Carrie Lam

Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor ( Cheng; ; born 13 May 1957) is a retired Hong Kong politician who served as the fourth Chief Executive of Hong Kong from 2017 to 2022, after serving as Chief Secretary for Administration for five years.

After graduating from the University of Hong Kong, Lam joined the British Hong Kong civil service in 1980 and served in various government agencies, including as Director of Social Welfare from 2000 to 2004 and Director General of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London from 2004 to 2006.

Lam eventually graduated as a bachelor of social sciences in 1980.

After graduating from the University of Hong Kong, she became an administrative officer in the Hong Kong Civil Service.

Lam joined the Administrative Service in 1980 after she graduated from the University of Hong Kong.

She served in various bureaus and departments, spending about seven years in the Finance Bureau which involved budgetary planning and expenditure control.

In 1982, while she remained a civil servant, the Hong Kong government funded her further studies at the University of Cambridge, where she met her future husband, mathematician Lam Siu-por.

She had awarded the Undergraduate Advanced Diploma (UGAdvDip or UGAD) in 1982 from Cambridge.

UGAD is a FHEQ Level 6 award, the academic level is the equivalent to the final year of a bachelor's degree and they are generally accepted as equivalent to a bachelor's degree or a Graduate Diploma.

Initially, she worked as Principal Assistant Secretary and subsequently as Deputy Secretary for the Treasury in the 1990s.

In 2000, Lam was promoted to the position of Director of the Social Welfare Department during a period of high unemployment and severe fiscal deficits in Hong Kong.

She tightened the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance scheme, making it available only to people who had lived in Hong Kong for more than seven years, excluding new immigrants.

With other senior officials, she helped set up the We Care Education Fund, raising over HK$80 million to meet the long term educational needs of children whose parents died from the SARS epidemic in 2003.

In November 2003, Lam was appointed Permanent Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands and chairman of the Town Planning Board.

She was soon appointed Director-General of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London in September 2004.

On 8 March 2006, Lam returned to Hong Kong to take up the position as Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs.

She became a key official in 2007 when she was appointed Secretary for Development.

During her tenure, she earned the nickname "tough fighter" for her role in the controversial demolition of the Queen's Pier in 2008.

She was involved in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Paralympics Equestrian Events and the West Kowloon Cultural District plan.

Lam became Chief Secretary for Administration under the Leung Chun-ying administration in 2012.

From 2013 to 2015 Lam headed the task force on the 2014 electoral reform and held talks with student and opposition leaders during the widespread protests.

In the 2017 Chief Executive selection process, Lam obtained 777 votes from the 1,194-member appointed Election Committee as the Beijing-favoured candidate and became the first female Chief Executive of Hong Kong.

Lam's administration had been marred with a series of controversies and thus relatively unpopular since inauguration.

Her government was also criticised for raising the qualification age for social security, the proposed cross-harbour tunnel toll plan, and the historic ban on the pro-independence National Party, among other policies.

In mid-2019, Lam pushed for the controversial extradition bill which received widespread domestic and international opposition.

Massive protests broke out and persisted throughout the latter half of the year, from demanding the withdrawal of the bill to Lam's resignation among five key demands.

Despite suspending the bill in June and eventually withdrawing the bill in September, Lam stood firmly against the other demands including an independent inquiry into police conduct and universal suffrage for legislative and leadership elections.

Escalating clashes between protesters and police resulted in at least 10,000 arrests, and would only die down as COVID-19 hit the city.

After the pro-government camp suffered a landslide defeat in the 2019 local elections, Lam's popularity further plunged to a record low due to the mishandling of the pandemic.

Lam also saw the Chinese Government imposing the national security law in July 2020, criticised for shrinking freedom in the city and silencing the dissidents.

Opposition activists are tried and jailed while pro-democracy media were forced to close.

In April 2022, Lam announced that she would not seek a second term as Chief Executive, giving her wish to devote more time with her family as an explanation.

She was succeeded on 1 July 2022 by hardliner John Lee.

Born Cheng Yuet-ngor to a low-income family of Zhoushan ancestry in Hong Kong, Lam was the fourth of five children.

Her father was from Shanghai and worked on ships.

She was born and grew up in a tenement house on 229 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai, where she finished her primary and secondary education at St. Francis' Canossian College, a Catholic girls' school in the neighbourhood, where she was head prefect.

After leaving school, Lam attended the University of Hong Kong.

Through her student activism, she came to know Lee Wing-tat and Sin Chung-kai, who later became prominent pro-democracy legislators.

She co-organised exchange trips to Tsinghua University in Beijing.

To better understand society and participate more actively in student activities, she switched her course of study from social work to sociology after the first year to avoid placements.