Second wind - Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Veteran members
WORKING
OVERTIME
Many of the Institute’s senior
members have retired as accountants
but are showing no signs of slowing
down. Jemelyn Yadao looks back on
their eventful careers and asks them
what they’ve been up to
Photography by Samantha Sin
f all the ornaments, photographs
and paintings,
one piece stands out in
Sanford Yung’s beautifully
kept living room.
On a dark wood bookstand
by the wall sits the
autobiography My Life in China and America
by Yung Wing.
“He was the first Chinese to graduate
from an American University,” says Sanford
Yung, a retired accountant, a member
of the Hong Kong Institute of CPAs, founder
of Sanford Yung & Co. and a former chairman
of Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers),
referring to the man on the
cover. “He was my step-grandfather.”
In 1854, Yung Wing graduated from Yale
University. After returning to Qing Dynasty
China, he headed what was known as the
Chinese Educational Mission under which a
total of 120 Chinese students aged eight to
11 received education in the U.S.
Sanford Yung shares his step-grandfather’s
commitment to education. After retiring,
he established the Sanford Yung Scholars
Programme for Excellence in Accounting
Studies in 2001, which began in Hong Kong
and later expanded to Shanghai and Beijing.
20 November 2012
Like Yung, many retired CPAs have had
vibrant careers and have witnessed – indeed
were involved in – the shaping of the accounting
profession.
But even in retirement, with the can-do
attitude they developed as accountants,
many are finding themselves achieving new
ambitions.
History maker
Two years after Sanford Yung founded his
eponymous accounting firm in 1962, Coopers
& Lybrand United Kingdom – then part of the
Big Eight – approached Yung, seeking a presence
in Hong Kong. “They were big, I was small,
and they asked if we would represent them in
Hong Kong. I said yes,” Yung remembers.
Coopers & Lybrand originally wanted
to work with Yung’s firm for a trial period
of five years, but good impressions caused
that plan to fall by the wayside. “After only
one year, in 1965 they were so satisfied with
my practice and professional standards, and
perhaps also me personally, they hastened
the so-called engagement and said, ‘Let us
get into bed. Let’s go into partnership.’
“When I started my firm I had a staff of
three. When I first represented Coopers I had
a staff of 20. Thirty years later when I retired

“I said, ‘I’m the only partner and
you allow my staff below me, an
Englishman, to look at the minute
books and not me? I don’t want the
job.’ So I thanked him and left.”
Sanford Yung
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Veteran members
from practice I had a staff of 750. So the expansion
was quite rapid and quite gratifying,”
recalls Yung, who became chairman of
Coopers & Lybrand Hong Kong in 1965.
Of course, the rapid growth of the firm
meant Yung had to deal with many challenges.
He recalls one in particular involving the
1959 purchase of Mercantile Bank by the
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
In 1965, Mercantile moved its head
office from the U.K. to Hong Kong and was
jointly audited by Peat Marwick Mitchell
(now known as KPMG) and Coopers & Lybrand.
An invitation to meet with a man
named Freddie Knightly from Mercantile
Bank in Hong Kong led to Yung sitting in an
uncomfortable meeting.
Knightly reminded Yung that Mercantile
was now a subsidiary of Hongkong and
Shanghai Banking Corporation, alluding to
the parent bank’s policy of allowing only expatriates
into the secrets of its financial records.
“I said, ‘I’m the only partner and you
allow my staff below me, an Englishman, to
look at the minute books and not me? I don’t
want the job.’ So I thanked him and left.”
Half an hour after Yung got back to his
office, he received a call from Knightly.
“Knightly said: ‘You win. You can certainly
look at our private books.’
“I accepted it on those terms and became
the first Chinese in the then 75-year history
of Mercantile Bank to sign their secrecy
book – a book directors and auditors must
sign vouching that you would not divulge
anything you see,” says Yung. “I stood up for
the Chinese in my profession of which I am
extremely proud. I made it a point to raise
the standard of my profession.”
Although the Sanford Yung Scholars Programme
is now fully sponsored by PwC, his
interest in the charity’s work remains strong.
“The main purpose of the scholarship is to
recognize and encourage good students [in
accounting],” Yung explains. “We send students
from Hong Kong to do internships in
PwC London. And those from Shanghai and
Beijing we second to New York for internship.
This is very meaningful.”
Yung is also chief donor to the Sir Edward
Youde Memorial Fund, which was
established in 1987 in memory of the governor
of Hong Kong between 1982 and 1986,
who died suddenly on a visit to Beijing.
“Two days after his death I sent HK$1 million
to start the memorial fund and now every
year I contribute money,” he says.
The fund, which bestows fellowships,
22 November 2012
scholarships and education awards to outstanding
students in Hong Kong, has contributed
about HK$21 million to nearly 600,000
students over 25 years, says Yung. “The parents
of those young awardees are so grateful
they come with their son or daughter with
tears in their eyes to collect the prize.”
Getting China on track
Nellie Fong remembers her education in accounting
being somewhat different to the
programmes students experience today.
