Exclusive | From oil rigs to Wall St, HKEX chief executive Charles Li has seen it all – and is using his experience to diversify Hong Kong’s bourse
- HKEX chief executive has been voted the 2019 Businessperson of the Year at the DHL-SCMP Hong Kong Business Awards
- Not giving up on M&As, tie-ups following failure to acquire London Stock Exchange, Li says
Charles Li Xiaojia, the chief executive of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), has had a career that reflects the tremendous growth and seismic changes China’s economy has undergone over the past four decades. He is – by his own reckoning – adept at responding to change.
“My generation [went] through many changes, [so] we learned to adapt, anticipate, prepare for changes – and [to] make sure these changes reflected our values, so that they would do good,” Li, 58, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post. “Having done different things, you tend to look at things through different lenses … from different perspectives. When you face hurdles, challenges, or setbacks, past experiences help you survive and overcome obstacles.”
Adaptability has served Li well, catapulting him from an offshore oil rig in north-eastern China to one of Wall Street’s biggest banks within two decades, and since January 2010, to the highest-paid job in Hong Kong’s financial industry. It is also a quality that might help HKEX regain the coveted crown of the world’s fundraising capital for the seventh time in 11 years.
The exchange also opened up cross-border investment channels that let mainland Chinese investors tap Hong Kong shares, an innovation that has boosted HKEX’s capitalisation to HK$35.6 trillion (US$4.5 trillion), making it the third-largest bourse in Asia after the combined mainland Chinese markets and Tokyo.
