho Eanes, who later became president of the Portuguese Republic. During the tumultuous events of 25 November 1975, when political unrest almost led to civil war in the country, Geraldes was held under arrest for several hours. He was one of the signatories of the “Document of the Nine”, advocated by a group of nine armed forces officers supported by the Socialist Party, which proposed an alternative to the crisis and opposed the more radical military. The document endorsed the establishment of a pluralist political regime and the continuation of the Constituent Assembly. Geraldes left RTP in 1976 after the first constitutional government, led by Mário Soares, disbanded the military group that was at the time in charge of the station. Next, the army appointed him Chief of Staff of the Office of the Armed Forces, tasked with producing an instructive series on the team’s new Constitution of the Republic for military training. At the same time, he began studying Economics and Sociology at the newly founded NOVA University Lisbon (UNL), attending classes after work. Geraldes returned to EPAM in October 1979 and participated in the first operational unit for logistical supply and transportation support in the Portuguese army. He completed his degree at UNL in 1980, having spent an interim year in the United States to attend a logistical training course at the US Army Quartermaster School. While managing the military tourism complex in the southern Portuguese city of Lagos from April 1982 to May 1984, he returned to Lisbon and joined the Army Food Department. In September 1985, still a Captain, he moved to the Institute of Higher Military Studies to manage the finances on the administrative Board of Directors. He also supervised the Pedrouços officers’ mess (Messe de Oficiais de Pedrouços), which served official banquets for NATO, delegates, and world leaders. He was promoted to major in December 1985. While working in Lagos in 1986, Geraldes had dinner with Army Chief of Staff General Jorge Salazar Braga, and they discussed the possibilities in Macao.

New home, new chapter

Geraldes arrived in Macao in February 1988 to take up his new post as the financial manager of the Security Forces Command, where he remained until September 1996. Then-Secretary for Security Manuel Monge asked him to become his adviser. “It was almost a poisoned invitation. I became the security forces’ spokesperson during perhaps the most difficult period when there was a complex web of violence,” he says, recalling the last years of Portuguese administration in Macao. He left the position when the transition culminated on 19 December 1999, and on the same day embarked with the entourage of former Macao governor Rocha Vieira. Geraldes returned to Portugal on a round-trip ticket since his second wife, with whom he had a second daughter, stayed behind in Macao. After transferring into the Army reserves at his own request, he returned to the city on 20 January 2000. In 2001, Geraldes – fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish – became the AICEP Portugal Global representative, a government business entity encouraging foreign companies to invest in Portugal, in Macao. He remained in the position until 2007 when he took a job as a compliance officer at Caixa Geral de Depósitos bank for nearly three years. Meanwhile, he served on the administrative board of the Malo Clinic for just over a year. After retiring in 2011, he has since devoted his time to his family and the Military Club, an institution founded in 1870. Having been a member since 1988, Geraldes took up the reins as President of the board of directors in 1992. He has undertaken many initiatives since, including the building improvements to prepare the club for the administration transfer from Portugal to China. Aside from taking a short break between 1998 and 2002, Geraldes has remained in the post since. Besides the family, the club is his life and where he spends most of his time. From morning to night, he prepares many activities – food events, art exhibitions and concerts – for the club and spends time in the restaurant, where he welcomes all who come to dine. In recognition of his dedication to the club and his work with the Security Forces of Macao, the Macao government awarded Geraldes the Medal of Valor in 1997. Among other decorations, he also received the Order of Liberty (Grand Cross) in 1986 from former Portuguese president; the Distinguished Service Medal (Silver) from the Army Chief of Staff; and two Military Merit Medals in Portugal. Geraldes occupies his free time with hobbies such as reading and open-water swimming. Whether in the morning or the afternoon, it’s a rare day that he doesn’t swim a few strokes off the coast of Cheoc Van Beach in Coloane.

Charles‌ ‌M.‌ ‌Choy‌

Tanja Wessels — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 10:06:06 +0800

