Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow 2026: meet the visionaries shaping Hong Kong’s next chapter

Featured on our 2024 list, Angelle Siyang‑Le’s role guiding Art Basel in Hong Kong to new heights involves spotting plenty of up‑and‑coming talent; Emmanuel Hui’s role leading his biotech and healthtech accelerator, Pebble, also involves spotting early potential in scientific innovations.

Angelle Siyang‑Le joined Art Basel Hong Kong in 2012 and has served as its director since 2022, guiding one of Asia’s most prominent contemporary art fairs with the goal of fostering community connections and building a sustainable, regenerative art ecosystem. Under her leadership, the fair has returned to full international scale after Covid, welcoming hundreds of galleries and collectors from around the world. Siyang‑Le’s commitment to fostering cross‑cultural dialogue in the arts began in Dubai, where she managed independent art initiatives and co‑founded Mobile Art Gallery, an initiative designed to bring emerging contemporary art to a wide audience.

Emmanuel Hui is helping to reshape Hong Kong’s biomedical innovation landscape. At the Tiger Jade Pebble Accelerator, also known as Pebble, he guides portfolio companies from academic research into clinical reality—backed by Tigermed, China’s largest clinical contract‑research organisation, alongside investors including the Nan Fung group and Morningside. In collaboration with major hospitals and universities across the city, Pebble supports more than 20 companies, including women’s health biotech Heranova, Pilatus Biosciences and medtech start‑up Opharmic Technology. Through his parallel venture fund Saltagen Ventures, Emmanuel is also raising an institutional fund to back transpacific innovations, while teaching at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Read more: Art Basel Hong Kong 2026: new curatorial team, new digital platform, new galleries

Through their work, Eric Gnock Fah, a Gen.T honouree from 2017, and Elizabeth Lo are offering new perspectives from which to explore the world. Gnock Fah’s Klook is in the business of selling experiences to locations near and far, while Lo is known for her documentaries that broach taboo subjects from the margins of society, such as her documentary, Mistress Dispeller.

Eric Gnock Fah co‑founded travel and experiences platform Klook in 2014, helping redefine how people discover and book attractions, tours and live events. Dually headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore, Klook operates across thousands of destinations worldwide and has raised around US$1 billion from leading global investors, most recently Vitruvian Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. Before becoming the company’s president, Gnock Fah was previously chief operating officer, where his role involved helping to build the company’s partnerships. In 2024, Klook served as the official experience partner for Taylor Swift’s Singapore concert series, underscoring the company’s growing role in defining cultural events.

Hong Kong‑born filmmaker Elizabeth Lo has built her practice around the act of observation, or what she describes as taking “an oblique angle” to examine phenomena on the margins of society that most people might overlook. Her second feature documentary, Mistress Dispeller—which follows a professional hired to dissolve extramarital affairs in China—was shortlisted for the Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature, won two awards at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and received a Directors Guild of America nomination. Now streaming on the Criterion Channel, Mistress Dispeller also buoyed interest in Lo’s debut, Stray, which explores the lives of street dogs in Turkey. After more than a decade in documentary, Lo is turning towards fiction for the first time.

Read more: Klook Co-Founder Eric Gnock Fah On How The Company Is Transforming Travel Experiences

Arthur de Villepin, first featured on our list in 2016, curates European art for an Asian audience; Isabella Wei is representing Hong Kong on a global stage and, through her role in the hit series Bridgerton, bringing Asian representation to a traditionally European setting; both examine the role of cultural fluency and exchange in appreciating art.

Based in Hong Kong since 2010, Arthur de Villepin launched the Central‑based gallery Villepin alongside his father, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, putting on museum‑quality exhibitions focused on modern and contemporary art. He is also the founder of the Foundation for Art and Culture; both bodies foster dialogue between Europe and Asia. This year, the foundation was behind the relaunch of the century‑old Haw Par Mansion as an international arts space.

Growing up in Hong Kong, Isabella Wei never imagined she would appear on screen—let alone in one of Netflix’s biggest shows. The actor and dancer first came to international attention as Ling Yi in the mystery series 1899, before landing the role of Posy Li in the fourth series of Bridgerton—a milestone for East Asian representation in one of Netflix’s most beloved franchises. Wei is now set to appear in Whatcha Want, an upcoming film helmed by Double Happiness director Mina Shum and featuring Ming-Na Wen. She hopes to continue to work on projects that challenge her and to find opportunities to tell meaningful stories.

