Hong Kong Academy for Wealth Legacy Expands “Impact Link” Platform, Focusing on Four Levers to Mobilize Family Office Capital into Strategic Philanthropy
Annual Board and Advisory Board Meeting hosted at an Integrated Children and Youth Services Centre, demonstrating HKAWL’s role as the crucial connector between family office capital, NGOs, and government policy

HONG KONG, 22 April 2026 – Against the backdrop of a global shift where next-generation family offices are increasingly prioritising impact, the Hong Kong Academy for Wealth Legacy (HKAWL) yesterday convened its annual Board of Directors and Advisory Board meeting to deepen its community engagement and outline strategic focus areas to scale local philanthropy. 

The gathering took place at the Integrated Children and Youth Services Centre in Shek Pai Wan Estate, which provides welfare services to meet the multifarious needs of children and youth aged 6-24, their significant others as well as the community by large. This venue was purposefully selected to serve as a live demonstration of HKAWL’s Impact Link (iLink) initiative in action. Members of the Board and Advisory Board learnt from the Labour and Welfare Bureau (LWB) the Government’s plan to introduce the "Co-build a Caring Society Funding Scheme" to encourage family offices to be involved in philanthropic endeavours as announced in the 2025 Policy Address and the LWB’s new pilot “Community Dining Hall” project, which will be featured in Impact Link for broader connection with family offices.

Commenting on the significance of the pilot project, Mr Kevin Li, Principal Assistant Secretary (Children) of the Labour and Welfare Bureau, stated: “The ‘Community Dining Hall’ project, as driven by the funds from a private donor and operated by an NGO, has enabled the Government to provide welfare services to and reach groups of the community in need. The Government will continue to support vulnerable groups through the tripartite collaboration among the Government, the business sector and the community, and to encourage family offices involved in philanthropic endeavours to provide resources for implementing projects that benefit disadvantaged groups”.

Led by Chairman Dr Adrian Cheng, alongside Vice-Chairman Mr Philip Sohmen, the annual meeting brought together prominent family principals, next generation leaders, industry experts, and ex-officio government representatives to amplify this collaborative model.

“As a premier global knowledge hub for family legacy, Hong Kong’s true strength lies in transforming wealth creation into a purposeful, lasting legacy,” said Dr Adrian Cheng, Chairman of HKAWL. “Impact Link’s inclusion of the government’s Community Dining Hall projects exemplifies our crucial role connecting government policy, family capital, and NGO operations, to drive Hong Kong's key position as a strategic philanthropic hub for family to build sustainable legacy. By gathering our board and advisors at the heart of a live community project, we witness firsthand the power of mobilised social capital. Our vision is to guide next-generation asset owners in channelling their resources into a lasting force for good, ensuring their legacies generate profound, long-term value both locally and internationally.”

Four key levers for future initiatives 

During the meeting, the Academy’s leadership mapped out a comprehensive roadmap to guide family wealth toward sustainable societal progress. The board and advisors outlined four key areas that Impact Link will strategically act as lever towards systematic change:

1. Cross-border Dialogue: Intentionally curate East-West, East-East dialogues to identify effective pathways to long-term impacts that family capitals should participate.
2. Bridging for Collaboration: Activate public-private, donor-donor, funders circle–funders circle, and family-family connections to break information silos and encourage collaborations to solve major issues.
3. From Wall Street to Broad Street: Guide family offices’ conversations from financial capital investments to social capital deployment.
4. Storytelling for impact:Leverage the intersection of multimedia and technology to scale awareness on social issues and impactful projects.

Extending the scope of Impact Link (iLink)

To actively address these [four] levers, HKAWL announced it will extend the scope of iLink. Launched in March 2024 to connect philanthropists with nominated charity projects, iLink has rapidly galvanized Hong Kong’s philanthropic ecosystem. Within iLink community, strategic partners and family partners express wildly diverse interests spanning across human capital development, health security and mental health, ageing well, sustainability and more. Since its inception, the initiative has built a community of 55 family partners and 5 strategic partners, equipped over 700 family participants through capacity-building workshops, and facilitated its first collective funding milestone—the “Legacy Reflection Pool” gifted to the Ex-Sham Shui Po Service Reservoir heritage site.

“Impact Link is leading a movement to guide family wealth towards being long-term, transformative social force,” said Angel Chia, Executive Director of HKAWL. “We are equipping next-generation philanthropists with a transparent learning journey and structured ladder to tangibly support causes they care about. Starting with featuring government’s Community Dining Hall project, Impact Link gets to demonstrate an opportunity family wealth capital can access easily to partner with government infrastructure and NGO implementation, to achieve social impact that is both scalable and transformative.”

Appendix 1: Meeting attendees

The HKAWL annual meeting was attended by its Board of Directors and Advisory Board members, representing a diverse coalition of industry leaders, including:

• Chairman: Dr Adrian Cheng
• Vice-Chairman: Mr Philip Sohmen
• Ex-officio government representative: Ms Alpha Lau
• Board Members:  Mr Ronald Chan, Ms Winnie Chiu, Prof. Roger King, Dr Rocky Tung
• Advisory Board & Corporate Governance Committee Members: Mr Alex Jiaravanont, Mr Adam Kwok, Mr David Lee, Mr Oliver Weisberg and Mr Marco Chu

Appendix 2: Photos (High-resolution images can be downloaded HERE)