HKUST Business School Magazine

Establish a family forum “Before anyone starts a family office, it’s important to establish a Family Forum and get people to come together to talk to each other. If you don’t talk, you don’t communicate, and that means you can’t collaborate,” he says. For the Ma family, defining and discussing what the family business does not stand for and cannot do is just as important as talking about a vision of what it can do. This is part of the process of creating those family values. As an example, he says his family agrees that business activities must do no harm to anyone, and must not negatively affect society. The Ma family must strive to make a positive impact on society, he says. In terms of business, there is a key difference between results and impact, he says, and the family is focused on making an impact. Ma says that the five elements of impact can be defined as being specific, measurable, accountable, relevant, and timely. “It’s about how you impact your fellow man,” he says. That has become the central tenet of the Ma family, and the needle in the family’s compass. “We try to do things that benefit our customers and the public. If you apply this attitude to your community, the community will be more harmonious and the country will become more harmonious, too,” Ma explains. To build a better society, the important thing is to start from the inside. This is a foundational value of the Ma family, and it continues to be a guiding principle for how they live their lives, build new businesses, and carry on the family legacy. Ma does not expect his children to walk in his footsteps, and they have chartered their own courses in life. But they continue to live and breathe the Ma family values in all that they do, and this enables them to carry on the family legacy. In 2012, Max Ma, along with his son and daughter, Theodore and Erica, launched a family-supported venture called CoCoon that offers entrepreneurship education and funding for early-stage entrepreneurs who have a unique vision. To this end, Ma proudly stands by his children as they continue to make positive impacts in Hong Kong’s business world today. Maximilian Ma with son Theodore Biz@HKUST 23