Charles M. Choy has worked alongside his parents and brother to grow his family’s business, Vaian Group (International), for decades. With his international experience and entrepreneurial mindset, Choy has welcomed the unique opportunity to explore new business ventures. He has not only been integral to modernising the group’s handbag manufacturing business, but has also brought Chinese herbal cough syrups to new markets, established an organic agriculture business, and even developed one of the few products carrying the territories’ name: Macau Beer. Choy was born in Macao in November 1968 to a Thai-Chinese father and Chinese mother who grew up in Macao. He studied at Pui Ching Middle School, a Baptist Chinese-language school, and left for Hong Kong at 9 years old to attend St Louis School, a Catholic English grammar school in Sai Ying Pun. He spent his first year in Hong Kong in boarding school and then stayed with relatives until secondary school. “This was a big change for me,” Choy recalls of that period. “Nowadays people think Macao and Hong Kong are very close; back then they felt very far apart. That time shaped my views.” Then came another significant change. At the age of 15, Choy left for the US to study at Archbishop Riordan High School, a co-ed high school in San Francisco. He welcomed the dramatic cultural shift, embracing the opportunity to immerse himself in new ways of thinking. “I found San Francisco to be very friendly, and the diversity and intellectual curiosity I witnessed shifted my mindset, says Choy. “People thought outside the box, and that encouraged me to think more broadly.” While many who live in California prize the weather and lifestyle, Choy had more erudite concerns. When it came time for university, he chose to trade year-round sunshine for infamously harsh Midwestern winters. Choy was set on studying under Nobel Prize-winning American economist Milton Friedman, who was a visiting lecturer at The University of Chicago at the time. “He was a big star. I was a kid and didn’t really understand economics, but I heard his name a lot,” Choy says of his move to Chicago to pursue a degree in Economics and Sociology. “He was advising [Communist chairman] Deng Xiaoping on how to reform China, and I was fascinated.” Besides being one of the top 10 schools in the world for economics, it is also home to numerous Nobel Prize winners. “My classmates would say, ‘When you walk on campus, the chances are high that you will bump into a Nobel Laureate,’ and it was true,” says Choy, delighted by the highbrow conversations in the cafeteria at his “geek school.” It was here where he made lasting connections with like-minded people, who shared Choy’s curiosity and ambition. Upon graduating in 1991, Choy spent a year working as a financial analyst at American consultancy firm Arthur Andersen, before returning to Asia to join the family business. It was around the time that Asia started booming, so it was exciting to be fresh out of school and explore a new market, says Choy of his move to Thailand. Arriving in Bangkok in 1992, Choy found himself working alongside his parents, who had established Vaian Group in 1969. At the time, the group comprised two core businesses: Macao’s longest-running local handbag manufacturing company and a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) business selling the herbal syrup, Pei Pa Koa. While in Bangkok, Choy worked in the handbag factory’s sales office, where he learned how to communicate with customers and gained firsthand experience in the art of sales. Three years later, he returned to Macao to work at Vaian Group’s headquarters. Soon after, the Choys started selling the herbal cough syrup in Japan in 1993, believing that if they could meet the demands of such a quality-driven and stringent market, other markets would feel easy by comparison. “We learned about the quest for quality in service and products by working in Japan,” says the entrepreneur. At the time, the herbal cough syrup was classified as a health food and, as a result, Choy engaged mainly with buyers and distributors from the health food industry. This allowed him to make many connections in the still-nascent organic agriculture sector. Around the same time, the family also partnered with Kirin Group Brewery Company to grow various agricultural products – such as organic rice – and co-developed farmlands in the US, Australia and China. While running several businesses under the Vaian umbrella, Choy continued to dig into new, exciting ideas throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. And soon, he found his way to an opportunity that made sense not only for his family business – but also for his hometown of Macao. In 2002, Kirin acquired Macau Beer from a group of local business people who brewed the beer in an industrial building in Areia Preta (also known as Hac Sa Van). Kirin moved Macau Beer out of the city in 2006, right around the time Macao eclipsed Las Vegas as the world’s casino capital. “[Kirin] wanted to explore the China market and they needed more space, so they moved Macau Beer to the Zhuhai High-Tech Zone, where Kirin already had a [regional] base,” explains Choy. Having established a relationship with the Japanese brewer through Vaian’s organic farming pursuits, Choy joined Macau Beer’s board as a director in 2007 when they were looking for a local partner.

“Beer is a universal language. Everybody knows what beer is all about: people toast when they make a new friendship, find common ground, and enjoy the unique tastes – we believe this represents Macao.”

In 2016 Vaian successfully acquired half of Macau Beer’s shares, with Kirin Holdings owning the other 50 per cent. “Up to that point Macau Beer had been fully owned by a Japanese company, and it became one co-owned by local Macao people, so that was already a big change,” says Choy of the influence this would have over the future direction of the brand. “It gives it so much more room to develop the brand identity.” As the co-owner of Macao’s namesake beer, Choy feels a responsibility to promote the city through the brand. The company works closely with the Macao Government Tourism Office and other government agencies to showcase local products and spotlight Macao’s evolving food and beverage scene. “Beer is a universal language. Everybody knows what beer is all about: people toast when they make a new friendship, find common ground, and [our beer] has a unique taste – we believe this represents Macao,” says Choy. Roughly 30 years of research have gone into creating Macau Beer’s signature blonde ale, a beer that he feels represents Macao. The businessman describes it as a “light beer with a rich flavour and strong aroma.” “Of course our hot market is Macao, but we also sell to markets in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangdong, and the Greater Bay Area because we have factories there,” says Choy. “We also sell to Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vegas – in places where people [are familiar with] Macao as a destination.” For Choy, beer has the universality to connect people and places. At the same time, the image of the Ruins of St. Paul’s on the Macau Beer label, “conveys a lot of what Macao is all about'', striking a chord with those who have experienced the territory and sparking curiosity for those who have yet to visit. As a respected businessman, Choy sits on many boards and volunteers with many charities. The list includes more than five positions, such as Chairman Emeritus of The American Chamber of Commerce in Macau; Vice-Chairman of International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM); and Director of the Tung Sin Tong charity, among others. Yet running several businesses and sitting on numerous boards means Choy has little time for much else. His Japanese wife, who he met on a business trip to Japan, is supportive. The couple married in San Francisco in 1995 and have called Macao home for the past 26 years. Choy recalls missing Macao deeply while studying and working overseas. For Choy, the chance to share his love for his hometown with a product that people worldwide can relate to is all the motivation he needs to invest his energy into making Macau Beer as successful as possible. “I was born in Macao, and I love this place. Now I have the rare chance to own a brand which can promote Macao, and possibly convey its stories through our beer,” says Choy. “This sense of achievement and enjoyment is just tremendous for me. Macau Beer is more than a business – it has a mission, too.”

