To mark International Women’s Day 2025, 100WFinTech, together with Deloitte and Endowus, hosted their annual female empowerment panel forum in Hong Kong: “Wealth HER Way 2025: Empowering Financial Independence”. The session, held on 4 March 2025 and moderated by Steffanie Yuen, 100WFinTech Global Committee member, and Managing Director and Head of Hong Kong at Endowus, was attended by more than 120 finance industry professionals.
Panelists, including Lora Yip, Managing Director and Head of Legal, Greater China, Blackrock, and President of the HK Federation of Women Lawyers; Vicky Kong, Chief Executive of Citibank (Hong Kong) Limited and Head of Wealth for the Asia North & Australia Cluster at Citi; Natalie Chan, Partner, Banking & Capital Markets Leader at Deloitte; and Joanne Hon, Managing Director at Equinix Hong Kong and Board Director at the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (AmCham HK) reflected on their personal journeys, and discussed how women can cultivate financial confidence and take steps towards achieving long-term financial independence.
Some key takeaways:
- Know yourself before you begin your investment journey. We all have unique circumstances, distinct life goals and varying risk preferences. Build an investment portfolio that is tailored to you. Keep your investment costs low as they could eat up your returns in the long-run, and stay diversified.
- Investment strategies can change at different life stages. Although daily review of investments may not be essential for long-term investors, critical life milestones, like marriage and parenthood, are opportune moments to review your investment strategy and portfolio.
- Females are not worse investors. Numerous studies indicate that female investors, on average, tend to outperform male counterparts. This is attributed to women’s tendency to conduct thorough research, adopt a long-term investment horizon, and engage in less frequent trading.
- Technology’s role in empowerment. Technological advancements have made personal investing more accessible, personalized, and cost-effective. We should leverage these tools to capitalize on the compounding effect of investing early.
Special thanks to AmChamHK, Fintech Association of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Federation of Women Lawyers and Hong Kong Independent Non-Executive Director Association for their support.
To learn more about 100WFinTech Visibility Initiative:
https://100women.org/initiatives/100womenfintech/