Published on Career Center on ClassifiedPost.com

Liberating family ties

Despite a hectic work schedule and often having to make late-night conference calls, Christina Gaw manages to address all the demands of her professional and personal lives by planning ahead.

The managing principal and head of capital markets at Gaw Capital Partners makes a firm point of always spending her non-work hours with her family. Resourceful in finding motivation in all things, Gaw says that her greatest source of inspiration, encouragement and support comes from her husband and four children - two boys and two girls aged between five and 11.

"Being a working mother has never been an obstacle to my forming a deep and loving relationship with my children, but good planning [has been necessary] to carve out quality time with each of them," she explains.

Gaw's career trajectory accelerated into high gear upon her graduation from the University of San Francisco with a bachelor of science in business administration. Entering the demanding and highly challenging world of investment banking, she rose steadily through the ranks, first at Goldman Sachs and later with UBS, where she was a managing director, heading up the Asia Pacific Capital Introduction effort for alternative products.

All along, Gaw says, her guiding principles have been to be optimistic, communicative, and have high ethical standards. She also believes in planning ahead. In a world where we all have to multitask, she knows from plenty of experience that planning, especially for working mothers who have to juggle work and home commitments, is essential.

In terms of maintaining a work-life balance, she considers herself well-balanced, thanks to the support of her spouse and children. Work also plays an extremely important role in her daily life by allowing her to stay intellectually connected with the world.

Today, her professional focus is on fund-raising and product development after she joined Gaw Capital Partners as partner three and a half years ago.

The firm, founded by her two elder brothers in 2005, is a uniquely positioned private equity real estate fund management company, with a primary focus on Greater China. It currently manages three funds, which have a total equity of over US$1.5 billion (about HK$11.7 billion).

All told, she's spent more than 15 years working in inves