Community Spotlight: Roger Lee, Analyst

Curious about what volunteerism and Time Auction events are all about? Meet our community who has shared their memorable experiences in their volunteering journey and meetings with our featured guests!

Meet Roger Lee!

Roger graduated from The University of Hong Kong with a major in Quantitative Finance and a minor in Computer Science. After graduation, he worked for Bloomberg in Sales and Analytics department and later moved to a private company as an analyst. His role is to discover investment opportunities in the current market regime and identify their respective risks. During his free time, Roger enjoys exploring intellectual perspectives to broaden his investment philosophy.

Roger’s Volunteer Journey

Roger was introduced to Time Auction by his friend whom has joined Time Auction events in the past and started to volunteer regularly after realizing he gained more than the hours he put in.

“A lot of life experiences including volunteer work is give-and-take, there is no 100% giving. “

His first volunteer experience was to arouse children’s interest in technology. The experience was pivotal to his perception of volunteer service. Through volunteering, Roger had the opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds and listen to different perspectives. The people he met shared valuable life experiences and how they look at things at very different angles. It would not have been possible without volunteer services as most of his time was spent in the financial industry.

“Every volunteer work is unforgettable, the number of hours you put in is minimal compared to the experience you gained.”

Through volunteering, Roger found that small actions can have great effects. Volunteer service could be as simple as translation or cooking with the elderly. He translated a passage from English to Chinese on OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorders), where he was able to learn about the disorder and share it with a wider audience. It helps raise public awareness of the problems that society is currently facing.

Roger believes that everything is “empty” — Everything happening right now is not something that will persist. We always put too many expectations on things happening around us. When things go against our expectations, it’s easy for emotions will take over ourselves. Being “empty” is to understand that nothing will persist, and therefore learn not to attach your emotion to the change.

However, being “empty” does not mean being pessimistic to life. In the context of volunteer services, the idea of emptiness is to do actions that are beneficial to society, reflect continuously on the outcome with no emotions attached to it. Without emotion, you can be more objective and understand how you can do better to contribute.

What Roger learned from Time Auction Experiences

For his first Time Auction event, Roger met with Anthony Leung, Group Chairman & CEO of Nan Fung Group. It is inspiring to hear about Anthony’s sharing views on education and his vision on how the education system should be in a new era in order to develop more leaders in Hong Kong.

The second Time Auction event was with Damien Mooney, Head of Aladdin Wealth Tech at BlackRock. Damien came from a diverse career background across marketing, finance and technology. Roger was thrilled in listening to Damien shared more about life experiences on the importance of getting involved in different things and the build relationships with people.

“Sometimes it’s not about the answer but the path to get there.”

Roger felt motivated about the experience that Time Auction has brought to him. Time Auction enables Roger to look at things from a wider perspective and learn from experienced leaders in their fields while you contribute to society.

Seek and You Shall Find

Roger’s advice to others is to try things outside of their comfort zone. He wasn’t interested in volunteering, cooking, writing or translating but after trying those things, he discovered it is always a good step to try things you are not experienced in. By trying out new things, he met and spoke to a lot of people he would otherwise not have the opportunity to have met; he also learned news skills, which broadened his perspectives, shaping him into a better person.

Thanks Roger for volunteering 20 hours to charities and joining 2 Time Auction experiences!

To see our upcoming experiences, head over to the Time Auction website!

Interviewed & written by Cindy Chan | Edited by Fleur Hui