Hong Kong's corporate idealists work every hour that God sends

Back in the 1980s, many professionals worked day and night to earn enough to retire in their 40s and migrate to Canada, Australia or the United States.

In the 1990s, the booming stock and property markets put the brakes on the migration trend but professionals still worked day and night to earn enough to invest in China-related shares or pay the mortgages on their investment property portfolios.

Come the new millennium and the trend has changed again. Now we are seeing the emergence of the mid-life career switch.

A number of successful professionals in their 50s are deciding to quit their high-paying jobs not for retirement but to fulfil their dreams of study, travel, politics or writing. Sun Life Financial Asia president Douglas Henck, 52, left his job last month to return to the US to become a corporate governance advocate.

Then there was the former Hong Kong Monetary Authority deputy chief executive Norman Chan Tak-lam, 51, who gave up his job in May to study at Harvard, while former financial secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung quit as a top banker with the Chase Manhattan Corp at 50 to join the Hong Kong government in 2001.

John Snelgrove, our podcast guest this week, is another example. Two years ago, at 50, he left his highly-paid job as general manager of AXA China Region to become a pastor in the Vine Christian Fellowship.