Sabrina W. Fung
Group Managing Director, Fung Retailing
The Icons | Sabrina Fung is leading her family’s retail empire into a bright future as its group managing director
As the group managing director of Fung Retailing, part of global trading company Fung Group, Sabrina Fung has been responsible for forging partnerships with the likes of Alibaba and JD.com. She is the daughter of Victor Fung, the honorary chairman of Li & Fung, the supply chain conglomerate set up more than century ago by Sabrina’s great grandfather.
After graduating from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, she began her career at the family company at the private investment arm of Fung Group in 2000; prior to that she worked in banking at Brown Brothers Harriman’s New York and Hong Kong offices, and in marketing and public relations for Salvatore Ferragamo Asia. Today, besides heading the Fung Retailing Group, she holds senior positions in various divisions of Fung Group, including being the investment director of Fung Investment Management and the chief executive of its Asia Retail Company. She also serves on the boards of Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, Convenience Retail Asia Limited, and Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited in Hong Kong.
Sabrina Fung is an advisor on Retailing and Fashion for NBA Greater China and is also affiliated with prestigious organisations, such as the
Roger King Center for Asian Family Business and Family Office at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School, the International Advisory Council of the Faculty of Business and Economics at The University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong-Europe Business Council and Hong Kong-France Business Council of Hong Kong Trade Development Council. Internationally, she is a member of McLaren Advisory Group, Harvard Global Advisory Council, and the board of trustees of The Carnegie Hall Corporation.
It also means she witnesses major trends in the industry. “Today we’re seeing fashion intersect rapidly with technology and the need for sustainability. These two forces are going to change the fabrics we wear, how they are designed and manufactured, and ultimately the styles we will see on the streets,” she says. By celebrating looks by designers including Guo Pei (“She has had a profound influence on me,” Fung says), Michael Kors and Roberto Cavalli—she says Cavalli’s “contemporary, stylistic” designs “feel like a bold, confident statement”—she has cemented her status as one of Asia’s most stylish women.