Selina Chow

Selina was born Liang Shuk-yee on 25 January 1945 in Hong Kong. She was educated at St. Paul's Co-educational College and earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Hong Kong in 1965. She later obtained a postgraduate diploma from the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama and Licentiateship in Drama (Teacher and Performer) of the Royal Academy of Music in the United Kingdom.[1]

Liang started her career in Hong Kong's television broadcasting industry as the first weather girl in Hong Kong at the first wireless TV station Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) in 1967.[2] She was an assistant producer at TVB in Broadcast Drive for the English and Chinese channels under general manager Colin Bednall before being promoted to Assistant General Manager to run the entire programming section.[3]

Thinking her career in TVB had reached the glass ceiling, Chow left TVB in 1977 and joined Commercial Television (CTV) as general manager in an attempt to resurrect the ailing station, along with around 200 former TVB personnel including Tsui Hark, Patrick Tam and Ringo Lam in a bidding war between CTV and TVB. However, despite spending HK$50 million on production in just three years, CTV was unable to survive in the highly competitive television broadcasting industry and ceased transmissions in 1978.[4] After she left CTV, Chow codirected her only feature film, No Big Deal in 1979, a teen comedy, with Po-Chih Leong.[5]

In August 1988, Lai Sun Group founder Lim Por-yen took over Asia Television (ATV) and hired Chow as the station's chief executive. Chow proceeded in the same month to unveil a $233 million six-year investment plan to improve ATV's competitive edge against TVB. Chow's first year in office saw ATV's annual budget rocket to an estimated $300–350 million, just $100–150 million less than TVB. It also poached many talents from TVB, including comedy stars Lydia Shum and Eric Tsang, as well as producers, technical staff and administrators.[6] The growing deficit sapped Chow's power as chief executive and in March 1991 she was formally dismissed and replaced by Lam Por-yen himself.[7]

Selina Chow and James Tien returned to the party leadership after the intra-party split between James's brother Michael Tien and Tommy Cheung over the Minimum Wage Bill which resulted Michael's departure from the party. In January 2011, Chow succeeded Tommy Cheung as the vice-chairwoman for the second time.[11][12] In the 2012 Chief Executive election, the Liberals initially supported their former member and Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang but withdrew their support after Henry Tang's illegal basement controversy. However, they refused to support another Beijing-supported candidate Leung Chun-ying. Selina Chow and party chairwoman Miriam Lau defended their null vote as "the responsible decision" as they could not with all conscience vote for either Tang or Leung; their internal poll of 1,900 people showed 30 percent would cast blank votes.[13]

After Miriam Lau was defeated in Hong Kong Island in the 2012 Legislative Council election and resigned as party chairwoman, Selina Chow was elected chairwoman, unopposed, on 15 December 2012.[14][15] Under her chairmanship, the new office of party leader was created and assumed by James Tien. She held the chairmanship for two years until she was succeeded by Felix Chung and became the party honorary chairwoman.

In the 2017 Chief Executive election, she split with other party figures in the election to nominate former Financial Secretary John Tsang on the capacity as an Election Committee member for Wholesale and Retail with James Tien, Miriam Lau and Felix Chung against the former Chief Secretary for Administration, the Beijing-supported Carrie Lam.[16]

Liang is married to engineer Joseph Chow Ming-kuen, having proposed on the phone when he was in Britain in 1968. The couple have two daughters, Chee-may and Chee-kay.[3]

• List of graduates of University of Hong Kong