/ Meet community builder extraordinaire Sarah Vee: the founder of Women of Hong Kong and partner to Muay Thai champ Jeferson Oliveira believes women are stronger together
“I didn’t like myself five years ago,” Sarah Vee says starkly. “I would never have sat with myself five years ago for dinner, for a drink or even for breakfast.” It’s an odd sentiment for someone who founded an empowering networking initiative whose membership now numbers in the thousands.
But for Vee it has always been about the journey rather than the destination. With the Women of Hong Kong, she brings to bear all of the tools and knowledge she has gained from past stints as a nightlife event promoter, as well as from being a mother.
“I don’t think I knew exactly what I wanted, I just knew it was more than what I had right now,” she admits, looking further back to the days she managed raising her son alongside working as marketing and events manager at Central nightclub Play. “I was a young mum, I had my son at 21 and that doubled up what I wanted out of life, not just for me but for him too. I worked harder, I looked for more opportunities, I said yes to everything and I do remember burning out.”
Despite being born and raised in the city, Vee initially saw herself as an outsider. The comparison game was on from the start, with large parts of her professional and personal social groups drawn from international schools and affluent family backgrounds. “I saw that they had better curriculums than us, or they had more opportunities to go camp or go on exchange trips,” she remembers, “but that was when I realised I wasn’t one of those people who are born to watch other people get to good places without trying myself.”
Initially, her solution was starting the largely social Girls of Hong Kong in 2014, which served as a reason for women to get together simply to celebrate one another’s company. “At the time it was somewhat awkward to just go for a drink with a girlfriend because there might be unwanted advances or competitiveness about who looks better.
“When we opened the door to drinking together,” Vee continues, “we felt more confident to pull out that sparkly dress because they knew there were six more women who were going to dress to the skies, not for any man but for ourselves. We had such a good time and it stemmed from wanting to feel good in our own skin.”
The Girls of Hong Kong Facebook group had about 2,000 members at the time, but even though Vee wanted to grow the group more, there were personal struggles to overcome first.
“Half of me was thinking that people weren’t going to take me seriously and that’s what I understood later to be impostor syndrome,” adds the Filipino entrepreneur.
All of the Women of Hong Kong’s initiatives – social impact pages, women’s business directories, video classes for younger women – were designed to help women overcome those struggles, to connect and empower the great diversity of its membership, which includes entrepreneurs and corporate employees, alongside students and mothers.
Its Business Blitzes have been the group’s greatest success and the most poignant example of conscious community-building. Constructed as a series of business speed dates, attendees have just 15 minutes each to introduce their project to their table of four, which changes several times over the course of two hours.
“I didn’t make Women of Hong Kong to be a cash cow,” adds Vee. “I made it because I had needs as a woman where I didn’t know where to go for support or to feel safe. Women of Hong Kong requires nothing of you except posing the challenge of being yourself.”
Sarah Vee’s most treasured timepiece
IWC Pilot Mark XV
“At one point I was supposed to go to an event, and I got nervous because I didn’t know how to present myself, and my partner [Muay Thai fighter Jeferson Oliveira] just said ‘take this’.
This is the watch he saved up for from his fights. He saw this model, with brown strap white dial, in his favourite movie, Vanilla Sky, and it reminds both of us to dream but to also be present in our reality.”
XXIV hours in Sarah Vee’s day
Morning
“At 6.30am I wake up and I make sure that my son gets to school. Once I’ve started my beauty routine, I’ll put the kettle on to make coffee for my partner. When the cream sets in, both my partner and son are usually out of the house and I have time for myself. Before I do anything else, I use this app called Endel, which plays soundscapes to calm and centre myself, and then I move all the things not done from yesterday’s to-do list to today’s. I open my laptop around 9am or I do yoga if I’m feeling it. I check in with my virtual assistant and I just take care of things within the community – messages, partnership requests and enquiries.”
Afternoon
“At 11.30am I have to get the food out to make lunch as my son is getting home soon. I cook and eat with my son and we go to our sport classes around 4pm, but if I don’t have class that day, I come up to Soho House to work for the afternoon.”
Evening
“Before I know it, I’m back to cooking for dinner, cleaning up dishes from the afternoon, catching up with messages … and then letting my assistant know I’m going to check out.”
Night
- The Filipino entrepreneur suffered from impostor syndrome and a lack of self-confidence until she decided to work smarter not harder, and build a community of women to help each other
- Vee wears her favourite IWC Pilot watch, featured in Tom Cruise film Vanilla Sky, to remind herself to dream but stay present, and says that sometimes the biggest challenge is ‘being yourself’