Nicholas Yang Wei-hsiung, GBS, JP (, born 22 April 1955) is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

politician and engineer and a former Non-official Member of the Executive Council. He is a former Executive Vice President of

Hong Kong Polytechnic University The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is a public research university located in Hung Hom, Hong Kong near Hung Hom station. The University is one of the eight government-funded degree-granting tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. Founded ...

and was the inaugural

Secretary for Innovation and Technology The Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry (), formerly Secretary for Innovation and Technology (), is a Hong Kong Government position created in 2015 by the Leung Chun-ying government after years-long opposition of the pan-democracy ...

, a post he held for five years to 2020.

Education and business career

Yang lived in

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

to attend the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

. He graduated in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

. He went on to obtain a master's degree at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in the same field, and worked as a senior design engineer at

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

. He returned to Stanford to earn an MBA, and worked briefly at

Bain & Company Bain & Company is an American management consulting company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm provides advice to public, private, and non-profit organizations. One of the Big Three management consultancies, Bain & Company was fou ...

before moving to Asia in 1983. He became a naturalized US citizen on 2 September 1977. On 15 December 1979 in Santa Clara, California, he married Winnie Sui-king Yung, daughter of the Chairman and founder of Hong Kong-based Shell Electric Manufacturing ( 蜆殼電器). She became a US citizen on 8 August 1984. Yang joined Shell Electric in 1983 and served as Executive Director until resigning on 30 September 2003. He was a director during its

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

and the sale of its fibre-optic business to

JDSU JDS Uniphase Corporation (JDSU) was an American company that designed and manufactured products for optical communications networks, communications test and measurement equipment, lasers, optical solutions for authentication and decorative applica ...

. He moved to JDSU in 1999. Afterwards he became involved in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

and

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...

. In 2003 he was appointed CEO of the

Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Cyberport is a business park in Southern District, Hong Kong consisting of four office buildings, a hotel, and a retail entertainment complex. It describes itself as a digital technology community with over 1,800 (800 on-site and 1,0 ...

In academia and government

Yang became Executive Vice President of the

in 2010. After

CY Leung Leung Chun-ying (; born 12 August 1954), also known as CY Leung, is a Hong Kong politician and chartered surveyor, who has served as vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference since Ma ...

won the

2012 Hong Kong Chief Executive election The 2012 Hong Kong Chief Executive election was held on 25 March 2012 to select the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE), the highest office in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), by a 1,193-member Election Committee (EC) to replac ...

, Yang was tipped to head the government's planned Technology and Communications Bureau, and in May he renounced his US citizenship, satisfying the Basic Law requirement that principal government officials have no right of abode in any foreign country. In July 2012 Yang became the target of an investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption regarding a government contract which a foundation he directed, the eInclusion Foundation, had obtained in 2010. In March 2015, he was appointed Innovation & Technology Adviser to

Chief Executive A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

CY Leung and a non-official member of the Executive Council, to pave the way for the creation of the city's

Innovation and Technology Bureau Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau (ITIB) is one of the policy bureaus under the Government Secretariat of the Government of Hong Kong and is responsible for policy matters on the development of innovation and technology and informa ...

(ITB), of which he was duly appointed the inaugural Secretary for Innovation and Technology on its formation in November 2015. He continued in the role in the administration of

Carrie Lam Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor ( Cheng; ; born 13 May 1957) is a retired Hong Kong politician who served as the 4th Chief Executive of Hong Kong from 2017 to 2022. She served as Chief Secretary for Administration between 2012 and 2017 and Secr ...

but was removed from the post in a cabinet reshuffle in April 2020. In April 2016, leaks from the Panama Papers showed that Yang had created two questionable accounts into which he had transferred a large number of PolyU stocks for his own benefit. Yang defended setting up the BVI firms as proper.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yang, Nicholas 1955 births Living people American emigrants to Hong Kong Bain & Company employees California Institute of Technology alumni Hong Kong people of Taiwanese descent Members of the Executive Council of Hong Kong Politicians from Jersey City, New Jersey Former United States citizens Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Academic staff of Hong Kong Polytechnic University Taiwanese emigrants to the United States Naturalized citizens of the United States Recipients of the Gold Bauhinia Star