Profile | Growing up next to prostitutes and drug addicts in Hong Kong’s Walled City, recruitment pioneer Louisa Wong on a life fuelled by hard work and curiosity
- Louisa Wong went from the Walled City to Wall Street before establishing the first home-grown headhunting firm in China in 1996
- She talks about working in a factory at five years old, the secrets to her success, and writing her memoir – which she dedicates to Asian women – on an iPhone
Hong Kong businesswoman Louisa Wong Wai-yee rolls over her right hand to reveal a bump.
“I had surgery on my wrist in February to treat severe De Quervain tenosynovitis,” says Wong, referring to a painful condition affecting the tendons on the thumb side of the wrist, usually caused by repetitive hand or wrist movement.
The catalyst for her condition? Wong wrote her memoir, all 100,000 words – “plus extra keystrokes for editing and rewrites” – in the notes section of her iPhone over three-and-a-half years.
“I’m pretty sure I’m the only person to have written a book on a phone,” laughs Wong as she settles into a chair at her executive search firm Global Sage, in Hong Kong’s Central business district.
“I could have used a laptop or bigger device but it was easier to write notes on a phone at any time and any place: I could be in bed, in the bath … I could be eating or walking.”
The result is Women Who Chase Butterflies, a candid account of a life fuelled by passion and curiosity.