As part of her training, the now retired Institute
member and former chairman of PwC’s
China operations, did two things: adding all
the numbers in a telephone directory and
going to the supermarket to calculate total
costs at the till using mental arithmetic.
“At that time in England, 12 pence
equalled one shilling and 20 shillings
equalled one pound… I would stand by the
screen and add in my head and at the end I

should know exactly how much it would say
on the receipt. I was as good as that.”
While doing long additions became second
nature to Fong, a trip to newly opened China
wasn’t as easy. Fong, who joined Arthur Andersen
in 1973, volunteered to go to the Mainland
in the 1980s to set up an office for the firm
and was faced with a list of difficulties.
“The laws and rules were not in order and
you couldn’t hire your own people because
the Chinese government controlled employ-
Nellie Fong
ment agencies. Everything was very difficult,”
Fong remembers. “The hardest part
was we were losing money because there
were no jobs and no work. Every year I had
to explain to management why we were not
making money and appear before the board
to explain that it wasn’t an expense, it was
an investment.”
Eventually, the firm built up a roster of
clients made up of foreign multinational
companies investing in China.
A PLUS
Fong’s decision to pursue her career in
the Mainland changed her life in more ways
than one. After being a member of the Hong
Kong Legislative Council from 1988 to 1991,
Fong was appointed by the Chinese government
as a Hong Kong adviser for the preparatory
committee on the territory’s transfer of
sovereignty to China. It was during this time
that Fong devised a project that she holds
dear to her heart to this very day. “Provinces
in China were planning on giving us a gift to
mark the occasion so I felt that Hong Kong
should give back to China,” she recalls. “I
came up with a hospital built on a train.”
“We are now training
local doctors to do
cataract operations
and setting up
cataract centres in
local hospitals.”
Fong founded the charity project Lifeline
Express – a train-mounted eye hospital that
travels to remote areas of China to provide
free operations to blind cataract patients. It
launched on 1 July 1997, the day Hong Kong
returned to Chinese sovereignty.
With around five million cataract patients
in China and an increase of 500,000
patients each year, Fong is working to expand
the reach of her trains. “We are now
training local doctors to do cataract operations
and setting up cataract centres in local
hospitals. We call it a Lifeline Express train
that never leaves,” she says.
Fong, who in 2008 received a Global
Initiative Award from former U.S. President
Bill Clinton for her charity work, now
has four trains, 15 training facilities and 17
cataract centres. Rather than using her time
in retirement to wind down, she is fully engaged
with the charity’s work, addressing
issues such as the lack of senior eye doctors
in China. “I went all over the world, appealed
to international experts to come to
China and help... That’s why I’m very busy.
I’m retired from my accounting career yet
found something very worthwhile.”
Man of the match
Taking orders for tea, coffee and sandwiches
was just one of T. Brian Stevenson’s duties
while working for an audit group, fresh out
of university in Scotland. “It was a masterservant
relationship, that’s how it was,” re-
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Veteran members
“The club’s charity trust is just an amazing
organization. Our donations last year
reached a record high of HK$1.73 billion
in one year. To be involved in it, I regard it
as a serious privilege.”
calls Stevenson, a past Institute president, a
veteran tax accountant and the chairman of
the Hong Kong Jockey Club. “Maybe we had
a longer learning path,” he ponders. “Nowadays
you might be thrown straight into the
deep end.”
When Stevenson first moved to Hong
Kong in 1970, he brought with him his love
for a game he played often as a schoolboy –
rugby. After holding nearly every office in
the Hong Kong Rugby Union, he is now president.
“Rugby has really developed in Hong
Kong and I’ve been involved in the Hong
Kong Sevens. It’s been fortunate being involved
in things that have turned out quite
successfully.”
Rugby is of course not the only sport he
has a passion for. The Scotsman was elected
24 November 2012
chairman of the Jockey Club in 2010 and
takes great pride in the club’s charity work.
“The club’s charity trust is just an amazing
organization. Our donations last year
reached a record high of HK$1.73 billion in
one year. To be involved in it, I regard it as a
serious privilege,” he said.
Stevenson, who also serves on the boards
of HSBC and the Mass Transit Railway Corporation,
looks back fondly at an eventful
four decades in Hong Kong.
He helped set up the accounting firm Turquands
Barton Mayhew in the city in 1974.
“There were two of us and we had 2,000
empty square feet in the Pedder Building. I
was actually involved with engaging staff to
start a business, buying second-hand furniture
to put into the office and ended up with
T. Brian Stevenson
one of Hong Kong’s largest accounting firms.
It was a marvellous experience,” he says.
The firm grew with mergers including,
those with Whinney Murray Ernst & Ernst
that formed Turquands Ernst & Whinney in
1979, until the merger of Ernst & Whinney
and Arthur Young created Ernst & Young.
Just a week before that merger was announced,
Stevenson was appointed senior
partner of Ernst & Whinney for Asia. “I was
dealing with people older than me, more senior
than me from across the world in pulling
the firm together.”
While managing the rapid growth of the
firm was a challenge, Stevenson says managing
the insolvency of the Carrian Group
while he was at Ernst & Whinney in 1983
was one of the hardest tasks in his career.
