How a Hong Kong man who stole a million dollars and went to jail went back to work in finance
Although criminologists agree employment keeps ex-convicts from reoffending, few can find full-time employment – but one small accounting firm goes out of its way to be different
After serving time behind bars for stealing HK$1 million from his company and losing his accounting credentials, Timothy Chan Hing-mo had little hope of ever working in the industry again.
Now the 40-year-old Hongkonger is back to crunching numbers thanks to a social enterprise accounting firm, believed to be the first of its kind in the city.
Prisoner rehabilitation is a job for Hong Kong’s community at large
Chan works at Navigator Consultancy, a financing and asset management company with a twist. Unlike the glitzy financial firms that operate out of Hong Kong’s central business district, four of its six-strong staff are former prisoners.
Although criminologists agree that employment is one of the best ways to keep ex-convicts free of crime, a 2015 survey found , only 20 per cent of former prisoners were employed full-time.
Navigator’s founder, Thomas Lau Kam-tai, a certified accountant himself, decided to open his own social enterprise in 2013 after noticing that many ex-inmates struggled to find jobs that suited them.
“Not everyone would like to work with ex-inmates. Once they know it, they will kind of freak out,” he said. “Eventually we have to do it by ourselves.”