Miss Joanna Kwok Wing-Yan is the first Hong Kong woman to achieve the rank of chief Engineer on seagoing vessels, who breaks though the glass ceiling in a male dominated industry.

Joanna is 32 year old only to secure the post, which is on the same ranking as a ship’s captain, despite the widespread failure of shipping firms in the city to recruit women, and with her problems with motion sickness.

To compare with Europe, female engineers are still remain rare in Asia.  Women Engineer who join ships in Hong Kong every year is just 5 per cent of the 10 to 15 young cadets.

Joanna was the first woman engineer hired by her company, Anglo-Eastern Ship Management, a Hong Kong based company managing almost 900 ships.  She hopes to inspire other women to follow in her footsteps, will enter the industry, which had made her a more confident person and given her opportunities to travel all over the world.  She hopes her experience can inspire more women, and men, even if someone like her with serious motion sickness, then everything is possible.

In this seminar, Joanna will share her experience with us, her career development, how did she take on senior role in sector with poor record in employing women, despite it being in grip of worker shortages and how she defies norms of male dominated industry, which once believed having women in engine room was black luck.