Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1995

citations Dr. Peter Kwong-Ching Woo D.Litt., JP Peter Kwong-ChingWoo was born in the city of Shanghai in the year 1946. The son of a German trained architect, he was scarcely four years old when his parents brought him to Hong Kong where young Peter attended St. Stephen's Primary School at Stanley. The Woos are a far-sighted, cosmopolitan family and Woo Kwong-Ching did not have a conventional upbringing. At the age of 12, for instance, he was sent on a tour of the world on his own and was to spend the next two months broadening his horizons and learning to look after himself without the help of teachers or parents. It was the kind of experience you either relished or loathed, and Peter Woo thrived on it. He learned to rely on himself from an early age and to keep his own counsel; he also learned he had to get ahead. Even at high school, also at St. Stephen's, he had distinguished himself in sports as captain of the swimming team for four years running and was school prefect. His education continued at theUniversity of Cincinnati where he majored in physics andmathematics and graduated as the elected senior class president. This was followed by Columbia Business School where he received the degree of Master of Business Administration. The choice of his postgraduate studies pointed to an inclination towards the world of business and it was the ChaseManhattan Bank which offered Peter Woo his first job in commercial banking. After coming top of his Chase programme, Mr. Woo first worked for the bank in New York and then in Hong Kong. He joined Sir Y. K. Pao'sWorld-Wide Shipping Group in 1975, but in what might sound astonishing to our young people today, he did not ask what his position or pay would be. Instead, he asked for time to learn the basics about the shipping business and promptly enrolled himself in a course at the British Maritime Institute at Plymouth. What followed after that is a classic story of hard work, trials, tribulations and astounding success as Peter Woo masterminded the takeover of the Wharf Company from the Jardine Group and rose to head a business empire which encompasses real estate, television, telecommunications, hotel, retail and distribution, container terminal, public transport, and lately investment banking. Today, the Wheelock Group of which Mr. Woo is chairman has net assets in excess of US$12 billion. In the course of the last 19 years, Mr. Woo has made many landmark achievements. He became the chief executive of the Wharf Company at the age of 36. He was the youngest member of Chemical Bank's International Advisory Board at the age of 37. He became chairman of both World International (Holdings) Ltd. (now Wheelock) and the Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. at the age of 40, 48th Congregation 8