Decades ago, Peter Lam was best known as the chairman of property giant Lai Sun Development, as well as his running of Lai Sun’s subsidiary, the entertainment company Media Asia Group Holdings, and its apparel business, Crocodile Garments. These days, however, Lam is often in the headlines for his projects in Hong Kong and Zhuhai.

This year, Lam, as the chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, has pledged to lead the HKTDC in promoting Hong Kong worldwide. He has also spent years leading Lai Sun in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area project, and in May this year, Lai Sun Group and Zhuhai Duty Free Group signed an agreement for the Guangdong-Macau In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.

Hengqin, an island in Zhuhai located just across the Shisanmen Waterway from Macau’s Coloane district, became known as the Hengqin International Leisure Tourism Island in 2019. Under the new agreement, Zhuhai Duty Free Group’s travel retail projects will be hosted within Novotown, a commercial real estate project by Lai Sun Group designed to offer visitors an integrated tourism and entertainment experience.

Lam has certainly diversified his portfolio over the decades. The son of tycoon Lim Por-yen, who made his fortune in textiles, Lam’s career once focused on fun industries: in 1994 he established film production company Media Asia, which has backed numerous successful movies; in 2008 he moved into hospitality with Lai Sun Dining, which operates high-end restaurants including 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana and China Tang.

The company’s hotel operations, meanwhile, have included The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong and the Four Seasons New York. Lam is also a director of The Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong and, prior to his appointment at the HKTDC in 2019, he’d served as the chairman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board from 2013 to 2019. Among his many official positions in the film industry, he is founding chairman of the Hong Kong Chamber of Films, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association, vice chairman of the Hong Kong Film Development Council and a director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.

A member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference national committee, he received the Gold Bauhinia Star in 2015.

He is the father of Lester, Emily, Evelyn, Eleanor, Lucas and Lyann.