Dee Dee Chan

Hong Kong may be a financial hub at the forefront of cultural and technological development, but conversations around mental health in this city are still largely driven by stigma. This realisation was what inspired Dee Dee Chan, hotelier, philanthropist and heiress to Park Lane Capital Holdings, to drive change within the narrative around mental health among university students. “There’s tremendous potential in this group of young people, because it’s the first time they have a measure of independence from their families, and their brains are still in the window of optimal neuro-plasticity,” is how she describes her rationale. Although mental health is Chan’s newly discovered calling, charitable pursuits have always been important for her. Eight years ago she founded The Next Gen Organization (The NGO), a collective of business families’ representatives who travel the world in search of cutting-edge projects that could benefit from grants.