Ching Foe Au
City of Antwerp, Business & Innovation
Ching Foe Au works for the city of Antwerp as a project manager in digital health innovations. As part of the team Business & Innovations, she supports and facilitates startups, scaleups and companies who are economically active in Antwerp or would like to do business or invest in this city. Companies at dunden have a direct line to Ching Foe, as she works from our coworking once a week, facilitating and matchmaking between governmental organizations, companies and knowledge institutions.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone, for example to one of your kids, what would it be?
Learn by doing and just do it. I am not much of an over-thinker and I believe that only by doing, you will know what the next steps will be. I don't like to stand still too much. People need to move to realize certain goals, so if you have something in mind and you would like to do it, just do it and don't look back. Regret is not in my vocabulary.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grow up?
A manager! My dad has always been my biggest example and he used to own and manage a restaurant. I was often hanging around my dad at the restaurant and I wanted to help him with all sorts of work-related stuff. I guess that I didn't really care what kind of manager, but probably as a child I just liked to boss people around… haha!
What from your past has had a great impact on you as a person in a way that it has made you the person you are today?
I went to Vietnam for my thesis and lived there for 6 months. I did a lot of interviews with people there, my thesis was about Why the Chinese businessmen community become so successful in Vietnam. I have talked to many people and one of the businessmen who I was close with, told me that I should go to Shanghai after my studies. That is the place to be, he said. After my studies I did and it was the best experience. I thought I would stay only for 1 to maybe 2 years, but in the end I stayed and lived there for 13 years, where I met my husband and gave birth to my 2 beautiful daughters. That’s why I always treasure good conversations and people relations and take people's advice seriously.
What is a talent that you wish you had and how do you handle not having this talent?
I wish I had a really good memory. My memory isn’t as good as I would like it to be and there’s many moments with family, with my husband and children, that I just don't recall. They would say this and that happened and I would go “really?”, because I just forgot… And although I don't like to take too many pictures during an event or a gathering, I now know that I need to take some, because otherwise I will forget this event has ever taken place. So nowadays I will force myself to take more pictures or I might write about the things that I have done, as a note or in a diary, in case I forget.
Can you tell us something that most people don’t know about you?
I love superhero movies and I am a big fan of Marvel Studios. If I had to pick a favourite character, it would be Wolverine, because he is super-duper cool and he has healing powers! And come on, it’s Logan! When he died in the last episode, I was quite sad, even though I already knew that he would be back! I think it would be great to have superpowers! Unfortunately, I don’t have any. I would want to be able to cure and to be able to be instantly transmitted. My friends are all over the world, such as Indonesia, Korea, US, Australia, and it would be great to be there and have a drink or dinner with them in just one click.
Have you ever been in the newspaper or in a magazine with your picture (not related to your current job)?
I have been in several Dutch magazines while I was living in China, such as Vrij Nederland en HP/deTijd. In 2005 I moved to Shanghai. I guess that being a person of both cultures, being Dutch - Chinese, and taking a step to move to China, which not many people did or do, was already a good enough topic for journalists to write about ;)