Read more: The De Villepins On Their Long Friendship With South Korean Artist Myonghi Kang

These two entrepreneurs have scaled up and are managing growth as homegrown Hong Kong brands. First spotlighted on our list in 2017, Steven Lam’s GoGoX has made a name as one of Hong Kong’s leading logistics companies over the past ten years; Stephanie Tan’s Nooci has grown over the past four years to become a well‑known DTC wellness brand now expanding in the US.

Steven Lam co‑founded logistics platform GoGoVan—later rebranded as GoGoX—in 2013, with the goal of digitising last‑mile delivery services across Asia. In 2017, the company merged with mainland Chinese logistics platform 58 Suyun, cementing its status as a logistics technology unicorn—a start‑up valued at over US$1 billion. Under Lam’s leadership, GoGoX went public on Hong Kong’s main bourse in 2022. It has since refined its technology‑driven freight and courier network, serving businesses and individual customers; Lam’s next frontier is autonomous vehicles. The founder, who describes himself as “cheap everything officer”, previously founded advertising company Boxad and has long championed entrepreneurship within Hong Kong’s start‑up ecosystem.

Raised on her grandmother’s herbal soups and tonics, Stephanie Tan grew up knowing that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) worked—it just needed reimagining for a new generation. Her wellness start‑up Nooci, pronounced “new qi”, meaning new energy, translates eastern herbal wisdom into clean, portable, science‑backed formulas, developed with an advisory board of TCM practitioners, doctors and scientists. One of her proudest accomplishments over the past year and a half at Nooci: the Relax + Sleep formula, rooted in eastern herbs, free of melatonin and artificial additives, and two years in the making.

Read more: GoGoX CEO Steven Lam on his journey from selling hot dogs to leading one of Asia’s most successful logistics platforms

Lucy Liu, an honouree from 2019, has spent the last decade building Airwallex into a global fintech titan at a multi‑billion‑dollar valuation; Haojun Jia is an MIT‑trained physical chemist whose start‑up, Deep Principle, is a rising pioneer in the “AI for Science” space. Both are building relationships with investors while scaling up rapidly.

Lucy Liu co‑founded global payments platform Airwallex in 2015, helping businesses simplify cross‑border transactions through proprietary financial infrastructure. Originally serving as chief operating officer before transitioning to president, Liu has played a central role in expanding the company across North America, Europe and Asia. Airwallex last raised US$330 million in a Series G funding round in December 2025, having surpassed US$1 billion in annualised revenue. Before launching Airwallex, Liu worked in investment and corporate advisory roles in China and Australia.

Haojun Jia is on a mission to unlock breakthrough materials with AI. His Hangzhou‑based start‑up Deep Principle fuses deep learning with first‑principles computation, and has built pioneering AI models for materials R&D. The platform has drawn multiple rounds of investment from backers including Gobi Partners, Hillhouse Capital and Ant Group. With commercial clients such as L’Oréal, Deep Principle says its scientific discovery evaluation framework was co‑developed with more than 50 researchers across more than 20 global institutions, including Oxford, MIT and Harvard.

Read more: This founder helps small businesses expand overseas by solving their biggest headache

Arthur Lam, who first made the list in 2017, and Dawn Chan are creating solutions targeting two of society’s greatest goods: education and healthcare. Lam’s Negawatt Zero2 aims to gamify a sustainable lifestyle; Chan’s Sow Fertility aims to close the women’s health gap.

Arthur Lam is a serial entrepreneur whose work has covered sustainability and clean technology. He co‑founded Synergy Group (now known as Unity Group), an energy‑saving solutions provider listed in Hong Kong, and later established Negawatt Zero2 as an ESG engagement and rewards platform that connects companies, merchants and schools. Lam says the platform “actualises moral and positive education” through its Zero2 app; one programme co‑organised with Cyberport, Our Hong Kong Foundation and Hong Kong Education City (EdCity) enables students to complete tasks, such as recycling, in exchange for points.

Navigating fertility treatment alone drove Dawn Chan to build the platform she wished she’d had. The former quantitative hedge fund VP founded Sow Fertility to bridge the gap between online research and clinical care—a pressing need in Hong Kong, home to one of the world’s lowest fertility rates. Her corporate benefits platform connects employees with vetted experts and personalised support for family building and reproductive health. Individually, Chan’s work extends beyond the platform: in 2025, she worked with Hong Kong legislators to advocate for lifting the city’s ten‑year storage limit on frozen eggs and embryos—a step towards supporting family building for wider audiences.

Read more: Co-founder of Synergy Group Arthur Lam makes saving the planet his main business

An honouree on our 2017 list, Zac Purton is a top jockey who triumphed over health struggles—specifically, with severe kidney stone issues—to win 2,000 races in Hong Kong; Justin Di‑Lang Ho is helping people with health struggles in Hong Kong by developing a surgical device for endoluminal procedures, which can potentially assist bladder tumour resections. Both are showing how to master the human body in high‑stakes situations.

