INTHEBLACK April 2022 - Magazine - Page 35
CAREER: A
COMMERCIAL
INTEREST
CLICK HERE
TO LISTEN
to a
CPA Australia
podcast on
innovation at
work
pandemic, with unaffected or growing
businesses propping up the ones lagging due
to COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions.
While navigating the curveballs of the
pandemic and dealing with uncertainty, Ho
says he looked to trusted colleagues
for advice.
“This made me realise how thankful I am
for the people I work with,” Ho says. “It felt
as if there was nowhere to look for guidance
on the very best decisions to make, but a lot
of good strategic decisions could be made by
utilising advice from the frontlines.”
For example, when life insurance policy
sales plummeted during the pandemic, some
of FTLife’s most experienced agents told Ho
not to be concerned, but to instead use the
time to prepare for the enormous boost in
demand that will come after COVID-19 had
run its course.
“The company’s most experienced people
told me that during SARS the same thing
happened,” Ho says. “Once SARS passed,
demand spiked, so we moved towards
preparing for when that happens.”
G I L B E R T H O F C PA E A R N E D A D O U B L E D E G R E E I N
C O M M E R C E A N D L AW F R O M T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F
SY D N E Y, M A J O R I N G I N A C C O U N T I N G A N D F I N A N C E .
A F T E R T H AT, H E T O O K A S U M M E R J O B AT P W C I N
H O N G KO N G , B E F O R E A C C E P T I N G A T R A I N E E S H I P
AT A N I N T E R N AT I O N A L L AW F I R M I N H O N G KO N G .
“After university, I was
a blank sheet of paper,”
he says.
“I basically took
whatever opportunities I
could get at the time, but
I focused myself from the
beginning on corporate
finance and corporate law.
My accounting and
finance background
helped a lot.”
Ho became a partner
of international law firm
Fried, Frank, Harris,
Shriver & Jacobson LLP.
From there, his focus on
corporate and commercial
finance and law saw him
accept roles as chief
investment officer, CEO,
executive director and
managing partner with
various organisations,
mostly in Hong Kong
and Mainland China.
What drove his passion
for the corporate world?
“As a young lawyer, I
always admired people
who sat on the other side
of the desk making
commercial decisions,”
Ho says. “I found a great
connectivity between
finance and everyday life,
especially in Hong Kong,
where finance is a key
industry.”
The experience of the
past few years has
enabled Ho to put in
place various processes
and systems that
strengthen the
organisation as the
business world emerges
from the pandemic.
“We took the chance
to look at our businesses
to see where we could
create synergies between
units,” he says.
“Predictably, that has
mostly been in the
accounting, finance and
HR functions. Overall, in
terms of frontline people,
a lot of the skills are not
as transferrable because
of the unique nature of
each industry.”
Thinking outside the
box helped make some
more unusual
connections, too. “When
our company bought the
life insurance business in
2019, it looked like it was
very different from our
other businesses,” says
Ho.
“However, one question
I ask is, ‘What is the most
difficult part in growing
the life insurance
business?’ It’s getting new
customers, and what we
have with our group is a
wealth of different
customers. That’s where
the synergy comes.
“I think today’s
customers are very
sophisticated. They have
loyalty to a brand. Our
ecosystem can help
create loyalty for them,
and they can come to us
for our insurance service
and for other services.”
Most important for this
approach to be a success
is organisational culture.
“Culture is about speaking
up,” he says.
“Even if you’re the most
junior person, you can
provide your ideas to the
most senior, and they will
be taken seriously.
“Culture drives this
behaviour, as well as how
we use this information
from the frontline to drive
our decisions. That’s one
of the hardest things to
get right, but it has never
been more important.”
intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au April 2022 35