Biography

Mr Ngai is currently a Senior Partner and the Managing Partner of McKinsey's Hong Kong office. He also leads McKinsey's Financial Institutions practice in Greater China. He has led many large-scale transformation efforts for financial institutions, as well as Hong Kong and Chinese conglomerates. He is the co-author of two editions of "Life Insurance in Asia" (2008 and 2012).

He has been appointed to various Government advisory committees, including the Financial Services Development Council and the Financial Infrastructure Committee of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. He is also a Board Member of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park and the Antiquities Advisory Board. He is also passionate about and active with several organizations on social enterprise, entrepreneurship and education topics.

A HK native, Mr. Ngai received his A.B. in economics from Harvard University as well as his JD and MBA from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.

Speech Title and Synopsis
Financial industry in Hong Kong: the end of an era?

Financial services contributed around over 16% of HK’s GDP and 6% of our employment. Over the past decade, the industry has grown at 7%, which is nearly double that of the overall economy. HK’s role as a financial center of Asia has been regularly cited as one of the most globally competitive propositions of our city.

From a macro perspective, this should be a golden age for Hong Kong’s financial sector. With the liberalization of the RMB and globalization of Chinese institutions, we are well positioned to capture much of the growth in financial services regionally, if not globally.

However, for many of Hong Kong’s financial professionals, the current environmentfeels more like the “end of an era” rather than the “beginning of a golden age”. Unprecedented job cuts, low profitability, retrenchment of businesses and uncertain future prospects represent much of the sentiment of the industry today.

Do you seethe glass half empty or half full? One thing is for certain – that the stage is changing. The only question is: who are the winners and losers?

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