Celia Lao

Rafelle Allego — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 10:11:41 +0800

Celia Lao excels in most things she takes on, having been a model student with good grades her whole academic life. Throughout her life, she has faced down challenges with perseverance and determination: “My life motto is to ‘be the best version of yourself every day.’”

A traditional family

Born in Zhongshan in 1973, Lao and her family moved to Macao when she was five years old. Long before she was born, while still in China, her father had joined the military through selective compulsory military service. There he learned to fix machines and electronic parts, eventually being reassigned to manage the electricity department for the city. Since her grandparents were getting older — grandfather from Hong Kong and grandmother from Macao — her father soon decided to move to Macao to be with them. Lao, her mother, and her two younger sisters followed soon after. Lao always did well in school, placing among the top three students in classes, despite never having been pressured by her parents to excel. The quiet, studious girl simply enjoyed doing well. “I don’t want to waste my time,” she explains. “When I do something, I just want to be the best.” When she graduated in 1991, her place as one of the top three students from the Chinese section of Hou Kong Middle School netted Lao a unique opportunity: a fully paid scholarship from the Macao government to study law in Portugal or China. The government, keen to retain talent, saw such an expenditure as an investment in the runup to the handover in 1999. Lao declined the offer, however, convinced that she needed to work on her communication skills first to overcome her quiet nature. She told her parents, “I want to study English, I want to make a change, I want to learn how to communicate with more people.” She turned her sights toward marketing, which required extensive public speaking and group work, and earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Macau (previously University of East Asia) in 1995. Despite finding the English coursework challenging, after four years there, she still came out on top of all the graduates from the faculty. This result surprised her given the stiff competition at the university. “I learned that if you focus, make use of the resources around you and don’t waste your time, you can actually do it.”

Starting a life in aviation

After reading a book on diplomacy, Lao developed a fascination with relationships between countries, how connections are made and developed across cultural and national boundaries. She began to search for job opportunities that would allow her to forge these kinds of connections. Fortunately for her, the year she graduated also saw the opening of Macau International Airport. She submitted her CV to Air Macau and to CAM (Macau International Airport Company Limited). Lao was called in for an interview with the company behind the new airport, along with thousands of other candidates, and was one of the few hired. She received other job offers as well, including from Air Macau, but opted for CAM since it was related with what she wanted to do. CAM hired around 50 aviation experts from around the world and Lao, being the youngest in the company at that time, felt very fortunate to learn from them. Part of her job in marketing involved working with other departments — from Engineering to Strategic Planning to the Accounting Department — which allowed her to deepen her knowledge in all things aviation. As pioneers in Macao’s first airport, the team learned everything from scratch. She distinctly remembers their Marketing Manager Anita Lee, a local with extensive marketing background, and Marketing Director Roger Stephenson, an Australian with over 20 years’ experience in Qantas. He used his own time to teach the locals in CAM, including Lao herself, gathering them for aviation classes an hour ahead of work. “We got really good opportunities to learn. He taught me a lot about aviation.” Her seven years at CAM also afforded Lao the opportunity to attend airport and aviation conferences and seminars all over the world. She eagerly took advantage of this, meeting with experienced professionals and making connections with other “young faces” in attendance year after year. At the time, there were five airports in the area — Macao, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai — only Macao had a marketing department. Hong Kong, she points out didn’t need to market themselves because traffic came naturally – they had millions of people and a history in commercial air travel dating back decades. Macao, on the other hand, “needed to market” to entice airlines to take a chance on the smaller SAR.

AirAsia

In March 2002, AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes spoke at an airport conference in Hong Kong. Lao approached him after his talk and presented Macao as an option for his airline. Macao had just ended the local gaming monopoly that year and granted concessionaires access to the industry, making it the perfect time to expand the airport to include international carriers. [caption id="attachment_19648" align="alignleft" width="320"] Lao in the AirAsia Hong Kong & Macao office.[/caption] He wasn’t aware where Macao was, making assumptions based on its Portuguese name. Lao was quick to inform him that Macao was “just next door” to Hong Kong and that she could arrange a visit for him, if he had the time. Fernandes, busy rebuilding his newly purchased airline at the time, declined the offer, but the two exchanged name cards and began emailing back and forth. “I was really impressed that he was the only one who replied and communicated with me,” Lao remarks. “He was very involved.” After a year and a half of emailing each other, Fernandes led a team to visit Macao. The Greater Bay Area concept still hadn’t been established at the time, but Lao sold him a similar idea as the Pearl River Delta was already a catchment of sorts. “It was only two hours by car from Zhuhai all the way to Guangzhou. But now, it’s even shorter.” In January 2004, he invited Lao to join his team, telling the CAM Chairman that this was one of his conditions in setting up AirAsia in Macao. She joined on 8 March and by July 2004, AirAsia had its first flight from Macao.

