Two Cities, One Network: Singapore and Hong Kong Alumni on the Future of Asia's Business Hubs
Who is winning Asia’s race to become the region’s leading business hub? It is a question that fills conference agendas and opinion columns, and it usually arrives with an assumption attached: that one city must win and the other must lose.
The University of Manchester’s Singapore × Hong Kong Joint Alumni Event set out to test that assumption. Alumni in both cities sat down together, Singapore in person at our Singapore Centre and Hong Kong joining virtually, to compare notes on where the region is heading and what each city can learn from the other.
An event built by alumni, for alumni
The session was initiated and organised by two alumni bodies: the University of Manchester Alumni Association of Singapore and the Alliance Manchester Business School Alumni Association (Hong Kong). The idea, the programme and the panel all came from the alumni community itself.
Five speakers drew on their professional experience and industry expertise: • From Singapore: Dr Kimmis Pun and Wilmer Lim • From Hong Kong: Darren Mellis, Justin Watson and C K Lee Two MCs kept the exchange moving across the two rooms: Kenneth Goh in Singapore and Dr Justin Cheng in Hong Kong.
Five themes, two vantage points
The discussion ranged across five areas where both cities have a great deal at stake:
Wealth management. Both cities are competing for the same pool of regional and global private capital, and for the talent that serves it.
Green finance. Asia’s transition needs funding at scale, and each centre is building its own role in channelling it.
Global trade. Shifting trade flows are changing which routes, partners and markets matter most to businesses in the region.
Supply chain resilience. Companies are rethinking where they source, make and ship, and both cities sit at the centre of those decisions.
Cross-border business. Operating across jurisdictions is now a daily reality for most of the professionals in the room.
Hearing the same topic described from two cities was the value of the format. A question about trade or capital flows reads differently from Singapore than it does from Hong Kong, and the differences were as instructive as the points of agreement.
Rivals, or two halves of one region?
The “race” framing makes a good headline. It is less useful as a way to run a business. Few of the professionals who joined the session work in only one of these cities. Their clients, capital, suppliers and colleagues move between both.
That is why the second question on the agenda mattered more than the first. Asking what Singapore and Hong Kong can learn from each other assumes that each city has strengths the other can study, and that a professional who understands both is better placed than one who has picked a side.
It is also a fair description of how Manchester approaches learning. Original thinking starts with testing a familiar assumption against evidence and against other people’s experience. A room of practitioners in two cities, comparing what they see in their own markets, is that principle applied.
A network that crosses borders
The event had a third city in the room. Alumni visiting from China came by our Singapore Centre to show their support, turning a two-city exchange into a wider regional gathering.
Their presence made the point of the event better than any agenda item could. The Manchester alumni network is a working community of people who share ideas, open doors and support one another across markets. Different cities and different perspectives, with one shared Manchester connection.
The conversation continues
Our thanks go to the two alumni associations for initiating and organising the event, to the speakers and MCs for their time and insight, and to every alumnus and alumna who joined in Singapore, in Hong Kong and from further afield.
This was one conversation, and the region will keep supplying new questions. We look forward to more exchanges, stronger connections and more opportunities to bring the Manchester community across Asia together.
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