13th August 2026 – (Hong Kong) Legislative Council member Kenneth Fok is tipped to join the Hong Kong Jockey Club board of stewards at the annual general meeting on 2nd September, filling the seat left by Nicholas Hunsworth as he hits the club’s retirement age of 70.
The board has 12 stewards, elected by about 200 Voting Members. Past winners have usually been multinational executives, business-family figures, senior counsel, former officials, Executive Council members or legislators. The posts are unpaid yet highly prized as a mark of standing in Hong Kong’s commercial and civic circles.
Stewards normally serve three-year terms and must step down at 70. Hunsworth, a senior consultant solicitor at Mayer Brown, has sat on the board since 2020 and faces mandatory retirement this year. Fok, 47, who represents the Culture, Sports and Tourism functional constituency and has long been active in the club, has been nominated and is widely expected to take the vacancy.
Responding to media enquiries, Fok said he was honoured to be nominated by the board’s Nominations Committee. He hoped for a chance to contribute, especially by advancing racing tourism and using racing and sport to deepen Greater Bay Area co-operation.
Four other stewards whose terms expire are also up for re-election: deputy chairman and practising solicitor Lester Huang; Bernard Charnwut Chan, chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority board; Anita Fung Yuen-mei, an independent non-executive director of Bank of China (Hong Kong); and surveyor Philip K W Lo. Outsiders expect all four to win fresh terms.
For Hong Kong’s political and business networks, Voting Membership alone is already a status ticket; a steward’s chair carries still more weight. If Fok is elected on 2nd September, the board would gain a younger face linked to sport, tourism and Bay Area outreach just as Hunsworth’s long stint ends under the age rule.