A high-pressure introduction

When she started her job as Country Manager at AirAsia, Lao was the only one on her team. With less than four months to set up before the target date AirAsia set to launch their first flight from Macao, she was working 24/7. In her first month, she was posted at their Malaysian headquarter to gain a better understanding of their business model, since most people were still not very familiar with what low-cost carriers (LCC) were in 2004. “All the airlines that came to Macao then were still full-service carriers,” she says. “I needed to learn what the differences are between low-cost and full-service carriers as well.” She returned to Macao and got right to work. “At the time, I worked from home and in my car.” She was given two additional people for her team only after their first flight. “That was only the beginning actually, and it’s not the most painful stage.” Because after they set up their operations in Macao, the team started preparing for their launch in Mainland China, which required Lao and her EVP from Malaysia to visit each airport one by one. Her time at CAM proved useful, though, as she drew on contacts all over China. Early on, she recognised that there was a market mismatch: the LCC model relies on internet bookings and online payments, and at the time, people in China had a general distrust of online transactions. Their workaround – a call centre in Xiamen for Chinese passengers to call in and make a booking – proved to be a really slow process. “We give them a PNR [passenger name record] number and the amount, we hold the booking, they bank in the money to us, and then fax us. We confirm the money was received, then we confirm the booking.” The high cost of the call centre coupled with low demand made the Xiamen model unsustainable, though, closing after just three years. The team turned their attention toward other airports, including Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport and the new Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, opened in 2004 with increased capacity. “When they get huge, they need airlines to join.” They tried very hard to convince both the airport and the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to allow AirAsia into both airports, as well as Beijing, Shanghai and many other airports later on. The team was able to show that their LCC model, rather than creating disruption, would open up a completely different demographic: the untapped middle to lower class. “At that time, travel was a luxury and not all the people could afford it. But with the LCC model, everyone can fly. You can stimulate new markets and let Chinese travel overseas.”

Outside the office

When she was still single, Lao loved travelling and dancing, having joined many performance dance groups: ballet, Chinese folk dance, and even ballroom dancing. Now with work and a family, she doesn’t have much time for dance anymore but still meets up with her old dance friends as often as they can. Lao used to travel a lot when her children were much younger, for both work and leisure. She often found it difficult to explain to them where she went when they asked her. “It’s very abstract.” So, she started showing them the map and pointing out where Macao was in relation to where she was heading. “I also showed them pictures on the internet, where our office is and our hotel.” During school holidays, she would take them to all these places, exposing her children early on to travel. Her work travel has dialled back in recent years ⁠— she used to travel to Mainland China every week to build their network there from the ground up to their present 500 or so weekly flights. While she still attends their management meetings in either Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok once a month, her main responsibility is for the Hong Kong and Macao markets. “I try to finish all the meetings and move them a bit earlier so I can come back the same day.” With three children — two girls and one boy, aged 12, 10, and 8 — she showed them the office to expose them to what she does for a living. “It’s good to show them what a workplace is like.” And when they complain about homework, she simply tells them that she has it too, because it is part of life. “Knowledge needs to accumulate; doing homework helps you to strengthen what you have learnt at school.” She tells them that what you learned at school now may not apply exactly with what you do in future, but it will definitely bring benefits with some basic knowledge and skills learnt, like PowerPoint presentations. They have a custom of practising their presentations at home with one another, including Lao herself. When she presents, she encourages them to ask questions to develop their critical thinking. “People say having kids is a burden,” Lao remarks. “If you enjoy it, it’s a different story.” There certainly are tough times, but she generally enjoys having children. They teach her things like patience and give straightforward commentary on her mistakes that a colleague might never voice. They also act like a mirror: “This may not be immediate, but one day, they will do exactly what you’ve done to them.” Lao’s own parents were passionate in everything they tackled, which greatly influences how she manages her career and her family life. She and her sisters saw how hardworking they were, never voicing any complaints. Her dad always cared and supported them with whatever they chose to do, while her housewife mother helped foster a close relationship with her sisters. Lao credits her own parenting style to her mom and is quite glad that her children also share a close bond. Her children have expressed a wish to study overseas. She and her husband plan to spend as much time with their eldest daughter before she moves away for university, but she still isn’t certain if the family will settle down elsewhere as she still finds great enjoyment in her job. “We’ll continue on this path for a while”, with her husband supporting and respecting her decision. An avid reader, Lao offers two book recommendations in relation to leadership: Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming” and AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes’ own autobiography, “Flying High: My Story: From AirAsia to QPR.” She finds the lessons in both books inspiring, especially on how people’s dreams can be realised with persistence and resilience. “If you want to get something done, you really need to work hard. There are no shortcuts in life. You need to devote a lot of work. It’s painful, but the results when looking back is good. And life is short, right?” she reflects. “If you don’t try something, you’ll never know.”

Wilson Chi-Ian Lam

Leonor Sá Machado — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 15:00:21 +0800

