FOREWORD BY THE ZUBIN FOUNDATION

Welcome to Diversity List 2017 and thank you for supporting greater racial inclusion in Hong Kong.

Diversity List 2016 was a great success and to date (1 February 2017), 5 out of the 16 candidates have been newly appointed to government advisory committees. This is a remarkable 31% take up in a mere 10 months.

The Diversity List is essentially the “best in class” in the ethnic minority community. The list presents smart and competent Hong Kong people who want to contribute to the future of Hong Kong. These individuals are from various ethnic, work and professional backgrounds and our belief is that their skills and experiences will be an asset to many advisory committees. This year over one third of our candidates are women and, in addition, many more ethnicities are represented in this list.

This year, too, we have created a Community Connectors category. This comprises individuals who have deep connections in their community and have spent, in most cases, decades working with their grass roots members on day to day issues that arise in Hong Kong. The Community Connectors category is a “go to” list for government and NGOs that wish to gain deeper insights..

Our advisory partner Spencer Stuart, once again, has been a delight to work with. They have brought independence, rigour and vast experience to the process of shortlisting, interviewing and selecting candidates. To Alice Au and Katherine Liu-Bevan, as well as the Spencer Stuart Hong Kong team, a heartfelt thank you.

Many thanks too to our financial sponsors Town House, Caravel Foundation and India Association Hong Kong and to the many organisations that helped to spread the word.

Our call to action this year is to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (HKSARG) to continue to consider ethnically diverse candidates for appointments onto advisory committees. In addition, our call to action is to NGOs and charitable foundations, many of whom work with ethnic minority beneficiaries but have no ethnic minorities on their boards. The Diversity List is a readymade directory of high calibre candidates for you to consider. Not only will these candidates bring a different perspective to your work, our belief is that they will make your board stronger and more respresnentative of Hong Kong.

Congratulations to the individuals on Diversity List 2017 and Community Connectors 2017. We look forward to working together with all of you, towards a better, stronger, and more inclusive Hong Kong.