In a relaxing Saturday afternoon, Amanda Yik (Class of 1994) shared with fellow Maryknollers her pathway from a dispute lawyer to Senior Project Manager at Community Business (http://www.communitybusiness.org/).
The event was held at Twyst, a trendy Italian restaurant owned by Angela Leung (Class of 1984). After welcome drinks, canapés and friendly casual chats with alumni and current students, Amanda told her story. When working for international law firms Stephenson Harwood and Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Amanda was inspired by the creativity and social commitment of some enterprises in Hong Kong and in the world.
Realizing that her true passion is with developing talents and contributing to people’s well being, Amanda pursued a Master’s degree in Social Science on Corporate Environmental Governance at the University of Hong Kong. The course gave her valuable insights into business sustainability and corporate social responsibility (“CSR”). Amanda believes that a lot can be done in Hong Kong, China and the rest of Asia to enable businesses to bring about positive societal changes. She is now committed to the cause through leading and managing community business programmes and initiatives on diversity, inclusion, work-life balance and other CSR issues.
Amanda recalled many memorable anecdotes of her time at Maryknoll, particularly on how Mr. Aloysius Lee and Mr. Michael Leung instilled in her values on equality, diversity and inclusion. She remembered how Mr. Lee made students recite the Declaration of Independence standing on chairs. And Mr. Leung, in order to expound on the values of religious tolerance, jammed in six lessons on Buddhism in his history classes, irrespective of lagging behind the overloaded mandatory syllabus.
Amanda concluded with advice to current Maryknollers – pursue careers for passion and not according to process of elimination.
In the followup discussions, Amanda answered questions on how different businesses can incorporate CSR in their practices.
The formal session ended with the audience continued to linger around Amanda to get ideas on how individuals can help to instigate positive societal changes.
The Foundation would like to thank Amanda profusely for sharing her insightful experience, and Angelina for a most pleasant venue and thoughtful arrangements.
