Laura Cha checks in as Hong Kong exchange’s first woman chief in its 127-year history
The newly elected chairman has made mapping a three-year strategic plan – to enhance the exchange’s competitiveness and fend off competition from other overseas exchanges – a priority
To the millions of mainland investors frolicking in China’s go-go stock market of the early 2000s, given a kick start from the country’s membership in the World Trade Organisation, Laura Cha Shih May-lung was the killer regulator anointed by Beijing to crash the party.
Cha, whose married name rhymes with the Chinese word for inspection, soon earned the moniker of the regulator who would “inspect miscreants to their death”.
Even though her tenure as a vice-chairman at the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) from 2001 to 2004 drew mixed responses, it earned her a place in the history of China’s capital market development – the first Hongkonger and non-mainlander to take on a vice-ministerial position within the central government.
This week, the 68-year-old grandmother of three was elected unopposed as the first woman to chair Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), the operator of the stock market, in the bourse’s 127 years of history.
Cha’s ascent comes at a critical time. The exchange is striving to strengthen its relevance and position as the go-to market for mainland companies in the face of increasing competition from global and regional exchanges, as well as China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses.
Increasing integration of the Hong Kong and mainland markets, pinned by the city’s Stock Connect schemes with the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges since 2014 and 2016, makes China a partner but also a rival as the latter wants to bring home some its biggest overseas-listed companies through depositary receipt issuance.