Australian jockey Zac Purton has been a dominant force in Hong Kong horse racing since arriving in the city in 2007. A multiple Hong Kong Jockeys’ Premiership winner, he has secured victories in the city’s most prestigious international races, including the Hong Kong Cup and Hong Kong Derby. In May 2026, he became the first rider in Hong Kong racing history to record 2,000 career wins, cementing his legacy as one of the sport’s modern greats.

Justin Di‑Lang Ho grew up watching his parents work in healthcare, aware of the discrepancy between what research labs produce and what actually reaches patients. His Hong Kong start‑up Agilis Robotics pioneered the Intilume system—ultra‑thin, flexible robotic instruments that operate through the body’s natural openings without incisions. The company, which raised US$10 million in its Series A+ funding round, performed the world’s first robot‑assisted en bloc resection of a bladder tumour in 2024 and won the Best Design Award at the 2025 Surgical Robot Challenge by Imperial College London.

Read more: Champion jockey Zac Purton on walking the line between sacrifice and success

Ray Chan, a Gen.T honouree from 2018, and Terence Lui create value through digital communities: Chan is bridging the Web2 and Web3 worlds, and now focuses on creating a digital asset ecosystem for high‑value collectibles; Lui leads a construction technology company, Varadise, which raised US$3 million in a Series A funding round to develop AI‑powered “digital twin” solutions.

In 2008, Ray Chan co‑founded 9Gag, a simple humour website known for its viral memes and active online community. Since then, 9Gag has grown into a global digital media platform with an audience of more than 200 million followers, including 52 million on Instagram alone. Beyond media, Chan is now building the publicly listed MemeStrategy, which bills itself as a “cultural collectibles and intellectual property powerhouse”. The company aims to develop a comprehensive ecosystem for “cultural collectibles” such as Pokémon cards—encompassing events, AI‑powered tools, financial products and services, and more.

Terence Lui is the founder of Varadise, where he is rethinking how the built world is understood through data. The Hong Kong‑based start‑up builds the Cosmos platform, which uses AI‑powered digital twin software to turn fragmented construction data into real‑time intelligence across complex projects. A civil engineer by training, Lui is helping Varadise use AI to streamline the management of construction projects. Varadise has grown to more than 10,000 active users across Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Singapore, with adoption by government agencies and major contractors. In January 2025, it raised US$3 million in a Series A funding round led by VC firm Betatron Venture Group.

Read more: 9gag’s Ray Chan made memes mainstream. Can he do the same for Web3?

A duo who deal in the two most foundational elements of daily life, food and money. A leader on our 2017 list, Norma Chu is a former banker who built DayDayCook from a simple cooking blog into a massive, publicly traded media and lifestyle empire; Calvin Ng is the CEO of ZA Bank, leading Hong Kong’s pioneering virtual banking space to redefine the city’s relationship with digital wealth and consumer finance.

Norma Chu founded DayDayCook as a passion project in 2010 while working in finance, initially sharing recipes online before transforming the platform into a full‑scale food media and consumer products business. The brand evolved from written content into video production and packaged food lines, expanding its reach across Greater China and international markets. Listed publicly as DDC Enterprise, the company continues to explore new retail, media and digital strategies under Chu’s leadership.

Before running a bank, Calvin Ng was studying scriptwriting and film editing. The circuitous path that followed—through advertising agencies, card product marketing and digital banking—led him to help build ZA Bank from the ground up. As chief executive of Hong Kong’s first licensed digital bank, Ng has driven three landmark milestones: achieving full‑year profitability, surpassing one million users and making ZA Bank the first licensed bank in Asia to offer retail investors direct access to cryptocurrency trading. He is now focused on expanding wealth management and integrating AI into a more seamless, accessible and future‑ready banking experience.

Read more: Secrets of Success with Norma Chu, Founder and CEO of DayDayCook

Over the years, we’ve continued to fine-tune our criteria for impact and evaluate the scale of innovation for our honourees. In addition to input from our editors, we’ve also drawn on the expertise of our judging members—whom we call our tribe—to assess and review the achievements of nominees. 

To find out more about the rigorous process behind the past couple of months, read our guide where we break down the criteria step-by-step and explain what it means to be a Gen.T Leader of Tomorrow.

If you’re curious about the trends and highlights of the list across the region, take a close look at the age breakdown, the total amount of social media reach and category distribution here.

The Tatler Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow 2026 is presented in partnership with HSBC Innovation Banking in Hong Kong.

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