Mrs Patricia Lau has close to 30 years of experience in management consulting. She joined the HKSAR Government in 2007 and is responsible for leading initiatives regarding design thinking, social innovation and citizen-centric services. She advocates multi-disciplinary and cross sector collaborations in solving social issues.
In 2008, Mrs Lau partnered with the Hong Kong Design Centre and students from the School of Design in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) to pilot the deployment of service design to job placement and retraining services. Since then, Mrs Lau has been advocating design thinking and helping government departments adopt the approach.
In 2013, Mrs Lau launched the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund) and engaged PolyU as one of the intermediaries with a focus on using design thinking to co-create innovative solutions to tackle issues related to poverty and social exclusion in Hong Kong. Out of the 140 social ventures funded by the SIE Fund, at least 30% make use of design thinking approaches. In particular, the Social Innovation Design Lab programme is a platform connecting 1,000 young designers, senior citizens, community groups, service providers and design professionals to address the elderly issues in Hong Kong.
Prior to joining the HKSAR Government, Mrs Lau was the Managing Consultant and Head of Public Sector in PA Consulting Group and before that, a Director in PwC Consulting. Mrs Lau has a Bachelor Degree in Surveying (Honours) and a Master Degree in Surveying Science from the University of New South Wales in Australia. She also has a MBA Degree from the Ivey Business School of the University of Western Ontario.
