Woman at Work: KARMA CASTILHO

Karen (Karma) is a self-taught artist. She began painting in 2016 and has since completed more than 200 canvases. Her style reflects her own enthusiasm for life, in rich, often dazzling, colour. Her painting journey developed from the therapeutic to the expressive. Most of her work is abstract and intrinsic: she gives free range to her mind, and only sometimes will finish a piece with conscious touch-ups.

Karen took up painting at a […]

Woman at Work: LESLEY HOBBS

Lesley is the founder/director of Hong Kong-based legal consulting and recruitment firm Red Pillar Consulting Limited. Lesley started her legal career in London and qualified as a solicitor in 1996. She is a German speaker and specialized in Jewish-German restitution work during her two-year training contract. She has also worked as in-house counsel for leading merchant banking group Rothschild and specialist legal recruiter for FTSE 250 listed recruitment services company Hays Plc.

Lesley […]

Woman at Work: JENETTE DEL MUNDO

Jenette del Mundo started her working life with a multinational company in the Philippines. Although embarked on a career in marketing and attending MBA graduate school, she was tempted by an airline ad on TV into taking a two-year break to “see the world”. Two years became five, five became ten – she eventually gave up counting. It only meant one thing: she wasn’t yet done with flying. The lifestyle allowed her […]

Woman at Work: GEANETTE YH YOUNG

Geanette (Gean) Young is an industry analyst who specializes in the alcoholic beverages business. She has recently taken over the company she has worked with for many years from her retired boss.

Gean is also a horse rider – side saddle her favourite seat – and as a Hong Kong-born former consultant to the British Equestrian Federation she was inspired to write her illustrated The Horses of China following a visit to horse-breeder […]

Woman at Work: SADIE KAYE

Sadie Kaye is a Hong Kong writer, performer, filmmaker and podcaster. She makes quirky little podcasts, cheeky docs, and comic slots for RTHK Radio 3. She can currently be heard performing her humour column, “Sharp Pains”, on The 123 Show. Some of her radio columns have also been published in the South China Morning Post. Her absurdist “3 Terrifying Short Stories” about the deranged, sleep-deprived parents of twins were published in the […]

Woman at Work: SHIKHA S. LAMBA

Shikha is a jewellery designer and gemologist. She runs her own business in Hong Kong, Shikha S. Lamba Designs. Born in New Delhi, Shikha was drawn early on to being creative, whether in language, photography or art. She started writing poetry in her pre-teens as a hobby. Thankfully, she says, she has matured from rhyming each line and developed her own style in her work of expressing her voice with certainty. Her […]

Woman at Work: MAUREEN SY TAI

Maureen is a writer who spent over twenty years wordsmithing in her legal and corporate finance roles before throwing in the towel to focus on her creative writing. Since 2019, Maureen has published creative works in literary magazines such as Cha, Mekong Review, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) as well as Imprint, WiPS’ anthology. She has also been shortlisted in several international competitions, most recently for flash fiction in the […]

Woman at Work: ROBYN FLEMMING

Robyn Flemming is an author and freelance copyeditor based in Australia. She lived in Hong Kong from 1986 to 1993. With Polly Yu, she was a founding member of HKWiPS and the Society’s first president. She has freelanced for over 35 years and has clients in Australia, Asia, the Middle East and North America.

For the past six years, Robyn has been writing a memoir about her roller-coaster life, including her years in […]

Woman at Work: BHAKTI MATHUR

Bhakti Mathur grew up in Delhi, India, and with a graduate degree in economics and a postgraduate degree in finance from Delhi University pursued a career in banking for 22 years. In 2000, she and her husband moved to Hong Kong, which she now calls home and where both her children were born.

In 2010, unable to find a picture book on Holi, the Indian festival of colours, for her young sons, she […]

Woman at Work: ELIZABETH VONGSARAVANH

Elizabeth Vongsaravanh is a Hungarian artist who has lived in Laos for more than two decades. She received a degree in English studies in Hungary after spending two years in Canada out of spite for not getting accepted into art school. 

She kick-started her artistic journey after settling into her new home in Laos, adapting quickly to the unfamiliar environment, culture and traditions, which are manifested and reflected in her pieces. […]

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