For all the glamorous guests at Gafencu’s 2016 Gala Dinner it was “Time to Shine” in celebrating the magazine’s 10th anniversary as Hong Kong’s premier luxury lifestyle magazine.
More importantly, it was also an opportunity to recognise and reward six extraordinary individuals with the second annual Gafencu Awards.
Even though the six winners work in very different fields, they all had one thing in common — the noteworthy contribution they have made to Hong Kong society.
The winners of the second annual Gafencu Awards, in no particular order, are:
Mike Hill, co-founder, festival director and CEO of the Clockenflap music festival, won the first award of the night in the Cultural Endeavour category. Mike was honoured, along with and on behalf of his fellow co-founders for organising the culture, arts and music festival known as Clockenflap since 2008. The event, which has cemented itself as the absolute highlight of Hong Kong’s annual musical events calendar has grown from a crowd of 1,500 in its first year to attracting over 60,000 people in 2015.
From music and arts to good Samaritans, our second winner of the night was Christina Strong who won the Charity award for her tireless work raising awareness of rare diseases through the Joshua Hellmann Foundation to help needy children in Hong Kong. The foundation is named after Christina’s son Joshua who succumbed to Melas Syndrome in 2007.
The third award of the night was won by Jennifer Liu who founded JWF International and Sir Hudson Hospitality, the organisation behind Habitu and the Coffee Academics. It was no surprise to see Jennifer pick up the Hospitality award for her hospitality empire that covers some 30 eateries and employs more than 500 staff in Hong Kong and abroad.
Our fourth winner, Daniel Chan, walked away with the award in one of the most fiercely contested categories — the Entrepreneur of the year. Daniel has more than 20 years of experience in the luxury watch industry and is famous for bringing Cartier to China. In his role as founder and managing director of Paragon International, Daniel has overall responsibility of more than 40 points of sales of Cartier and other luxury watch brands across mainland China and Hong Kong.
The Legacy category was won by a well-known name whose business acumen and willingness to give back to society are almost legendary. Sabrina Fung started her career at Fung Group back in the year 2000, where she was initially employed as an investment manager at the family’s private investment arm. Sabrina is now the Group Managing Director of Fung Retailing Limited. She is also a director of Macy’s China, a joint venture between Macy’s and Fung Retailing.
The final award went to a truly astonishing woman who has given hope to millions of people through her tireless work to combat cancer. Rossa Chiu was a worthy winner of the Medical Sciences award for her work developing a blood test that can detect certain cancers at a very early stage helping to bring hope and a fighting chance to so many.
Congratulations to all of the most deserved winners.