KUALA LUMPUR: Kuok Hui Kwong (
pic), the 48-year-old daughter of Malaysian billionaire Tan Sri Robert Kuok, has been named among the 20 accomplished leaders in Forbes’ Asia’s Power Businesswomen 2025 list.
As Chairman, CEO and Executive Director of Shangri-La Asia, she now leads the hotel group her father founded in 1971, steering it through a challenging recovery phase following a slowdown in its key market, mainland China.
Despite softer revenues of US$2.2 billion last year, she has pressed forward with expansion, opening two new hotels totalling 600 rooms at Shanghai’s Hongqiao Airport in October, after launching the Shangri-La Signatures Hotel in Hangzhou in May.
A third property in Kunming is scheduled to open early next year as part of her strategy to strengthen the group’s managed properties, which now comprise nearly a quarter of its more than 100 hotels worldwide.
A Harvard graduate in East Asian Studies, Kuok has chaired the Hong Kong-listed company since 2017 and previously helmed the South China Morning Post Group as managing director and CEO before taking the reins of Shangri-La from her father, who turned 102 last month.
