Why we
Exist
In 2011, Michael Porter and Mark Kramer published an article in Harvard Business Review that changed how many companies think about strategy. They showed that the most durable competitive advantages come from addressing real social problems. They called it Creating Shared Value.
Shared Value Initiative Hong Kong was founded to make the shared value framework actionable in Hong Kong SAR and Mainland China. As a registered charity, we work with companies, NGOs, and academia to accelerate shared value creation through long-lasting and profitable business models that address unmet societal needs.
Our
vision
A thriving world where tackling societal problems is not separate from business strategy, but is the strategy
Our
purpose
Our purpose is to help organisations identify where business strategy and societal need align, and build the evidence to show it works.
Our
Culture
We are a team of co-creators sharing accountability for the work and a doer mindset.
We disrupt with purpose
We are open to failure
1+1=3 is our mantra
We are constantly reinventing
We like to spice up work
We keep learning
Our board
Gordon Watson
Founding Chair, Shared Value Initiative Hong Kong and Director of Shared Value Project Australia & New Zealand Read More
Gordon Watson
Gordon Watson is the non-executive Chairman of AXA Asia. Gordon has an MBA and is both a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute and the Society of Marketing.
Prior to joining AXA, he was with AIG/AIA for over thirty years most recently as Regional Chief Executive responsible for AIA Group’s operations in Hong Kong & Macau, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam and New Zealand as well as the Group’s Corporate Solutions, Healthcare, Partnership and AIA Vitality businesses.
Peter Yates AM
Peter is Deputy Chairman of The Myer Family Investments Ltd and a Director of AIA Australia Limited. He holds a Doctorate of the University from Murdoch University, a Masters degree from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a Commerce degree from the University of Melbourne.
In 2011 he was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for service to education, to the financial services industry and to a range of arts, science and charitable organisations. From 2004-2007 Peter was Managing Director of Oceania Capital Partners and held the position of Chief Executive Officer of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited from 2001-2004. Until 2001 he worked in the investment banking industry including 15 years with Macquarie Bank.
Virginia Wilson
Leading private and social enterprises for over 25 years in multilateral, culturally diverse environments, Virginia is passionate about bringing to life measurable impact and creating new value in our society.
Virginia has a demonstrated track record of securing strategic partnerships between corporations, governments, and non-profits to deliver on social impact projects. She started her career in telecommunications, building satellites, and the distribution of free-to-air television across 60 countries in Asia.
Virginia focuses on education, believing that investing in people is the key driver for impactful change. Bringing together diversity and crossing cultural divides is a pathway to create Shared Value in our world, aligning purpose with profit.
After serving on the board of several educational institutions including ESF and the VTC, Virginia is now a member of the Board of Directors of the Adecco Group Foundation in Switzerland a social innovation lab, incubating and accelerating new solutions in the world of work.
Cindy Tong
Cindy Tong is the General Counsel and Head of Compliance for AXA Asia. She oversees the legal and compliance functions for AXA in seven Asia jurisdictions including Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
The AXA Asia Legal team is responsible for all mergers, acquisitions and partnership work for AXA in Asia and assists the AXA Asia CEO in shareholder governance matters. The AXA Asia Compliance team works in close collaboration with the compliance teams in all AXA Asian entities on rolling out and implementing all AXA Group compliance topics such as the AXA Standards, and initiatives covering financial crimes, data privacy, anti-bribery and consumer protection, and supports local compliance teams in understanding their local compliance topics. Cindy also sits on a number of boards for AXA in Asia.
Before joining AXA in 2009, Cindy worked in the law firms of Baker & McKenzie and Linklaters in Hong Kong, where she focused her practice on China corporate work and cross-border M&A transactions. Cindy also spent 10 years in Canada, where she obtained her law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University in Toronto, before moving back to Hong Kong.
Our expert faculty
Karen Seymour
Karen is Chief Impact Officer at the World Flourishing Organization (WFO), igniting a global movement for flourishing to unlock potential in people, create lasting value for business and society and make flourishing the true measure of success.
Previously, as Hong Kong’s first Chief Purpose Officer, she worked with leaders and teams to define, activate and strategically align their organisation’s unique and powerful purpose to fuel high performance and build thriving employees and businesses. Her career has been focused at the intersection of business and social impact, where shared value lives and where opportunities for sustainable growth are amplified.