Wilson Chi-Ian Lam is CEO and Creative Director of Macau Creations. A graphic designer and art curator, he is a member of multiple culture and creativity groups including the Association of Registered Designers of Ontario. He is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Born on 3 June 1960, Lam’s parents divorced when he was three. His mother left him and his four siblings in the care of their father, and Lam has not seen her since. His father was a butcher working at a local market and struggled to care for all four children alone and so Lam took on the mantle of caring for his family, cooking meals and taking care of the housework by the age of 11. Sadly he ended up leaving school before completing his education. In 1975, after a recommendation from an uncle, Lam took a job at Wa Fung advertising company, drawing posters and designing billboards. At the time this work was all done by hand, as there were no software systems to use. “Back then a good designer was someone who knew how to paint and write beautifully,” he says. This experience, however, allowed him to nurture his skills as a calligrapher, painter and sketcher. In 1980, Lam and his business partner Ieng Lai started their own firm, New Impressions Advertising Company. Work included consulting for the University of Macau, and they also had the opportunity to design and produce sets for the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which was filmed locally. The business was going well, but Lam’s world was rocked when his longtime girlfriend from Macao announced that she was emigrating to Toronto, Canada. “We kept in touch for three long years, exchanging love letters. It really helped me improve my Chinese, which was quite weak because I left school so early,” Lam laughs. Unable to keep away from his love, in 1983, he decided to move to Toronto to be with her. Here he went back to school, graduating first from East York Collegiate Institute and then the renowned Ontario College of Art and Design. He studied corporate design, and even won a Gold Award at the Canadian Student Design Competition in 1989. This award helped him gain his first design job in Canada, working for Burns and Company. However, after a few years Lam craved a new challenge. He quit his job and bought a Chinese character-cutting plotter from Hong Kong. “With this machine I could help all the businesses in Toronto’s China Town to make their advertising more modern, by moving away from traditional handwritten ads,” he explains. “I always say that change is good – I love to learn and give myself new challenges.” During his time in Canada, Lam continued to innovate, creating a painting school for children and founding the design firms ARTiculation in 1993, and Wilco Design in 2000. His international clients included Absolut Vodka, Coca-Cola, Dell, Royal Bank, Xerox and even today’s US President, Donald Trump. But even though his career was thriving in Toronto, Lam still kept strong ties to his Macao roots and participated in several Macao-based design competitions. In 1996, for example, he received Air Macau’s Corporate Identity Design Contest Gold Award. Then came a moment in Lam’s life where he felt the need to do something that would bring him a deeper level of happiness. In 2009, he decided to return to Macao and founded Macau Creations with his business partner. To bring local artists together and help them establish stores selling souvenirs focusing on Macao’s history. “I didn’t want to do design or advertising anymore. I understood that many artists don’t have much business know-how, and I wanted to be the middleman to help their great ideas become reality,” he enthuses. Macau Creations is now made up of 50 people, and has stores in the Taipa Cunha Bazaar, the Macau Tower and the Venetian Macao. The team of artists also offers branding and product design services. Not one to rest on his laurels, Lam says he’s happy, but still eager to learn new things. “Sure, there’s a lot I do know, but there are still so many more things to learn. I would love to learn more about business and new technology,” he concludes.

Joe Liu

Cathy Lai — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 16:19:06 +0800

Joe Liu is the founder and Director of MOME, an integrated marketing and media company that produces and promotes content across Macao, Hong Kong and Greater China and the Director of Macau Pass, a contactless smartcard and e-payment system. He is also a director of Transmac, one of Macao’s three public transportation companies and Macau Pass, the city’s contactless smartcard. He speaks fluent Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Liu was born in Hong Kong on the 1st December 1983. He moved to Macao in 1988, when his father, Liu Hei Wan joined Transmac, one of the earliest public transportation companies in Macao. Since then, Liu has regarded Macao as his hometown. Coming from a traditional family, his parents arranged a full schedule of extracurricular activities for him including painting, violin and piano lessons. However, he admits he was not a good student back then. “I was always getting poor grades. I guess it’s because I rejected everything that was forced onto me, from memorising textbooks to mathematic formulas.” At the age of 13, Liu left Macao to attend Uppingham School, a boarding school in the Midlands, England. This experience changed his view on school life. Not only did he become the house captain, but he also joined the school orchestra as a violinist and became the captain of the school’s 1st XI football team. He recalls how his time there also helped shape him into the man he is today. “Being away from home made me learn to take care of myself and get along well with other people. I am thankful that I made a lot of friends in high school, and still remain close to many of them today.” When it was time for university, Liu chose a subject that required creativity and innovation. After initially starting an architecture degree at University College, London (UCL), at the end of the first year he changed his course to urban planning design. He completed this degree in 2004, choosing to continue his studies with a master’s degree in European property development. “I really like to understand the environment, how a city is planned and how people relate to the space and buildings around them," he explains. After completing his master’s in 2007, Liu became a property surveyor at the London headquarters office of Savills, one of the world's largest real estate firms. “My job there was to work with developers and contractors. My responsibilities ranged from liaising between different parties and submitting architectural drawings to the government, through to hiring foreman to put together construction crews.” When not studying or working, Liu devoted much of his time in London to sports such as football, golf, tennis, motor racing, swimming and snowboarding. He was especially passionate about football, representing both his university and several local clubs in London. Liu knew he had a successful, comfortable life in London, but he was also unsure of the direction it was taking. “I had a stable job with good salary but the market there was saturated. I couldn’t help but ask myself, was this the kind of future I wanted? So I took a look back at my hometown, Macao. I realised that it had so much potential for development but was hindered by a lack of manpower. After doing some research and seeking advice from my family, I decided to come back.” In February 2010, Liu returned to Macao, where he worked in Savills’ Macau office for two years as a valuation and development consultant. He also started managing a property investment fund as well as a number of projects at his father’s company; including the Macau Pass. Liu’s passion for sports continued, as he joined local football club Monte Carlo. In 2013, he also opened the city’s first independent golf shop in the city with a group of like-minded friends. It was also in 2013 that he decided to move on from his corporate career, having realised over time that a traditional corporate environment was not the right fit for him. Liu launched MOME with his childhood friend Joseph Chan that year. The company produces audiovisual media for television, mobile devices and the Internet, alongside a marketing consultancy service that offers advertising and promotion support. “It’s always difficult at the beginning, but I’m happy to be working with a great team of talented people, from marketing practitioners to visual producers. Together we learn from our experiences and continue to improve.” At the beginning, MOME worked with Transmac to install mobile TV across the company’s bus fleet. This system now broadcasts a variety of content, including commercial and entertainment programmes produced by MOME. Customers that seek marketing consultancy from MOME range from casinos and Food & Beverage chains through to government organisations. In 2016, MOME opened an office in Bangkok to oversee a major marketing campaign targeting Chinese buyers for the 7-Eleven brand in Thailand. Since then, Liu has concentrated his efforts in bridging the gap between MOME, Transmac and Macau Pass in the hopes of further developing Macau Pass’s online payment system to bring a cashless system to Macao. As an entrepreneur, Liu has found that this new style of working has made him adapt his work attitude, which led to some positive changes. “I was never a particularly hardworking person before, but now, having started my own business, I finally feel the stress of maintaining a business and am determined to put all my energy and focus into it,” he enthuses.