Carrian’s reach was so broad that it had
been a client of many accounting firms, which
eliminated them from the role of liquidator.
“Most major firms were out and we came in.
It was a major case for the firm globally.”
Despite the firm’s lack of insolvency experience
they won the engagement.
“I’m a very competitive person, which
comes from sports, and I apply that to busi-

“To be able to witness the development of
the firm, especially in China, and also the
development of China, I consider myself
really lucky. My timing was just perfect.”
ness as well,” says Stevenson. “I do want to
try and win.”
Right time, right place
When Marina Wong first joined Coopers
& Lybrand in 1968, she was one of the few
female auditors in the company. Her then
boss Sanford Yung encouraged her to move
departments and expand her skills even further.
“He asked me whether I was interested
in joining another department: corporate
services and accounting. So I was able to do
a bit of tax, secretarial, accounting and also
liquidation work there,” recalls Wong, an
Institute member and an independent nonexecutive
director of Kerry Properties and
Hong Kong Ferry Holdings.
Wong’s career at PwC spanned more
than 30 years before she retired as partner in
2004. During her time at the firm, she volunteered
to help spearhead the development of
the firm’s business in China, just as the Mainland
was opening to the outside world.
“To be able to witness the development
of the firm, especially in China, and also the
development of China, I consider myself really
lucky,” she says. “My timing was just
perfect.”
She helped set up the firm’s first office
in Guangzhou in 1979, followed by offices
in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen in the
1980s. And she was there to grapple with the
effects of the Tiananmen Square crackdown
in 1989. “I had to convince my partners, especially
those overseas, that China was still
a great market for the firm. It cast a lot of
doubt,” she remembers.
Retiring at the age of 55, she found that
Marina Wong
slowing down was not for her. “I guess I’m
still energetic. I think it’s important to keep
yourself to date with what’s going on in the
society, in the world and also the business
sector,” she said.
Like many of her retired peers, Wong is
applying her expertise and experience to
help companies as a director. As well as her
engagements at Kerry Properties and Hong
Kong Ferry, she was a director and consultant
of Tricor Services, a business consultancy,
from 2004 to 2006. In 2010, she took
up another independent non-executive director
position at China World Trade Center
Company, based in Beijing.
“If there is anything I can help with and
contribute, I certainly would like to.”
Bottling success
As chairman and self-professed “chief
talker” of Wan Corporate Services, a brandbuilding
and distribution business of consumer
products in the Asia Pacific, Vincent
Wan considers himself semi-retired. “I don’t
do any real work but I still keep busy. If there
are strategic things for me to take on, then
I’ll do it,” he says.
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Vincent Wan
Wan is talkative, a trait he developed
from years of working in a broad range of
industries. Wan was trained both as an accountant
and an industrial engineer and
went from founding his own consultancy
firm in 1979 to serving as the Asia Pacific director
of manufacturing for American jeans-
maker Levi Strauss & Co.
Then Wan decided to go into the world
of marketing. “I felt I should use the skills I
learned from accounting and from industrial
engineering to go on to communicate with
people,” he recalls.
“At the end of the day, as head of manufacturing
of a jeans company, I am not the
person who sits behind the sewing machine...
Levi’s is a very people-oriented organization
that was kind enough to give me the
opportunity.”
Shortly after his career at Levi’s, he established
Wan Corporate Services and has
since been engaged in the marketing and
distribution of consumer products including
Perrier.
The versatile Wan recalls feeling unimpressed
when a friend offered him his first
sip of the bottled fizzy water.
“The press were very surprised that I
was the first to answer the phone, but
because of this crisis I made it a rule that
nobody else apart from me should answer
incoming calls.”
“Back in 1978, Perrier wasn’t known in
Hong Kong. I tasted it and said, ‘What’s so
special?’ My friend said, ‘Time [magazine]
called it the marketing miracle of the decade.’
In New York in those years there was a
power drink – the martini. This was the new
definition of a power drink.”
Wan successfully launched Perrier
throughout the Asia Pacific and was equally
successful in handling a blow to the
product’s reputation in 1990, when small
amounts of benzene – a carcinogenic solvent
– were found in several bottles in the U.S.
“The press were very surprised that I was
the first to answer the phone, but because of
this crisis I made it a rule that nobody else
apart from me should answer incoming
calls,” he recalls. “I said: ‘If it’s a journalist
calling, let me handle it.’ ” The subsequent
worldwide recall by Perrier made the French
company seem responsible and Wan’s openness
made the brand name far more recognizable
in Hong Kong. “At that time I cannot
tell you I enjoyed it, but now thinking
back, it was a very good experience,” Wan
recalls.
Today, the products Wan’s company distributes
are mostly natural. “When I passed
the age of 50, I became less materialistic so
the way I look at life has changed. I don’t
believe in pharmaceutical products, I like
herbal, natural things and I believe in doing
exercise even at my age.”
Wan plays table tennis and squash twice
a week. “I don’t play all the four corners. I
play the back two corners and make sure I
don’t overstretch myself,” he says with a
laugh.
November 2012 27