When Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li asked Huynh Thanh Phong in 2013 to build a new kind of insurance platform across Asia, Phong had one request in return: patience.
“Because if you buy an asset and make it shiny and sell that right away, I’m not the right guy. But if you want to build something sustainable for the long term, then I can pull together the team,” Phong told the youngest son of one of Asia’s richest men Li Ka-shing.
Phong, a Vietnamese refugee who was sent as a child to Hong Kong by his mother in 1979 in the wake of the Vietnam war, had been working in insurance since graduating from university. He knew what Li wanted would take years to achieve, even with the hefty dose of capital at his disposal.
That was in 2013. Since then, Phong, 54, has led insurance company FWD’s aggressive expansion across Asia with a goal to attract customers by reducing…