Harald Christian Brüning

Macao News — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 12:35:11 +0800

Harald Christian Brüning is the Director of The Macau Post Daily newspaper. He speaks German, Spanish, Portuguese and English. During the course of an eventful career spanning nearly four decades, Brüning has worked for some of the world’s biggest news agencies, eventually setting up his own English-language newspaper focusing on local news in Macao. Born 10 June 1953, in Rieden, Germany, Brüning grew up with three older boys and a menagerie of animals including two horses in Helmstedt, a small town in Lower Saxony surrounded by lush green trees and fields. His father was a cavalry officer and a horse-riding instructor, while his mother was a nursery school teacher. Like many children who dream of crime-fighting superheroes, as a boy Brüning wanted to one day become a homicide detective. This interest in crime investigation carried on into his adult life, as today he is still an avid fan of crime novels and movies. But instead of solving crimes, Brüning’s career headed in the direction of reporting on them. He gained his first journalistic experience by the age of 16, writing for his high school’s magazine club. In 1971, Brüning moved to Munich where he studied political science and economics as well as Spanish and Portuguese. In 1975, he passed the Court Translator’s State Examination for Spanish in Germany. Brüning then began taking freelance translation work, which earned him enough money to visit Hong Kong with a classmate in 1980. Being encouraged by a lecturer who taught him Portuguese at the university, he took this opportunity to also visit Macao for the first time. In 1981 he graduated with a master’s degree in political science from the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), after which Brüning moved to Hong Kong to work for the German-Japanese joint venture Carl Zeiss Pentax, which helped set up Televisão de Macau (TDM) in the early 1980s. “Since I spoke Portuguese they wanted me to be responsible for TDM’s project tender. I spent a lot of time in Macao and decided it was a great place to make my home.” Brüning made his official entry into journalism in 1984. He started working for Jornal Va Kio, editing book translations and writing the occasional news story. In the same year, he was invited to become the Macao correspondent for United Press International (UPI), which he describes as leading him into “real journalism”. “UPI’s Macao correspondent had resigned just as negotiations between the Chinese and the Portuguese were starting to bloom. They needed someone to cover this, and so I ended up being offered a job at one of the world’s biggest news agencies,” he recalls. “If this hadn’t happened I think I may have ended up back in Germany, as I had the opportunity to start a PhD at the University of Munich.” A few years later Brüning became the Macao correspondent for the Hong Kong Standard and also worked a short time for Bloomberg. Later he moved to the Eastern Express, returning to the Standard in the early 1990s, before moving to Reuters and then the South China Morning Post in the mid-1990s. “Throughout my time as Macao correspondent, I believe I published around 20,000 English language articles about the region,” he highlights. During these years Brüning interviewed world-famous political leaders such as Mário Soares, Portugal's former president and prime minister, and reported on numerous major events including the Joint Declaration between China and Portugal and the Macao Basic Law. However, he felt that human interest stories were the most powerful. For example, he vividly remembers the days, some 25 years ago, when he relentlessly followed the recovery of a baby boy found abandoned in a pile of rubbish. “The boy had been attacked by rats, leaving bite wounds on his arms and shoulders. I visited him at hospital several times and talked to the doctors and nurses,” he recalls. “The story made the front page of Hong Kong Standard several times. It was the only English media that covered the incident.” Much to his relief, the baby was later adopted by a Swedish couple, who named him Nicholas. Being a Macao correspondent for overseas media made Brüning realise there was a growing need for a local English-language publication. Resigning from his position in 2002, he launched The Macau Post Daily with three like-minded friends. “In the past, people were dependent on the South China Morning Post, but news from Macao was just one of the many areas it covered, and not its focus,” he explains. “The principle of our newspaper was to always have Macao news on the front page.” Brüning believes that the introduction of an English-language newspaper in Macao has brought important changes to the landscape of Macao’s media industry. And although newspapers have rising competition from digital rivals, he remains hopeful for the future of print. “There is a big difference between print and online news,” he highlights. “News on the Internet can be changed with a click of a mouse, but in print it is permanent.” “We can see who is reporting the stories and they are accountable for what they publish,” he explains. Therefore I believe newspapers are hugely important and will always have a place.”

Alfred Ng

Macao News — Wed, 31 May 2017 16:11:41 +0800

Alfred Ng is Director of the Macao Services Division of Shun Tak China Travel Ship Management Limited. He speaks fluent Cantonese, Mandarin and English, and basic Portuguese.

Born 17 May 1968 in Macao, Alfred has spent most of his life in the Special Administrative Region. While his siblings were both sporty, Alfred found his strengths lay in academic study. As a child, he attended the catholic school Instituto Salesiano de Macau, and later, in 1991, completed an undergraduate degree in economics at the University of Macau.

