Hong Kong Computer Society - enterpriseinnovation.net

COVERSTORY
HKCS: 40 years
IT paves way to the top
Paul Chow charts his path from mainframe punchcard programming languages to the
dizzy heights of Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd (HKEx)
By Chee Sing Chan
Computerworld Hong Kong (CWHK):
Where did your career in IT begin?
career path when you first joined the
industry?
Paul Chow (PC): After studying mechanical
engineering at the University
of Hong Kong, I took on a role in the
Public Works Department of the Hong
Kong Government but I soon moved to
IBM. I was a systems engineer there
and I used my knowledge in Fortran,
RPG and Assembly language to support
mainframe systems. I was not a programmer
as such but more of a systems
analyst. Then in 1973, I joined Sun
Hung Kai, one of IBM’s key customers
at the time.
I spent 15 years at Sun Hung Kai. During
this period, I participated in various
business segments and functions—securities
and commodities, deposit / savings,
credit cards, as well as mortgage operations.
In these roles, I was able to apply
the IT skills which I had developed over
the previous years and automated operations
to bring about greater efficiency.
Then in 1989 I joined HKEx as director
of operations and technology. I was
responsible for running the trading operations
and maintaining the trading and
information dissemination systems. A
Stock Exchange relies very much on the
use of technology in all its operations,
and so, although my roles have changed
over the years, my connection with the
IT world has continued.
CWHK: How was IT perceived as a
PC: Even though people at that time
were just starting to explore and understand
the use of technology, few would
doubt its power in shaping businesses.
Many people were already aware of
the benefits IT could bring in storing,
sorting, indexing and retrieving electronic
data. Most businessmen had a
general idea of what IT professionals
were doing in the 70s but I think none
at the time could foresee the impact
IT would bring to people’s lives thirty
years later.
It was in the 1970s that I joined the
Hong Kong Computer Society. I was
very green and inexperienced then and I
wanted to gain exposure through participating
in the Computer Society’s activities
and exchanging experience with its
members.
CWHK: How does IT as a career compare
to other fields and industries?
PC: IT is a very interesting discipline.
It’s extremely broad in scope and is quite
difficult to define—there are programmers,
hardware specialists, telecoms
operators, software architects and so
on who may be applying technology to
solve different business problems. Although
there are different areas of expertise
in the IT arena, underpinning each
is still the common technological frame-
Paul Chow, Chief Executive, Hong Kong
Exchanges and Clearing Ltd. Distinguished
Fellow, Hong Kong Computer Society
work and system logics.
While the IT profession can be very
specialized, the application of technology
is very wide and it extends across
different industries and functions. It is
not difficult to witness the significant
contributions IT has made to different
industries, from the mass transit systems
to horseracing, to banking to aviation,
etc.
We have also been taking technology
for granted that we almost forget how
much it has assimilated into our daily
lives and how indispensable it is to all
of us. In fact you could ask all the lawyers
and accountants to stop working
for a day and I bet the world would continue
– but if all the IT systems stopped
continued on page 26 4
24 Computerworld Hong Kong Nov 2009 www.cw.com.hk