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Away from the Fairways | TEE TIME PROFILE
Man of the Hour Cartier’s Nigel Luk tells Mathew Scott how playing golf has helped reinforce his business relationships in mainland China
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HK Golfer・OCT 2012
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Luk in action at an event at SkyCity Nine Eagles in Hong Kong (below); Luk with actress Carina Lau at the 2010 launch of the Cartier flagship store in Prince’s Building
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HK Golfer・OCT 2012
turned into the 1990, was just beginning to realise its potential as an international market – while China was slowly waking from slumber – and Luk eventually landed a job as the personal assistant to the export director at Cartier. “I was soon looking after specific markets rather than my boss and that suits me as I like to be out in the battlefield,” says Luk, as we sit down to chat in the refined and comfortable surrounds of the Cartier offices in Jardine Hoause, where he is now based as the brand’s regional managing director. It wasn’t long before Luk was expanding his horizons – and helping spread the famed Cartier brand across the region. But it soon became apparent that the real action was about to begin on the mainland. Luk’s first foray across the border confirmed his suspicions. The Chinese market was slowly beginning to open itself up to the world, and the storied history that “Cartier started in Cartier provides would prove a perfect match with the modern 1847 and we are consumer’s needs. now charting our Chinese But there was one little problem future in China. that needed addressing first. “I didn’t know a word of It is dynamic Mandarin,” Luk laughs. “My first and something meeting was with China Duty new is happening Free and for two hours we didn’t understand each other. We even every day.” tried writing things down but then realised I didn’t understand simplified Chinese and they didn’t understand traditional Chinese.” Heading back to Hong Kong, Luk thought about how he could learn the language – fast – and he happened upon a near-perfect solution. “I decided the most practical way was not to find a tutor but to go to karaoke and just learn it by singing Mandarin songs,” says Luk. “So when I sing now I sound perfect but when I talk, I have a funny accent. But it works and that’s what is important.” What really captured Luk’s imagination back in the early 1990s was just how quickly things were moving ahead in China “It was the fast pace that first excited me, incredible,” he says. “And then it was just learning about the culture. It is the same still today. China wants to break out and see the world and welcome the world. There is an energy there. We started our China operations in 1992 – the first store was in Shanghai. Today we have around 40 boutiques in China and are opening at a pace of around seven per year.” Luk sees the success of the Cartier brand in China as a natural progression for the company – and for the Cartier line of products.
iming can mean everything in life, as Nigel Luk’s story proves. Being in the right place, at the right time led Luk on a remarkable journey both in a business sense and when it comes to the game of golf itself. A mechanical engineer by trade, it took Luk two years of toiling away in a milling factory in the United Kingdom – overseeing the making of parts for luxury cars but never being able to taste a little of that luxury for himself – before he realised that it just “wasn’t the life for me.” Luk had been born in Hong Kong but had spent the greater part of his formative years studying in the UK and by 1989 he saw that it was time to head back home. Asia, as the world
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“The brand is about exclusivity, the history and 160 when it was held at Mission Hills’ new complex on Hainan Island. legend of the design, and the art of being unique. “It’s a lot of fun. Everyone looks forward to it every year. We play and drink and We are producing works of art,” he says. “We started talk and laugh,” says Luk. in 1847 and we are now charting our future in China. But there is a serious side to proceedings, too. “Auctions for charity have now It is dynamic and something new is happening every become a major part of the event and now raise more than HK$10 million to help day. Everyone wants to be a build schools in China,” Luk explains. part of building the success of Luk is a member at both the Clearwater Bay Golf & “Even if I hit 120 or 130 China and we do too. Country Club and the Xili Golf & Country Club in Shenzhen [in a round], I laugh all “ Twenty years ago it and though an arm injury suffered while skiing in January was just me working there, the way through. I enjoy has curtailed his play somewhat this year, he has been back now we have around 1,200 out on the course in recent months as he prepares for the the companionship, the people in China working for Cartier event in November. sunshine and the fun you us. So, looking back to me “You know, I find golf a challenge,” he says. “And it brings my this is a giant footstep. Every temper down. Before, if I could not hit a ball I would hit a tree. get out of the game.” morning when I get up I am But eventually I said ‘Hey, this is a game.’ So now I laugh. Even if excited and I feel the energy.” I hit 120 or 130 [in a round], I laugh all the way through. I enjoy the companionship, the And it was doing business in China – and sunshine and the fun you get out of the game. Everyone is the same on the golf course looking for what to do with some of that energy and I like that, too.” – that led Luk to golf, although he readily admits that it took a long time for him to be seduced by the game’s many charms. “The truth is that when I was at school in the UK I had all these mates from Portugal and from Spain who wanted me to play golf but I thought they were mad,” says Luk. “I wanted to play football and rugby. So when I saw the guys swinging these clubs I would say ‘Come on guys, this game is for the oldies.’” But time has a habit of changing how a man sees the world – and indeed, how the world sees him. “In 1996, one of my dealers, Wong Kam-shing from the Kowloon Watch Company, enrolled me for lessons at Sai Kung and said I had become too fat and I needed exercise,” laughs Luk. “He was really the driving force. I had a tough coach who made me work hard and Mr Wong was there all the time. I started to find this game interesting. It’s tough. There is so much to learn and it is a constant challenge.” Luk also found how the social aspect of the game could not only help reinforce business relationships and friendships, it could be channelled into being a catalyst for doing good in the greater community. “The more I learned the more I wanted to learn and once I started going throughout China, I started to play with my friends and with my customers,” says Luk. “In the late 1990s this was still very rare. But it develops relationships. It is not customer-client it is friendship.” And Luk soon decided that one great way to help those friendship to flourish would be to gather everyone together out on the course. From initially organising trips to play together in Thailand, Luk has developed the annual Cartier Golf Tournament, which was first held for a field of 30 at Fanling 11 years ago and last year attracted HKGOLFER.COM
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