20 November 2012

Veteran members

f all the ornaments, pho-tographs and paintings, one piece stands out in Sanford Yung’s beauti-

fully kept living room. On a dark wood book-stand 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 San-ford Yung, a retired accountant, a member of the Hong Kong Institute of CPAs, founder of Sanford Yung & Co. and a former chair-man of Coopers & Lybrand (now Pricewater-houseCoopers), 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-grandfa-ther’s commitment to education. After retir-ing, he established the Sanford Yung Schol-ars Programme for Excellence in Accounting Studies in 2001, which began in Hong Kong and later expanded to Shanghai and Beijing.

Like Yung, many retired CPAs have had vibrant careers and have witnessed – indeed were involved in – the shaping of the ac-counting profession.

But even in retirement, with the can-do attitude they developed as accountants, many are finding themselves achieving new ambitions.

History makerTwo 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 pres-ence 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

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

WORKING OVERTIME

November 2012 21

“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

22 November 2012

from practice I had a staff of 750. So the ex-pansion was quite rapid and quite gratify-ing,” 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 Corpo-ration. 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 & Ly-brand. 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 Mercan-tile was now a subsidiary of Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, alluding to the parent bank’s policy of allowing only ex-patriates into the secrets of its financial re-cords. “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 histo-ry 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 Pro-gramme 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 stu-dents from Hong Kong to do internships in PwC London. And those from Shanghai and Beijing we second to New York for intern-ship. This is very meaningful.”

Yung is also chief donor to the Sir Ed-ward Youde Memorial Fund, which was established in 1987 in memory of the gover-nor of Hong Kong between 1982 and 1986, who died suddenly on a visit to Beijing. “Two days after his death I sent HK$1 mil-lion to start the memorial fund and now ev-ery year I contribute money,” he says.

The fund, which bestows fellowships,

scholarships and education awards to out-standing students in Hong Kong, has contrib-uted about HK$21 million to nearly 600,000 students over 25 years, says Yung. “The par-ents 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 ac-counting being somewhat different to the

programmes students experience today.As part of her training, the now retired Insti-tute 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

Veteran members

November 2012 23

A PLUS

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 An-dersen in 1973, volunteered to go to the Main-land 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-

ment agencies. Everything was very dif-ficult,” 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.

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 govern-ment as a Hong Kong adviser for the prepara-tory 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.”

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 pa-tients in China and an increase of 500,000 patients each year, Fong is working to ex-pand the reach of her trains. “We are now training local doctors to do cataract opera-tions 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. Presi-dent 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 en-gaged with the charity’s work, addressing issues such as the lack of senior eye doctors in China. “I went all over the world, ap-pealed 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 sandwich-es was just one of T. Brian Stevenson’s duties while working for an audit group, fresh out of university in Scotland. “It was a master-servant relationship, that’s how it was,” re-

“We are now training local doctors to do cataract operations and setting up cataract centres in local hospitals.”

Nellie Fong

Veteran members

24 November 2012

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. “Nowa-days 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 presi-dent. “Rugby has really developed in Hong Kong and I’ve been involved in the Hong Kong Sevens. It’s been fortunate being in-volved 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

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 amaz-ing 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 Cor-poration, looks back fondly at an eventful four decades in Hong Kong.

He helped set up the accounting firm Tur-quands 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 furni-ture to put into the office and ended up with

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 an-nounced, Stevenson was appointed senior partner of Ernst & Whinney for Asia. “I was dealing with people older than me, more se-nior than me from across the world in pull-ing the firm together.”

While managing the rapid growth of the firm was a challenge, Stevenson says man-aging 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 ex-perience they won the engagement.

“I’m a very competitive person, which comes from sports, and I apply that to busi-

“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.”

T. Brian Stevenson

November 2012 25

ness as well,” says Stevenson. “I do want to try and win.”

Right time, right placeWhen 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 fur-ther. “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 non-executive 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 volun-teered to help spearhead the development of the firm’s business in China, just as the Main-land 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 re-ally 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, es-pecially 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

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 consul-tant of Tricor Services, a business consul-tancy, from 2004 to 2006. In 2010, she took up another independent non-executive di-rector 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 successAs chairman and self-professed “chief talker” of Wan Corporate Services, a brand-building and distribution business of con-sumer 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.

“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.”

Marina Wong

November 2012 27

Wan is talkative, a trait he developed from years of working in a broad range of industries. Wan was trained both as an ac-countant and an industrial engineer and went from founding his own consultancy firm in 1979 to serving as the Asia Pacific di-rector 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 industri-al engineering to go on to communicate with people,” he recalls.

“At the end of the day, as head of manu-facturing of a jeans company, I am not the person who sits behind the sewing ma-chine... Levi’s is a very people-oriented orga-nization that was kind enough to give me the opportunity.”

Shortly after his career at Levi’s, he es-tablished Wan Corporate Services and has since been engaged in the marketing and distribution of consumer products including Perrier.

The versatile Wan recalls feeling unim-pressed when a friend offered him his first sip of the bottled fizzy water.

“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 de-cade.’ 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 equal-ly 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 open-ness made the brand name far more recog-nizable in Hong Kong. “At that time I can-not tell you I enjoyed it, but now thinking back, it was a very good experience,” Wan recalls.

Today, the products Wan’s company dis-tributes 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.

“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.”

Vincent Wan