theceomagazine.com | 139Benefitting from a banking background, Sabrina
Chao is the award-winning young Chairman of
an old company at Wah Kwong Maritime.WORDS DANIEL HERBORN • IMAGES GARETH BROWNking.
is
“Cash flow
”
A
t a gala dinner to conclude the Connecticut Maritime Association’s annual conference
and trade exposition in March, Sabrina Chao, Chairman of Wah Kwong Maritime,
was presented with the association’s Commodore Award. This accolade is given
annually to someone in international maritime who has made a significant
contribution to the industry’s growth and development. She became only the
second woman to receive the honour and the third recipient from Asia.
If anything, the award shows the esteem Sabrina has built up in the field after initially opting
for a career in investment banking. “With a degree in maths, I was always a number cruncher,”
she recalls. Early positions in her stellar career included a spell at Jardine Fleming’s equity derivative
structuring desk and an auditing role at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
She was never pressured to go into the family business, Wah Kwong Maritime, which was
founded in the 50s by her grandfather TY Chao. The company has since become one of the
leading providers of commercial marine transportation, with a fleet capable of moving crude oil,
minerals, dry bulk commodities, and gas. It has assembled one of the most technologically advanced
and modern fleets, and charters its carriers to blue-chip clients from across the globe.
Around the turn of the century, both Sabrina’s grandparents and her uncle Frank had passed
away and her father was the only family member remaining in the business. So she decided to »Interview | INVEST