The William Louey Lai Kuen Story
William Louey Lai Kuen is a Hong Kong businessman who has spent much of his life working at the intersection of business, education and long-term mentorship.
His family has been associated with Kowloon Motor Bus for generations, and he became a director of the company in 1997. Over the years, he has also been involved in property and sustainability-focused ventures. While business remains an important part of his life, education has shaped his sense of purpose more deeply.
Giving Without Recognition
William Louey often speaks about the influence of his grandmother, who gave quietly and without recognition.
“A lot of people do charity for social climbing or to get recognition, or to get a title or whatever, but I don’t want to do anything like that. I just felt that my grandmother did it the right way because she didn’t ask for any recognition. I think it’s the most honourable way of doing it.”
William’s approach to giving was influenced early on by his grandmother, who quietly supported orphanages and care homes without seeking recognition. As a child, he accompanied her on visits and saw first-hand the value of personal involvement.
William Louey has often said that giving money alone is not enough. Time and attention matter more.
The Beginning
In the mid-1990s, when opportunities for mainland Chinese students to study overseas were still limited, William began meeting academically strong students who lacked financial means.
What started as a conversation about education and opportunity gradually became a commitment. In 1995, he established the William S.D. Louey Educational Foundation in honour of his grandfather.
Rather than funding large numbers anonymously, William Louey chose to work closely with a small group of students. He interviewed candidates personally and remained involved throughout their studies.
The intention was simple: to widen perspective and create long-term opportunity.
A Different Kind of Mentorship
From the beginning, William Louey declined repayment. Instead, he encouraged scholars to help others when they were ready.
Over time, many former scholars have built businesses, contributed to technological innovation and taken on leadership roles internationally. Some now fund scholarships of their own. What began as individual support has evolved into a continuing chain of opportunity.
William Louey remains closely connected to many scholars. He attends graduations, weddings and family milestones. Relationships extend beyond formal mentorship.
Broader Educational Engagement
William’s involvement in education has extended beyond his own Foundation. In 1999, he joined the committee of the China Oxford Scholarship Fund, supporting students from China studying at Oxford. In 2011, he was appointed a Member of the Vice-Chancellor’s Circle at the University of Oxford in recognition of his contributions.
Recognition has never been the goal. Personal involvement has.
Personal Philosophy and Continuing Conversations
In recent years, William Louey has expanded his public engagement through digital platforms and thought leadership, further establishing himself as a content creator and key opinion leader who is keen to learn from others and share the wisdom he has gathered over his unique lifetime experience.
Through engaging, thoughtfully constructed productions, William Louey explores enduring questions of health, longevity and responsibility across generations, guided by his own creativity, curiosity and a sincere commitment to innovative thinking. His work moves beyond surface-level discussion, using personal experience as both entry point and foundation.
The content examines what it means to live a long, vibrant and meaningful life physically, mentally and emotionally, not as an abstract ideal but as a practice shaped by daily choices, self-reflection and continual self-improvement. Wellbeing is presented as an evolving process that requires discipline without rigidity, openness without complacency, and a willingness to reassess how one lives, works and contributes over time.
Drawing on decades of experience in business, leadership and mentorship, William reflects on how to remain active, curious and ethically engaged at every stage of life. These conversations position growth not as reinvention but as refinement, deepening awareness, values and responsibility as experience accumulates.
In this way, the content becomes a natural extension of the same philosophy that shaped the Foundation itself. Experience carries responsibility, and personal development is inseparable from the duty to contribute meaningfully to others and to future generations.
A New Approach
The reason why education was such a focal point for William Louey’s philanthropy was the fact that during his school years, he had struggled personally and academically due to his diagnosed ADHD traits.
He wanted to give others who are economically underprivileged a chance to change their lives through education. This was, according to him, a way for him to redeem his past self within the very educational system that he had battled against as a student. He was determined that this should be done through the success of other well-deserving young minds.
William Louey was a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization, an US origin network of young leaders and executives from around the world. It was then that he met Richard Yan, a charismatic, Western-educated lawyer, who was the only representative from mainland China in the mid-1990s. William revealed his experimental philanthropy ideas to Richard, who immediately became interested in helping. Richard drew up a list of the top schools in Beijing which were attended by some of the poorest students in China. Within days of their initial conversation about the mission, Richard invited William to personally interview the crème de la crème from these institutions in Beijing, to which the latter delightfully agreed.
After achieving a better understanding of the mission plan through student conversations and interviews in mainland China, William Louey decided to set up his own foundation to offer extensive scholarships to a select number of candidates he was impressed with. In 1995, he created the William S.D. Louey Educational Foundation, naming it after his late grandfather who was also known for his charitable giving in Hong Kong. Through the foundation, William Louey has, to date, helped over 60 students, who are mostly from mainland China, get unparalleled access to private education in the UK. These efforts eventually led to most of them qualifying for further education at Oxford and Cambridge.
But William Louey’s philanthropy did not just stop at helping brilliant students from underprivileged backgrounds attend elite universities. He takes pride in mentoring each scholar, from A-level education through to university studies and beyond. As a mentor, he wanted to do even more than inspire his scholars to achieve success. He revealed to them the Pay It Forward philosophy he personally abides by, which required each scholar to do something to give back to society, no matter how small their respective contributions were to be.
William Louey’s Pay It Forward philosophy is now paying off. Many of his scholars today are serial philanthropists themselves, with some educating their own children to carry on the Pay It Forward mission. In 2016, a group of the early batch of scholars set up their own scholarship in honour of William Louey and named it Pay It Forward, which is a fund that annually sponsors Chinese students to study at Oxford University. This fund sits under the China Oxford Scholarship Fund, which William Louey is also a committee member of.
William Louey’s contribution to UK education is manifold. He not only had to overcome challenging circumstances to bring mainland Chinese students to the UK in the mid 1990s, but he also introduced some of China’s brightest young minds in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics sector to its private education landscape. News of William Louey’s brilliant scholars didn’t escape the then Prince Charles, who was then the head of the Cambridge Overseas Trust which also sponsored talented students from abroad. In 1998, Prince Charles invited William Louey to a private dinner to discuss the future of China’s young students in British education, a meeting which was so successful that William Louey’s efforts made waves in higher education. To recognise his overall contribution to British higher education, in 2013 Oxford University awarded William Louey the Elizabeth Wordsworth Fellowship, which is still the first and only accolade of its kind.
What’s more important to William Louey, however, is the ongoing relationships he enjoys between his scholars and their wider network too. “I always encourage people to give. People give, but they don’t give time. That’s the problem. I can’t really explain to them how much I enjoy doing what I do. I have a big family, with all my scholars. I go to their graduation, I go to their weddings, I go to see their newborns. We become like families,” he has said.
Now 65 years of age, William Louey celebrates over 30 years of his philanthropy in 2024. What’s foremost on his mind is that the world would be a better place if more people in his position adopted the Pay It Forward model of giving, which he certainly finds extremely rewarding and humbling.
“A lot of people do charity for social climbing or to get recognition, or to get a title or whatever, but I don’t want to do anything like that. I just felt that my grandmother did it the right way because she didn’t ask for any recognition. I think it’s the most honourable way of doing it,” William Louey has said.