At the start of his career Alfred worked for local communications business Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau (CTM) and then an investment company. However, he considers his first ‘real’ job was working as a civil servant at the Statistic and Census Service. Joining in 1992, as técnico superior, Alfred stayed at the Service for six years. During this time, he was given the opportunity to work in Portugal for six months, where he learned Portuguese from University of Lisbon (Universidade de Lisboa) as a part of the program. However, in 1998, Alfred took what some considered a risky career move, leaving to join the ADA - Administration of Airports Ltd.

“Everyone was asking me why I’d do such a thing, as at the time working for the government in Macao was considered the ideal job,” he says.

But the move suited Alfred well, as he ended up working for the Administration of Airports Ltd for 14 years. For the majority of that time he worked as Commercial Director for the Macau International Airport. But the final two years were spent as Customer Services Director. “I oversaw the management of all the airport’s facilities, from the toilets through to our relationship with the airlines and passengers,” he says.

Whilst here Alfred decided to further his education and in 2002, he completed a master’s in business and administration at the University of Warwick, England.

By 2012 Alfred knew it was time for a change. That August he joined Shun Tak China Travel Ship Management Ltd, the company responsible for the Turbojet ferry services in the Pearl River Delta area.

Taking on the role of Director of Macao Services Division, Alfred’s first mission was taking over the Turbojet operations from an outsourced handling agent and upgrading the services to modern standards. He is responsible for the management of ticketing, luggage and wharf services, VIP services as well as the company’s fleet of high-speed boats, which transports over 35,000 passengers each day.

“In the past transportation services focused on simply getting a customer from A to B. But today we must offer more than that,” he notes. “Our focus is on creating the best possible experience for our users. We always put all our efforts into providing the best possible services to the passengers who may have special needs such as elderly, infants, patients, guide dogs for the blind, passengers who need to connect to other means of transportation upon arrival to ferry terminal and continue their journeys.”

“I often put myself in my customers’ shoes to better understand their needs,” he explains. “For example, there can be issues unique to the region, such as a typhoon that can delay a passenger’s arrival to Hong Kong Airport and consequently make them lose their flight. We try to look at the different problems our customers may face and then consider the ways we can help them.”

Alfred is keen to talk about his job, and it’s easy to see he loves his work. However, there’s one thing he does find quite ironic – he’s prone to the occasional bout of seasickness.

“I can get seasick in some situations,” he laughs. “One day I had to go back and forth to Hong Kong four times for meetings. I’m sure you can imagine how I felt…”

Although passionate about his work, Alfred is also a dedicated family man. With a son aged ten, and a four-year-old daughter, he always sets aside time to be with his children no matter how busy his days may be. “Even if I’ve had a long night, I will always make time for breakfast with my children,” he explains.

He is also a lover of art, and on the wall of his office hangs a painting by the local artist Lio Man Cheong. “Art is a wonderful form of expression,” he enthuses. “I frequently make time to visit some of the wonderful art exhibitions our city holds.”

Throw in a glass of good whisky and some jazz music, and you’ll find Alfred at his most content.

Carlos Couto

Mark O'Neill — Wed, 24 May 2017 16:00:44 +0800

Carlos Couto is founder of CC Atelier de Arquitectura, Macao’s largest private architecture practice. He also manages the Portuguese restaurant Tuga in downtown Taipei, Taiwan and is Taiwan’s biggest importer of Portuguese wines. For the entrepreneur, who speaks Portuguese and English, splitting every week between Macao and Taiwan can be an exhausting schedule, but Couto loves it and wouldn’t have it any other way. Born 14 May 1951, into a middle-class family, Couto grew up 30 km outside of Lisbon, Portugal. His maternal grandfather, however, was quite wealthy, living in a mansion with over 100 rooms. “It had three storeys and was always open to people. Grandmother had five children and 20 grandchildren who all came to the house for lunch regularly. Our Christmas parties alone had more than 100 people. We used to go to the stores in Lisbon where Grandfather had an account and buy whatever we wanted.” His paternal grandfather was captain of a warship in the Portuguese navy stationed in Asia, and his paternal grandmother was a stern lady of half-Scottish and half-Irish descent. Couto’s father was a director at Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil company. Couto and his siblings were home-schooled by tutors through primary school but attended secondary school in Lisbon. He fully planned on becoming a chemical engineer until he was inspired by a girlfriend’s father who was an architect. Couto proved to have a gift for the discipline, and with the encouragement of his new-found mentor, he passed the exams for Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon University, then called ESBAL, one of the country’s leading architectural programmes, where he majored in urban design and planning. While at university, he fell in love with a fellow student who would become his first wife; they would have three children. Upon graduating, they both joined the government as architects. On 1 January 1980, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Terceira and Sāo Jorge islands, in the Azores archipelago. The government sent Couto and his then wife to help with the rebuilding effort. “It was a very valuable professional and humanitarian experience.” Having spent a year and a half in the Azores, Couto was invited by the local government to stay long-term, when an unexpected turn of events happened. His sister-in-law and her husband, both economists, announced a move to Macao, having accepted jobs in the government which was expanding. Couto’s then wife came from a large and established family in Macao, and she lived the first five years of her life in the SAR before moving to Portugal in 1955. The Melo family arrived in the Portuguese colony during the 18th century and owned what used to be the Governor’s Palace before it was sold to the government to pay off gambling debts. So Couto and his wife also made the move. “I love travel, but Asia was still mostly unexplored on my map. It was an opportunity to stay two years, and so I proposed creating an Urban Planning department.” In 1981, his proposal was accepted, and Couto set up a team of eight architects. At the age of 31, he had achieved a position of authority that he could not even imagine back home. Couto worked in the Macao Public Works department for eight years, approving new buildings and overseeing a team that grew to over 120 employees. He then decided to make the leap into the private sector and established his own firm. His timing, however, was inauspicious—it was June 1989. “We did not know which way the economy would go. Had I made a good decision?” As it turns out, in the 28 years since, Macao’s economy has experienced an unprecedented boom. “We have the biggest firm in the city, and we’ve had a lot of work. Most architects in Macao have worked here at some point in their careers. Around 300 architects have passed through the firm since 1989; it’s like a university.” CC Atelier de Arquitectura is responsible for many of Macao’s most famous buildings and concepts, including Fisherman’s Wharf. “The owner asked me to travel back in time to recreate classic Europe monuments, so we created replicas of famous buildings from countries that historically have traded with China, including Britain, France, Portugal, Spain and Holland.” Couto garnered international fame when his design for the Portuguese Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo won the “Design Award” from the International Exhibition Bureau as well as the Portuguese government’s “Best Public Project” award. New projects flowed in, including designing an auto-racing circuit in Taichung, Taiwan. Portuguese Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo In 2015, he opened Tuga, a Portuguese restaurant in downtown Taipei, thus embarking upon his second career. In addition to adding restauranteur to his list of accomplishments, Couto is the biggest importer of Portuguese wine into Taiwan. Couto still travels between Macao and Taipei every week and has no plans to slow down anytime soon. “I never imagine retiring. I will die working,” he promises. Couto loves living in Taiwan but also really likes four major international cities: Amsterdam, Paris, New York and San Francisco.

