Eric Bohm
Eight years ago, Canadian Eric Bohm left the corporate world and took the helm as the CEO of conservation organization WWF Hong Kong. During his tenure, WWF Hong Kong has become one of the leading green groups in the city. Now, at the age of 68, Bohm is leaving his job and the city after living in Hong Kong for 31 years. He talks to Grace Tsoi about birds, air quality and the culture of NGOs.
Why did I come to Hong Kong? Walls. My wife has a degree in Ancient History. When I married her, I promised her that she would see all the great walls in the world.
I got this opportunity to go to Hong Kong in 1981. I went home and said to my wife, “I am going to show you the Great Wall of China!”
You wanna know something? I never regretted it for a moment.
The other thing is, I had an uncle who was the Dean of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong. I was six years old, and there came this relative who was living in Hong Kong amongst the Chinese. [To me,] the Chinese were mystical people. When I was a child, the interaction [between countries] was very limited.
In 2004, I was 60 years old. There are two choices in life. One is that you go to the museum and become an exhibit. Or you get off your duff and do something. Maybe at 60, you do something that’s different.
In charities, things are less hierarchical and more consensus-driven. When you are looking at charities, far too many people will say that they are flaky. They are tree huggers. They wear pony tails. They are lazy and can’t get a job in the real world. Let me tell you the truth. They are passionate, highly motivated and entrepreneurial. You want to know why? Because it’s a greater risk joining a charity than joining HSBC.
It was a very difficult time when I joined WWF. They’d gone through three CEOs within a very short time, and the staff was demoralized. It was when they started building the Hoi Ha Wan Marine Life Center. They were way over budget. [WWF] had taken out a bank loan and NGOs should not really have bank loans. The donors were upset. The public was upset.The members were upset. People in Hoi Ha were upset.
What I did was I started to run classes in Hoi Ha Wan. We just started using the facilities, got some classroom programs going. I got some donors lined up to pay for the schools to come over and enjoy [the trips]. The public started to see that some actions were going on.