Biography
Sam Wong’s experience as president of the Yale Club of Hong Kong and as a leader of the Yale School of Management Hong Kong Chapter during a period of intense political turmoil and through COVID, and emerging as a stronger club, brings a valuable international perspective to the YAA.
“We are in a world where we gather in our bubbles and listen only to people with similar ideas,” Wong says. In Hong Kong, he helped alumni break out of the bubbles by creating activities that brought Yalies together, particularly with Lunch Club, where he randomly assign two people to meet each month, and through the Club’s WhatsApp Group, encouraging members to post about their lunch discussion and about other Yale-related events. As a result, alumni of different ages and backgrounds are highly engaged with each other, and many new friendships have been established across different Yale schools.
By combining in-person connections developed at lunch and at other club activities, such as hiking and art/musical events, with online engagement on phones, Wong has created a real community where members support each other and members themselves spontaneously create new club events. Because of the deep engagement, from 2019-23, the Club won the BOG excellence awards for best international club, for donating personal protective equipment to Yale during COVID, for community service projects, for the Lunch Club, and for broad leadership and diversity of programs.
