Cecilia Ho: A Life Built on Connection

After over three decades in international banking, including senior roles at Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Standard Chartered, Cecilia Ho took a leap of faith and landed exactly where she belonged.

Today, as the President of the Lee Hysan Foundation, she spends her days connecting people, testing new ideas and creating lasting change across education, social welfare, health, arts and culture, and the environment.

Leaving the Banking World

Cecilia's pivot from high finance to philanthropy wasn't calculated. A governor from the Lee Hysan Foundation had initially approached her for candidate recommendations. While her referrals didn't pan out, the "failed" search gave Cecilia a front-row seat to the Foundation's inner workings. She found their vision unexpectedly moving, though she remained firmly rooted in the high-octane world of banking.

The real turning point came months later when the Foundation returned to Cecilia with a surprising proposal: they wanted her as President. At the time, she already had another lucrative banking offer on the table. But after 30 years of navigating volatile markets, where fortunes could vanish overnight, the prospect of building something permanent and impactful felt like the right move. "I told myself, 'Try it for one year. If it doesn't work, I can always go back to banking,'" she recalls. "But after a few months, I was in love with that job, and there was no turning back."

Those early months brought real challenges: she needed to align the mission and vision with the board, expand its strategic funding focus from education into social welfare, health, arts and culture, and the environment, and master an entirely new ecosystem of social players and community needs. But Cecilia wasn't starting from scratch; the relationship-building and complex problem-solving skills she had sharpened in banking became her greatest assets in this new territory.

At 66, Cecilia is often more energized than her retired peers, fuelled by the inspiration of the people she encounters. "Every day I meet passionate people," she says. "To me, every day is a new day." Central to this vitality is her philosophy of balance, which she has learned to protect with age and wisdom, alongside the support of her husband. While she once earned the nickname "CC Never Sleep" in banking, decades of experience have taught her to trade burnout for intentionality. She now protects Sundays for private time and has become more selective with evening events.

The Five C's

At the Lee Hysan Foundation, Cecilia's guiding philosophy rests on five principles: Connection, Collaboration, Co-funding, Co-creation and Catalytic effect. For Cecilia, strategic philanthropy is about acting as a catalyst to fill service gaps, test new models, and scale proven ideas into solutions that transform lives and create a legacy.

One initiative that still touches her deeply is the 2014 documentary My Voice, My Life. The film followed a group of less privileged and academically struggling secondary students over nine months as they prepared a large-scale musical. Directed by Hong Kong-born Oscar-winning filmmaker Ruby Yang, it captured their personal struggles, family tensions, and hard-won moments of confidence and growth.

The film found unexpected success, and the foundation used surplus proceeds to support the young cast with scholarships, medical help, and career opportunities. A sequel in 2020 followed their journeys further, and both films became teaching tools for life education in primary and secondary schools.

Another project close to her heart is the On-site Pre-School Rehabilitation Services (OPRS) pilot. From 2014 to 2018, the Foundation pioneered a model that integrated speech, occupational, and physiotherapy services directly into 10 kindergartens for children with special educational needs. This comprehensive approach, combining teacher training, parent counselling, and the essential home- and center-based support with rigorous research by The University of Hong Kong, proved its value. In 2018, the government adopted and scaled the model. Today, it supports over 10,000 children across more than 850 kindergartens.

Her belief in transformation extends to arts and culture. Having seen music and theatre build character, confidence, and empathy in underprivileged children and those with disabilities, she views creativity as a vital tool for growth, using different forms of art to teach, open hearts, and shape character and values. "Our goal isn't a perfect performance, but the profound change in the person taking part."

Paying it Forward

Mentorship runs through Cecilia's life. Early in her banking career, leaders pushed her beyond her comfort zone: making her the youngest branch manager, sending her to Canada to build a business from scratch, and later transferring her to the United States and expanding her responsibilities across Asia, the US and EMEA. "Each of these leaps required a certain amount of borrowed courage from those who believed in me." Today, she pays that forward by walking with her team, scholars and NGO partners. "Mentorship is not just about giving advice; it is about opening doors and walking alongside someone as they find their own path," she says.

Being a woman in leadership has deepened Cecilia's understanding of strength. In her early banking days, she sometimes felt she needed to hide her softer instincts. Over time, she discovered that empathy and rationality are not opposites, but powerful partners. "True strength isn't about having all the answers; it's about the courage to say, 'I don't know, let's find out together,'" she reflects. "That honesty is what actually builds real trust."

True strength isn't about having all the answers; it's about the courage to say, 'I don't know, let's find out together.'

The Meaning of Success

For Cecilia, success has nothing to do with wealth or status. Rather, she measures it in quiet, life-changing moments: a young person discovering their path, an elder living with dignity, a family growing closer, or a child with potential finally given the chance to shine.

She shares the story of a young woman she and her team have walked alongside since high school, providing the scholarships and grants that carried her through university, a Juris Doctor, and her Postgraduate Certificate in Laws. After visa setbacks derailed her boarding school dreams, she faced a painful season of academic struggle and depression that nearly led her to give up. Yet, with steady encouragement and practical support from the Foundation, she found the strength to return to her studies and heal. She is now building her career at one of Hong Kong's leading law firms.

Looking ahead, Cecilia is inspired by a new era of unity within Hong Kong's social sector, where old barriers are falling away to make room for true collaboration. With four years remaining before her retirement, she is focused on prevention, nurturing the character of the youth, and connecting different sectors to create a stronger, more collective safety net. Above all, she hopes to keep opening doors for the next generation so they may walk through with confidence.

Cecilia Ho embodies Winston Churchill's timeless wisdom: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." For her, these next few years are not a countdown to retirement, but a cherished opportunity to ensure that this same spirit of generosity continues to make the world a kinder, better place.