Story by Anna Shen. Photo by Conan Thai.
Veronica Wong answers her phone on a Friday night after a business trip, but she can’t talk. She has to call her boss as she just finalized negotiations with a new investor for Moon Capital Management, an investment management firm that runs several hedge funds. As director of marketing for the firm with offices in New York, Singapore and Dubai, Wong raises capital for investment in public companies globally.
Although Wong is a moneymaker at her firm, friends note that she does not brag and hardly ever reveals her accomplishments. In fact, she says she had “no grand plan” for her career other than always trying to challenge herself.
A genuine, petite force of nature (she’s 5 feet, she says, in heels), Wong is modest considering her academic accomplishments: a Harvard degree in economics (magna cum laude), Columbia Law School (a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar), and an M.B.A. from top- ranked INSEAD in France. Her professional CV is no slouch either: a securities lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and Hong Kong, a manager at Barclays Capital in London, and vice president at Deutsche Bank in New York. Last year, she became part owner of Neta, an acclaimed sushi restaurant in New York. Sandwiched somewhere in between her schooling and more traditional professions were stints as a DJ in Tokyo and acting training at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, activities she took up to get over her shyness. “Nobody believes I am shy,” she says. “However, when I was growing up, I was a shy person, and it wasn’t like I was verbose in high school, as English was not my first language.”
Last spring, the Asian American Federation (AAF) honored Wong at The Pierre in New York City, before 400 guests, as a woman who not only has broken through the “bamboo ceiling” but also gives back to the community. In what little spare time she has, Wong serves meals to the homeless, translates pro bono in discrimination litigation, supports various charitable organizations and serves on the board of the Harvard Club of New York City. “She struck me as a powerhouse, like dynamite,” says Michelle Tong, director of donor relations for AAF. “She is a role model for Asian Americans, especially women.”
When we finally do get a moment to talk, Wong says she doesn’t have some grand driving force behind her on-the-go lifestyle. “I love to experience life and experience people,” she says simply. “I am naturally curious about people, and I love learning a new thing every day. I connect with people at a deeper level, even in my job, because people feel like I am genuine.”
“She is one of the most inquisitive people I have ever met,” says Elaine Yu, managing director of DBS Vickers Securities. “She has a natural thirst for knowledge and is constantly striving to improve.” Even as a child, Wong remembers, her mother would beg her to stop studying, but she always wanted to answer just one more question.
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Indeed, her inspiration is her mother, a “fearless” woman with a “tremendous zest for life,” says Wong. She became a single mom after her husband unexpectedly passed away when Wong was just 2. Raising three daughters alone, Wong’s mother eventually moved her family from Hong Kong to New York. Five years later, Wong’s oldest sister was involved in a car accident that left her in a coma for three years. She eventually came out of the coma, but was confined to a wheelchair. Through all the hardships, however, the family remained tight-knit, likening themselves to The Joy Luck Club. After Wong’s oldest sister passed away several years ago, the three women moved in together in a loft-like apartment in Tribeca.
It was perhaps such obstacles that lent Wong her fighting spirit, something that served her well during her five years in finance. “It is a boys’ world on the trading floor, and it definitely took some adjustment,” she says. “Ultimately, it made me a much tougher person.”
When asked about her accomplishments as an Asian American woman, Wong remains true to form. “I am not the president of South Korea, the opposition leader of Burma or CEO of Pepsi,” she says, “but I try to do the best I can in all areas of my life, and things fell into place. I have been fortunate to have people in my life who were supportive of me through my career.”
This story was originally published in our Spring 2014 issue. Get your copy here.
