Yvonne Lui (simplified Chinese: 吕丽君; traditional Chinese: 呂麗君; pinyin: lǚ líjūn) (born 1977) is partner of Hong Kong property and real-estate billionaire Joseph Lau, whom she met in 2001 while studying in London.[1]
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Lui was born in Hong Kong, the youngest of four children and the only daughter of parents who had come to Hong Kong from Mainland China. Her father had established a successful plastics manufacturing business.
After her early secondary education in Hong Kong, at the age of 16, Lui went to Canford,[2] a private boarding school in the United Kingdom and went on to study a BSc in Chemistry and Management at King's College London,[3] She also spent a year at the University of Toronto in Canada as an exchange student studying Forensic Science before returning to King’s to study for a PhD on gas hydrates in oil industry.
She and Lau now live together in Hong Kong and have a daughter and a son.
Lui has contributed to several charities, a hospital[4] and medical groups as well as projects relating to the arts and education in Hong Kong and China.
She is the Honorary Chairman of Hong Kong United Youth Exchange Foundation,[5] an organization that promotes interaction and collaboration between China and Hong Kong youngsters by offering exchange programmes and internships, in which students from the two sides get to work with successful entrepreneurs, business and political leaders respectively. She has participated in the establishment of a wing overseeing disaster relief activities and operations, which has contributed to the relief programmes of the 2008 Sichuang earthquakes and victims of Ching Hai earthquakes in 2010. She is also the Honorary President of Hong Kong Federation of Women.[6]
Lui is also a trustee of several universities, including Beijing University[7] and the University of International Business and Economics in China.[8]
In 2007, she travelled to underdeveloped provincial towns of Hubei Province, Northeastern China, and donated US$1 million to an aid project to build local medical and sanitary clinics for remote peasant communities. She was then appointed a member of Hebei Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consulative Conference Committee,[9] the second highest-ranked governing body in the province.
In 2008, as Beijing hosted the Olympics, Lui was made executive vice president of the executive committee of Youth Movement For 2008 Beijing Olympics,[10] which aims to boost grassroots support for and participation in sport, and to raise awareness of the importance of health and sports among young people.