Prof. Simon S.M. Ho’s Biography
Professor Simon Shun-Man HO has served as President of The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HSUHK) since 16 March 2014.
He was born and received basic education in Hong Kong. He obtained a BA (Management and Psychology) from the University of Washington (USA), a MSc (with Distinction) in Information Systems from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK), a PhD in Accounting and Finance from the University of Bradford (UK), a Certificate in Higher Education Management and Leadership from the University of California, Berkeley (USA), and a Certificate in Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management from Harvard Business School. He was a Commonwealth Scholar and is a certified public accountant in the UK, Australia and Canada.
Currently, he is Editor of the Asian Journal of Business Ethics (Springer), and Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Business Ethics (Springer), Advances in Business Ethics Research (Springer), and the “Corporate Governance Literature Series” of Nankai University.
In public services, he is Chairman of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Community Relations and Member of the Advisory Committee on Corruption, Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption. He is also Chairman of the Hong Kong Corporate Governance Forum, Chairman of the Training Committee and Member of the Executive Committee of the Scout Association of Hong Kong, Council Member of the China Higher Education Association, Board Member of Monte Jade Science and Technology Association, Board Member of the Hong Kong-ASEAN Economic Cooperation Foundation (HKAECF) and Advisor to a number of international bodies. He serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University, Australia, Honorary Advisor of the Hong Kong Professionals and Senior Executives Association, Advisor of the Dashun Foundation and Advisor of the Our Hong Kong Foundation.
Prior to joining HSUHK, Professor Ho was Vice Rector (Academic Affairs) of the University of Macau (UM) from 2009 to 2014. Before that he served as Dean of the School of Business and concurrently as Founding Director of the Centre for Corporate Governance and Financial Policy (CCGFP) at the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) from 2004 to 2009. Previously, he taught at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) from 1982 to 2004 receiving several excellent teaching and research awards, and he was the Director of the School of Accountancy from 1995 to 2002.
Under his leadership, CUHK became the first accounting school outside North America to receive The Association to Advance Collegiate School of Business (AACSB) accreditation in 1998. In 1996, he initiated and established the “Dragon League”, an academic alliance among the four accounting schools of CUHK, Peking University, Fudan University and National Taiwan University. In 1998, he also co-founded the Master in Professional Accountancy Programme jointly organised by CUHK and the Shanghai National Institute of Accounting. At HKBU, he was the first business school dean in Asia to sign up for the UN Principles of Responsible Education (PRME), and led an undergraduate student team winning the world champion of the CFA Institute’s Global Investment Research Challenge in 2008.
At the University of Macau as Vice Rector (Academic Affairs), his major achievements include planning for its Asia’s largest residential college system, implementing undergraduate curriculum reforms, launching the unique common general education programme, reforming the Faculty and teacher management system, developing the 10-Year UM Development Strategy, founding the Honorary College, and designing the academic buildings and facilities in the new Hengqin campus.
Before his academic career, Professor Ho was an audit staff member at a certified public accountants’ firm, a financial system analyst, and an assistant consultant at the Hong Kong Productivity Council. He was the Founding President of the Hong Kong Academic Accounting Association (HKAAA), Vice President of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research (IAAER), Chairperson of the Organizing Committee of the 2002 IAAER World Congress of Accounting Educators, Member of several committees of Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA), Founding Vice President of the Hong Kong Professionals and Senior Executives Association (HKPASEA), Board Member of the Hong Kong Securities and Investment Institute (HKSI), Member of Academic Committee of the Hong Kong Scholar Scheme of the Society of Hong Kong Scholars, Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Journal of Business Ethics and the Hong Kong Journal of Business Management, Guest Editor of the Management Accounting Research and Journal of Business Ethics, and Member of the editorial boards of several international academic journals.
Professor Ho also served as Member on a number of committees in the Hong Kong SAR Government. These include Investor Education Advisory Committee of the Securities and Futures Commission, Board of Review (Inland Revenue), Securities and Futures Appeals Tribunal, Deposit Protection Appeals Tribunal, Advisory Committee on Human Resources Development in the Financial Services Sector, Advisory Group on Directors and Officers Related Provisions (AG3), and the Public Education Committee of Independent Commission Against Corruption.
As an internationally known scholar on corporate governance, Professor Ho developed and taught the first university master’s course on corporate governance in Hong Kong at CUHK in 1993. He assisted the Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR) of the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in developing international corporate governance and disclosure guidelines. In 2004, he developed and launched the world’s first MSc Programme in Corporate Governance and Directorship as well as the Inaugural Asia-Pacific Corporate Governance Conference held in Hong Kong. In 2005, he co-founded the biennial ‘World Business Ethics Forum’ organised jointly by HKBU and UM. Since 2005, under the sponsorship of the World Bank, he has served as Lecturer on “International Corporate Governance” at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Finance, China.
In 2006, he initiated and formed a strategic alliance with more than 15 other corporate governance research centres in the world. In 2007, he was the key person in developing the Hong Kong Corporate Governance Excellence Awards and the Hong Kong Corporate Governance Charter, organised jointly by the Hong Kong Chamber of Listed Companies and the CCGFP of HKBU. During 1993 to 2015 he was the author of the weekly “Corporate Governance” Column of the Hong Kong Economic Journal, leading to 3 books from his article collections which are widely used by corporations and universities for reference.
In recognition of his contributions to corporate governance and stakeholder model, he was the first Chinese awarded the Faculty Pioneer Award (described as Oscar of the business school world by the Financial Times) by the Aspen Institute, USA in 2008. Further, he was elected as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics 2008 by Ethisphere, one of the world’s most recognised bodies in business ethics and anti-corruption. In 2013, in recognition of his distinguished contribution to the CSR of Chinese family businesses, he was granted the Chinese Family Business Research Pioneer Award by the China Private Enterprise Economic Research Association, China.
He was granted three times the sectional Best Paper Award by the Annual Meetings of American Accounting Association. In 2016, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Gordon College, U.S.A. His co-authored Chinese book (with P.K. Ip) Founders’ Values and Corporate Culture Construction: Ho Sin Hang and Hang Seng Bank’s Early Culture was granted the “Publishing Award” by the Hong Kong Publishing Professionals Society in 2021. In 2021, he was conferred the Outstanding Achievement Award by The Professional Validation Council of Hong Kong Industries. In 2024, he was bestowed the Global Outstanding Chinese Award by the Global Outstanding Chinese Association.
In recent years, at HSUHK, President Ho actively develops the non-profit private university sector in Hong Kong and implements the unique “Liberal + Professional” undergraduate education model. Apart from founding the residential college system and the Honours Academy, he proactively solicited donations to support the University’s strategic development, including establishing the Institute for Youth Sustainability Leadership, the first of its kind in the region advocating the UN’s 17 SDGs. Following the ideals of “bamboo environment nurturing talents”, HSUHK became the first higher education institution in Hong Kong receiving the Hong Kong Green Building Council’s highest BEAM+ platinum certification in 2015.
(10-2024)