A director of Swire Pacific, a role he has held since January 2009, Merlin Swire was also the chairman of the multifacted conglomerate and its Swire Properties subsidiary between 2018 and 2021. When he took over that role, he became the first member of the company’s founding family to do so, guiding Swire through a challenging period when it was forced to deal with the far-reaching effects of both the pandemic and the social unrest in Hong Kong. He is also deputy chairman, chief executive and a shareholder of John Swire & Sons and a director of Swire Properties and Cathay Pacific. He first joined the Swire group in 1997, and has worked for the company in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Xiamen, Sydney and London.

Merlin Swire is a sixth generation descendant of the venerable trading giant’s founder John Swire, who established the company as an import export business more than 200 years ago in the UK, and began trading with China in the 1860s. The Hong Kong and UK-based conglomerate has interests in almost every areas of life in Hong Kong and beyond, with business in sectors including beverages, property, shipping, energy and, through its 45 per cent stake in Cathay, which is acquired way back in 1948, aviation. Its Swire Beverages unit, known as Swire Coca-Cola in recent years, is its biggest, bottling and distributing more than 60 beverages in 11 Chinese provinces, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the western USA, and bringing in several times more revenue than any of the others.