Honorary University Fellows
Dr Jimmy Tang Kui Ming is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of the Prince Jewellery and Watch Company.
Dr Tang has long been an advocate for the higher education sector, and over the years has lent his support and counsel to the University of Hong Kong in many ways. These include, inter alia, helping to keep the HKU spirit alive in our graduates through a variety of alumni reunions and fundraising events, lending his leadership and service as an Honorary President of the HKU Foundation, and establishing the Jimmy and Emily Tang Professorship in Molecular Genetics in 2014 to promote and support the study and application of genomic and regenerative medicine.
In 2006, Dr Tang was presented with the World Outstanding Chinese Award by the World Chinese Business Investment Foundation, conferred an Honorary Doctorate from Armstrong University that same year, and conferred an Honorary Fellowship from the Professional Validation Centre of the Hong Kong Business Sector in 2010. He was invited to be a member of the Court of New Asia College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2011, and was conferred an Honorary University Fellowship by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2013.
Dr Tang was named the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in the 2013 China Awards in the Category of Consumer Products and “CAPITAL Leaders of Excellence 2013”, and presented with the “Owner-Operator Award” in the DHL/SCMP Hong Kong Business Awards in 2014, for his personal achievements and contributions to society.
Dr Tang was awarded the Medal of Honour by the HKSAR Government in 2010, and appointed a Justice of the Peace in 2015.
Citation written and delivered by Professor Gabriel LEUNG, Dean of Medicine
This honorand’s career trajectory has been a microcosm of Hong Kong’s evolving economy. Foremost, his has been an entrepreneurial venture. He typifies the best of Hong Kong entrepreneurs who always stays one step ahead by combining an acute, anticipatory business sense with an almost reflexive adaptability in response to changing circumstances.
The focus of his trade has been trained on watches, from the then colony’s pillar manufacturing industry to the more recently emerged retail sector catering to the entire country. Since 1981 when his first “shop” consisting of no more than a display stand selling utilitarian watches opened underneath a stairwell on Hankow Road, his jewelry and luxury watches empire has grown with the ebbs and flows of the local economy. Having started to expand steadily after the introduction of the mainland visitor scheme following the SARS outbreak and flush with capital, he took further advantage of the competitive vacuum created by the 2007-8 global financial crisis to accelerate his group’s market penetration throughout Greater China and to diversify its offering to gold and diamond jewelry.
A bonesetter’s son who has always just wished for a better life for his family, our honorand takes most satisfaction from training up his son and nephew to take steer of the family business. His magnanimity has driven him to look after not only his flesh and blood, but also the next generation writ large. He has advised an academic college, established a scholarship fund, built a lecture theatre and most recently endowed HKU’s professorship in molecular genetics. These philanthropic investments will yield manifold returns in the form of a better society for decades to come.
Our honorand is the quintessential homo economicus sinensis or “economic man with Chinese characteristics”. Like most with a Confucian heritage, Tang values his family above all. As per Taoist thought, he minds his many and varied business interests like water that flows and adapts to the contours of the riverbank. He never forces issues against the grain, rather simply and pragmatically finds equilibrium with ever changing conditions. Make no mistake though because wuwei (無爲) is never taken at face value by this most successful of businessmen. He would relentlessly pursue economic value at the margins towards Pareto optimality. For neoclassical economists, he is the virtually perfect rational agent in their general equilibrium models. He and his ilk have prospered under Hong Kong’s legacy of having been positively non-interventionist, which alas has attracted a tad too much political interest of late.
For his grit and grace in business, for spurring scholarly pursuits through supporting education, and for living Hong Kong’s “can-do” spirit, with enormous pleasure I commend to you, Mr Pro Chancellor, my fellow Panyu (番禺) brethren Jimmy TANG Kui Ming for the Honorary University Fellowship.