Bureau Speakers

Originally from Hong Kong, having lived in Canada since her teenage years, Cecilia returned in 2001 wanting to reconnect with her roots and to serve the local communities with a passion to make a positive difference. Through a myriad of works encompassing consulting, coaching, training, teaching, writing, Cecilia found the perfect way to create impact.  In addition to her cultural awareness training and communications consulting, Cecilia applies her multicultural knowledge across other disciplines of her coaching work in personal development, personal well-being, and parenting, serving working professionals, parents and youths. In addition to her corporate and private work, she also provides customized programs on requests. In the forthcoming times, she hopes to bring more workshops and programs to communities and organizations to raise individual awareness.

 

Cecilia has travelled for her work in the Asia Pacific as far as Sydney, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangkok, China and Taiwan. Her 25+ years of professional experience in administration & operation, business development and communication from the corporate, business and NGO sectors come from being both an employee and a consultant from a broad range of industries in both continents, including Clinton Global Initiative, Sprint Telecom, HKUSPACE, HKUST, Mercer, Manpower, Royal Bank of Canada, Government of Canada, University of Alberta and others. 

 

Cecilia also plays an active role in the community, believing in the power of giving back through sharing skills and experiences. She co-founded and chaired a mentoring program for the Hong Kong Association for Business & Professional Women (2003-8) and also served as mentor to business students at HKUST (2007-12). Her mentoring spirit started while in Canada serving the Alberta Mentor Foundation for Youth guiding senior students in local schools. In the forthcoming time, Cecilia will take up board responsibility with an organization dedicated to serving youths with drugs and alcohol addictions. What Cecilia recognizes to be added value in her decision to get involved is the critical role parents can play in creating a nurturing and supportive environment for their children to thrive and grow in, and how they can prevent their children from taking steps in the wrong direction in life by becoming a more engaging and involved parent, learning to become a lifetime support, coaching and guiding them during different phases of their development and journeys to professional and personal success. Organizations in HK Cecilia has served included the Cervical Cancer Screening Taskforce (HKSARS Gov’t), KELY Support Group, HK Council of Early Childhood Education & Services, Asian Charity Services, and many others.

 

Cecilia has a Master’s degree in communications, received coaching training, and holds publishing credits on business, personal development, coaching, lifestyle and parenting subjects with SCMP and Parents Journal. Cecilia also taught at HKUSPACE on International Business Communication Skills (2006-7), delighting in seeing awareness shifts in her adult students once they learned the role cultural differences play in their personal and professional communication and conflict challenges with others. Cecilia is also a certified practitioner for Lumina Learning, UK, a personality assessment tool excellent for personal development, team assessment and talent development that does not typecast but embraces the paradox of personality traits.

 

As a member of SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research), Cecilia actively attends international conferences. In June 2014, she had the privilege of presenting at the Canadian SIETAR Congress “In search of our dreams, recognizing the cultural impact on immigrants and migrants,” sharing on the prevalent situation in Hong Kong where many overseas Asian returnees face challenges adapting to their Asian roots having returned from living abroad for extended period. 

 

Cecilia’s cross-cultural knowledge and experience give much ground to her capacity to understand that each of us comes with a set of unique cultural DNA, so many of our personal and professional challenges will also be tied with our cultural boundaries.  It is with this understanding will we be able to gain better insights into how issues and barriers arise, and therefore be resolved or removed, uniquely for each individual. These capabilities give much weight to both her consulting and coaching work where insights, perspectives, and creative solutions matter. Our cultural DNA goes beyond our ethnicity and culture; everything from religion, socioeconomic status, family structure & upbringing, school of training, profession, personality, marital status, etc., impact the way we think and behave and how we view the world and our outlook on life.   

 

Cecilia strongly believes that the foundational work to our professional and personal success is at the heart of continuous investment in ourselves, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.  When we are consistently improving ourselves, we will be ready to accept the best opportunities life has to offer us on demand. Many of us tend to overlook the need to grow ourselves when life is busy, until we are faced with the challenges of job and personal losses, career transitions, or communication and relationship breakdowns in all areas of our lives.  

 

For more details on Cecilia’s professional background and current work, please visit her LinkedIn profile.

 

 

Areas of Specification: Cultural Awareness,

Personal Development, Personal Well-Being, Parenting