I’m honored to have been named a finalist for Business Owner of the Year at the SCMP Business Awards 2025. It’s been a meaningful day, and it made me think about what this work has really been about for almost 30 years.
Early in my career, I worked with the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Cadbury families, but in 1997, I made a choice. I believed the next generation of great families would be built in China and across the Greater Bay Area. That wasn’t obvious then. It is now.
A problem that I have seen over and over is when family dynamics break down, capital freezes, businesses stall, and relationships fracture. Succession disputes, divorces, and next-generation transitions are disruptive. The money isn’t usually the problem. It’s who decides what, how, and who can guide the next generation.
So I’ve built something that treats wealth and relationships as one system. Institutional investment management paired with family governance and accredited mediation. When a family resolves a dispute, capital moves into clear, agreed-upon structures that can hold across borders and generations.
Legal resolutions are just the beginning. Financial structures need to be sustainable in the long term, alongside the family with love.
This means working on family collaborative and mediation cases where the goal is to protect children and keep businesses running. It means building Hong Kong’s first SFC-registered Open-ended Fund Company (OFC) as a transparent onshore vehicle where families can park and grow capital with confidence. And it means showing families that funds and asset management can work, here, in Hong Kong.
What’s been encouraging is watching the OFC become a template others can follow. Hong Kong’s progress as a GBA (Greater Bay Area) wealth center is real, and it’s the result of serious work by the government, regulators, service providers, and families willing to build something new.
I’m grateful to play a role in all of this, and to be thankful to everyone who has been part of making this possible.
Thank you,
Ann Cooley
