Not many newly
minted MBAs would hesitate if they were asked to play a major role in
shaping the future of a multimillion dollar company, but 25 years
ago, William Fung Kwok Lun wasn't sure it was the right choice for
him. "When I got out of Harvard, I was the stereotypical brash, young
MBA," recalls Fung, who had planned, like most of his classmates, to
work in the United States. So it was with some reluctance in July
1972, with the ink barely dry on his diploma, that Fung answered a
call from his mother to return to Hong Kong and help his father run
the family conglomerate, Li & Fung. "I told my father that I
didn't want to be in a family company," says Fung with a chuckle. The
elder Fung challenged his son to use his HBS skills to breathe new
life into the trading company, founded by Fung's grandfather in
Canton, China, in 1906. "To my father's great credit, he was totally
open-minded about what I could do," says Fung. "He was a visionary."
So William took on the challenge and went to work. Six months later, he presented a plan to professionalize Li & Fung's management by severing ties between the management and the family and taking the company public. His father accepted Fung's proposals, and by April 1973, Li & Fung was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. This early success was only the beginning of a distinguished business career that has established Fung, now 48, as one of Hong Kong's ablest and most dynamic corporate managers. With elder brother Victor, who earned a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard in 1971, Fung has built Li & Fung into a multinational trading and retailing company with 36 offices in 20 countries and an annual turnover of more than $1.6 billion.
In Hong Kong, where Li & Fung operates Toys 'R' Us and Circle K convenience store outlets, Fung reports that the transition from British rule back to Chinese sovereignty is proceeding smoothly. If anything, he says, 1979 - not 1997 - was more of a watershed date. That was the year Deng Xiaoping opened China's doors to the world. "Between 1949 and 1979, Hong Kong had developed world-class business expertise," he notes. "When China opened, we were at the right place and right time to take advantage of that opportunity."
Now that Hong Kong is part of China, the relationship between the two is bound to get even closer. Fung predicts that the mainland will be looking for funding and management skills to develop its infrastructure and revive heavy industry. "Guess who's going to be in there?" he says with a smile. "The guys who were sewing garments in Hong Kong in the 1970s will now be running steel plants in China." With the Hong Kong business community's solid network of contacts on the mainland, investors from the city are well placed to benefit from the new business climate.
While Fung credits Harvard with sharpening his analytical skills, doing business the Chinese way was something he had to learn on the job. "The social values are different," says Fung. "There is no saying here that 'business is business' - business and life are totally intertwined." For William Fung, running a business that has been in his family for almost a century is a life he is glad to have chosen.
by Alejandro Reyes
