ALICE MONG

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASIA SOCIETY HONG KONG CENTER

When Alice Mong was five years old, her parents took her and her brother from Taiwan, where they lived, to the Palace Museum in Beijing. “My love for museums started at that age,” she says.

She left Taiwan for the United States aged ten, and went on to study international relations. “I wanted to become a diplomat. I grew up in the US as a Chinese American and that connection with people was always something I was drawn to,” she says. She moved to Hong Kong in 1992 to work in trade promotion, and would work at a range of government, non-profit and for-profit jobs both here and in New York, but her interest in culture never faded.

In October 2011, Asia Society was about to open a new venue in Admiralty; Mong visited the space and fell in love. The body was looking for an executive director, and Mong, with her previous experience opening the Museum of Chinese in America as its director, was a great fit.

She has now run Asia Society Hong Kong Center for ten years, and continues to be inspired by her childhood museum experience. “I believe in starting kids young to concerts, museums or playing an instrument without forcing them to it,” she says. “I’m now at this wonderful space, where multigenerational families come in to visit the gallery and attend our programmes and workshops.”