Nacky Kuan Sio Peng

Mark O'Neill — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 15:00:48 +0800

Nacky Kuan Sio Peng is Executive Director of Macao Water Supply Company Limited. She is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Born 8 October 1965, in Macao, Kuan is the middle child of six. She has two older brothers, one older sister, one younger brother and one younger sister. She attended primary school at Escola Canossa Pui Ching and secondary school at Sacred Heart Canossian College. As a child, she dreamed of being a kindergarten teacher specialising in mathematics. “I like calculations! I remember when I was small, I always liked calculating the dim sum bill in advance for my mother!” Kuan laughs. After receiving her bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of East Asia in 1988 (now the University of Macau), Kuan landed her first job as an auditor for KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms. She held that position for three years before moving to Fast Investment Limited, a local financial company, where she also worked for three years. In 1994, she embarked on her career at Macao Water, where she has remained ever since. Even after more than two decades with the same company, Kuan is as enthusiastic about her job as ever. Her secret? “We can only be motivated when we genuinely like what we are doing. When people say they are too busy to do something, usually it’s just an excuse. If they like it enough, they will find the time and figure out a way to do it. It’s always about one’s priorities.” As a female leader, Kuan believes she is very lucky to be living and working in Macao, where men and women enjoy the same rights and opportunities throughout all sectors of society. “I am extra lucky that Macao Water is a western company that encourages a diverse and multicultural working environment.” Kuan draws inspiration from other female leaders, namely German Chancellor Angela Merkel and American politician Hillary Clinton. “Actually, I really admire Chancellor Merkel. As the leader of a country, she has to be well-rounded with the capacity to resolve multi-faceted issues simultaneously. Now that I am Executive Director, there are so many more aspects that I have to contemplate while accommodating different parties, such as stakeholders, the media, the public, Macao’s numerous associations, NGOs and, of course, our employees,” she explains. “As Chief Financial Officer, the only thing I used to focus on was money!” Kuan’s goal upon taking on the new role is to continue building public trust in Macao Water. “Trust is very important in all relationships, be it between a company and its clients, the management team and its staff, colleagues or lovers. Without trust, all relationship falls apart.” This is a motto that Kuan truly takes to heart, literally and figuratively. Ask her to share the best decision she ever made, and she will respond without hesitation that it was marrying her husband. “Family is always my first priority. I believe that a happy family life is one of the keys to a successful career. Without a harmonic and supportive family, one might find it difficult to spare the time and effort required to achieve goals in the workplace.” Being a self-aware person, Kuan often reflects on her life. If she could go back in time, she would have tried harder during university to be a better academic student. And she would have spent more time with her father, whom she lost over ten years ago. “It was still a patriarchal society in Macao back then. I was closer to my mother but rarely even talked to my father. We only talked during family dinners. He was quite strict and intimidating, so I didn’t really hug him or chat with him casually the way I did with my mother,” Kuan recalls. Losing him taught her the importance of treasuring loved ones, so now, every day that she isn’t working is family day. “I like spending time with older generations, like my mother and my in-laws. We go to ‘yum cha’ [have dim sum] every Sunday!” Kuan also enjoys travelling in her spare time. ‘He that travels far knows much’ is an idiom that resonates with her, and she attributes travelling with broadening her horizons. “Although I take business trips frequently, even more so now that I am Executive Director, I prefer going back to the same place with my husband and exploring it leisurely.” It should come as no surprise that if she could have dinner with anyone in the world, living or deceased, Kuan would choose her husband in the blink of an eye. “I feel most comfortable when I am with him. Although we have been married for many years and don’t have kids, I never feel bored when I am next to him, even when we are doing nothing special. After dinner, usually we just go back home and watch TV together, but I still enjoy it a lot. He is the one I will always choose,” she says affectionately.