Live & Learn

When Anthonia Hui and Leonardo Drago still lived in Hong Kong nearly three decades ago, they came across a beggar on the streets. “Just as I was about to pull out my wallet, Leo held my hand and said, ‘How do you know he’s not scamming you?’”

Because there were a lot of professional beggars,” Hui says. “I said to him, ‘I’d rather believe that what I’m doing will make a difference in someone’s life for that short time. If he’s being forced to beg, then at least I can relieve him from being punished for not bringing in the money, or if he genuinely needs the money to buy food, then I can relieve him for that one meal.’ That’s all I needed to know; the rest is unimportant.”

It is a conviction that Hui holds on to till today, and one that has influenced her and Drago’s philanthropic giving. The couple, who married in 2010, “decided that when we have more than enough money for what we need for ourselves, we should think about what more we can do with it”, Drago shares.

They moved to Singapore in 2000 after being headhunted by a Swiss private bank, and left banking in 2007 to start AL Wealth Partners, an independent external asset manager catering to the needs of the ultra-high-net-worth individual and family offices. The company was acquired by Nasdaq-listed AlTi Tiedemann Global in April 2023. Hui and Drago continue to lead the growth of AlTi’s wealth management offering here as its head of Singapore and head of investments, respectively. The views expressed here are their own.

The couple’s foundation of success is built upon hard work, resilience and daring to create their own destiny. But the journey to get to where they are today is marked by the life experiences and lessons that have shaped their personal philosophies along the way.