15 Facts About Laura Cha

Laura Cha is the Chairman of Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Non-Executive Deputy Chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

Laura Cha served as a non-official member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong from 2004 to 2022.

On 5 December 1949, Cha was born in Shanghai, China.

Laura Cha was a member of the Committee of 100, a Chinese American political and cultural organisation.

Laura Cha practised law with Pillsbury Madison and Sutro, one of the powerful law firms in San Francisco, California.

Laura Cha worked at Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission from 1991 to early 2001, becoming its deputy chairman in 1998.

When she gave notice at the SFC in mid-2000, Laura Cha was mulling a change and wanted to take things easier.

Laura Cha was appointed to the post by the State Council of the People's Republic of China and became the first person outside mainland China to join the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China at the vice-ministerial rank.

In 2012, Laura Cha was named an Honorary Fellow by the Hong Kong Securities and Investment Institute.

Laura Cha has been a Non-Executive Director of Unilever since May 2013.

Laura Cha was reported by The Standard to have likened the pro-Occupy activists demand for democracy in the 2014 Hong Kong protests to the emancipation of African-American slaves at a conference at Paris, asking why Universal Suffrage "could not wait" for Hong Kongers in light of the historical disenfranchisement of African Americans.

Laura Cha's remarks were criticised on social media, with a petition to the board of directors of HSBC on Change.

Laura Cha renounced her United States citizenship prior to taking a position with China.

On 12 May 2011, Laura Cha was an honored by Committee of 100 for her philanthropic contributions to higher education at the 20th Awards Gala in New York, US.

Laura Cha was awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal by the Hong Kong SAR Government in 2017.