She led the corporate Foundation and Community Engagement at global supply chain architect Li & Fung and has held other senior leadership roles at multinational companies in diverse industries including the financial markets (at State Street Global Advisors, MSCI, Datastream and Manulife). She also led start ups in media, social impact and wellness. She is a regular speaker on purpose and impact and has spent decades serving in communities and sparking awareness and action.
Karen is an Advisor and Board Member to for-impact organisations focused on neurodiversity, women’s empowerment, education, creating shared value, and carbon asset management. She thrives on big ideas, meaningful collaborations, and adventures in the ocean and mountains with family and friends.
Mark Kramer
Mark Kramer co-authored "Creating Shared Value," the 2011 Harvard Business Review article that gave the CSV framework its name — and won that year's McKinsey Award for best HBR article.
With Prof. Michael Porter, he co-founded FSG, a global mission-driven consulting firm that supports shared value practice across the world's largest foundations, public institutions, and corporations. Mark has spoken and published extensively on topics in philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, shared value, collective impact, strategic evaluation, and impact investing. He is a former senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and a visiting lecturer at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Patricia Lau
Mrs Lau has over 30 years of senior management and consulting experience. She was the Deputy Commissioner for Efficiency at the Efficiency Office in the Innovation and Technology Bureau of the HKSAR Government. Whilst in the government, she was responsible for leading initiatives regarding social innovation, design thinking and cross-government operations such as the 1823 contact centre and Youth Portal. In particular, Mrs Lau established and led the Secretariat in support of the $500 million Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund) Task Force under the Commission on Poverty. Together with the Task Force, Mrs Lau reached out to many non-government organisations, family or corporate foundations and business executives who shared similar aspirations in tackling poverty related issues in Hong Kong. She advocated multi-disciplinary and cross sector collaborations in solving social issues and creating shared value in the business sector.
Terence Yuen
Dr. Terence Yuen is Senior Consultant at Social Value International. In this capacity, he joined an international project team to assist in the implementation of the UNDP SDG Impact Standards that aim to facilitate enterprises and investors to embed impact considerations into the decision-making and practices for strategy, management, transparency, and governance. A certified public accountant and an accredited social value practitioner and SROI trainer, Terence has close to three decades of experience in areas including accounting and audit, impact measurement and management, policy and program evaluation, philanthropy and nonprofit management, and impact investing and social entrepreneurship. Terence founded the Hong Kong Institute of Social Impact Analysts (HKI-SIA) in 2013 and has been serving as its Executive Director ever since. As a network member of Social Value International, HKI-SIA has been joining hands with likeminded professionals around the globe to advocate for changing the way our society accounts for value, building professional knowledge to increase the likelihood that organisations of all kinds are contributing positively to sustainability and the SDGs.
Our team
Bonnie Cheng
Bonnie brings to Shared Value Initiative Hong Kong her past experience in similar capacities of operation and office management, accounting, human resources, project coordination and account servicing from industries of medical, IT, marketing and hospitality.
Bonnie is responsible for the operation and office administration for the team, providing a full range of back-end support in programme planning and implementation, database management, calendar scheduling, event logistics, office administration, accounting, human resources and reporting functions.
Being an active amateur sailor she sees first-hand what the environment especially the ocean is facing, from pollution and destruction of habitats, to marine life threats and climate change.
Bonnie believes that having shared value embedded into business and cross-sector collaboration will bring positive impact working towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
Virginie Ostrowski
Virginie leads SVIHK as Chief Executive Officer. She brings together strategic communications, cross-sector partnership, and a practitioner's understanding of how organisations drive change.
Her background spans journalism, communications, and sustainability leadership across industries and multiple continents. Before joining SVIHK, she drove the growth of a shared value cluster in transport and energy infrastructure, connecting academics, public bodies, and private companies to tackle shared challenges.
Originally from France, she has lived in Germany, Eastern Europe, Canada, and Hong Kong, where she discovered open-water swimming.
Rachael Ma
Rachael leads partnership development and programme delivery at SVIHK. She brings over ten years of experience across Hong Kong's NGO and education sectors. Passionate about connecting capital to social impact, she builds the stakeholder relationships and operational frameworks that make cross-sector programmes work in practice.
About
Shared Value Initiative Hong Kong is the regional hub of a global shared value network spanning five continents. Our sister organisations in Australia, India, Africa, Europe, and the Americas share a common methodology and a commitment to making Creating Shared Value a mainstream business practice. Our work in Hong Kong is informed by insights from different markets at different stages of the shared value journey. It also means our partners gain access to a global perspective on how the practice is evolving.
