Timothy Fok, born in Hong Kong in 1946, has been a member of the International Olympic Committee going back eleven years. He was enlisted in the IOC Commission for organizing the 29th Summer Games in Beijing and is in the same role for the 31st in Rio de Janeiro. Since 1997, when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty and accorded autonomy, Mr. Fok has been the sole President of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of his native city.

A scion of one the most prominent business families, he received his education first in Hong Kong, then in England and finally in California where he also began to nurture his interest in design for which he takes pride equal to sports. Through his overseas sojourns, young Mr. Fok acquired an abiding appreciation of the diversity in cultures and is today an ardent proponent of universal brotherhood.

His participation in the business of sports came to him as part of a family duty and tradition. His father, the late Henry Fok Ying Tung and him had succeeded in helping China back to the Olympics, starting in Los Angeles 1984, from which subsequently two bids were made, the second fruitful, to stage the Summer Games, culminating with the great event of 2008.

The Fok Ying Tung Foundation has donated to many sporting and cultural facilities throughout the country, among which most notably is the now iconic “Cube”, the 2008 Games swimming pool where more records were shattered than any other Games swimming venue. His vision that sports and culture could galvanize people and redeem pride and honor a nation has since come to pass.

Though a committed sportsman and the incumbent President of the Hong Kong Football Association, Timothy Fok has given himself not only to cultivating the next crop of elite athletes but also to the spreading of the message that everyone ought to participate in sports. That Hong Kong society has stirred to his clarion call in turning sports from an afterthought to a facet of everyday life gives him much pleasure – the crescendo for which was the city staging the 2008 Olympics Equestrian Event at the behest of the Beijing Games.

To advance what he espouses, Mr. Fok has served in the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, since 1997 because the political forum was crucial for engaging others in the debate, in enacting laws and in raising public awareness to the needs of a society to be multifaceted in aspirations and abilities.

Mr. Fok remains at the helm of a conglomerate with the help of his sons, a diverse business that counts itself among the first to invest in China after the adoption of economic reforms almost 35 years ago.