“Rafidah’s reaction was, how can we entice you to return? But [my peers] found Hong Kong and Chinese wives and settled in Hong Kong.” Hong Kong was considered the most forward-looking foreign city by many Malaysians at that time.
Gregory Seow, Singapore head of global banking at Maybank, reminisced during a recent interview as he sat in his office on the 30th floor of Maybank Tower, overlooking Marina Bay.
“The first time I went to Hong Kong to work, I joined the Malaysian Chamber (Malaysian Chamber of Commerce, Hong Kong and Macau) in 1998. The minister of trade and industry, Rafidah Aziz, came to visit. There were 30 of us, and I was the most junior in Hong Kong then. Every one of them told her they wouldn’t be returning to Malaysia and would settle in Hong Kong,” Seow recalls. Today, Seow is also the global head of the financial institutions and the global banking groups at Maybank. He is also a Singaporean.
