Gordon Hui Yip-wang: 'Your instincts tell you what your priorities are'

The son of a gynaecologist and a hand surgeon, Gordon Hui Yip-wang would seem to have his path determined from an early age. But the chairman of Sunseeker Asia has enjoyed a varied career that began with designing buildings and continues in his present role dealing in luxury yachts.

“I’m happy-go-lucky. I just see what happens next,” he says. “Your instincts tell you what your priorities are. And you don’t really know how important something is until you’re doing it.”

Born in Hong Kong, Hui attended boarding school in Britain before studying architecture in London. “I’m not really into medicine and I didn’t qualify to get into medical school,” he says.

One of Hui’s first assignments out of school was to design floating offices for property developer Olympia & York, a project that was cancelled after the stock market crash in 1989. After returning to Hong Kong to be with his ailing father, Hui went into residential property investment in London.

Through it all, Hui enjoyed his childhood pastime of boating. “Since I was born my parents had boats, and we were always out boating with them on the weekends,” he says. “We would stay overnight in Double Haven, back in the 1970s when it was stunning. It was a remote place, like a paradise. Those are fond memories.”