Hong Kong financier and SUNY Fredonia alumnus Raymond Lai will be the college's Commencement speaker this May. He will also be honored by the State University of New York, which is conferring upon him an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
 
Mr. Lai, a major force in financial markets of Hong Kong, is finance director of the Hong Kong Airport Authority. Appointed to the post in 1996, he was responsible for financing the construction of the new Hong Kong Airport, is a member of the Executive Committee and is responsible for all aspects of the authority's financial management, corporate planning, and setting of prices.
 
A 1975 graduate of Fredonia, Mr. Lai endowed the Raymond Lai Scholarship through the Fredonia College Foundation in 1995 to benefit international students from Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China. After completing his bachelor's degree in business at SUNY Fredonia, he earned an M.B.A. from the University of Toronto.
 
Mr. Lai became finance director of the Hong Kong Airport Authority in 1996, after previously holding the post of senior vice president and head of corporate banking and capital markets of the ABN Amro Bank in Hong Kong. Prior to that, he was head of the credit and loans at Hang Seng Bank, the largest local bank in Hong Kong. His banking experiences also covered 13 years with Citibank and J.P. Morgan during which he had postings in New York City, U.S., and Brussels, Belgium.
 
Mr. Lai is chairman of the Sir Murray MacLehose Trust Fund Investment Advisory Committee, a government-sponsored charitable fund. He is also a member of the Finance Committee of the Hong Kong Housing Authority, which manages Hong Kong's public housing.
 
At Fredonia, the undergraduate graduation ceremony is slated for Saturday, May 17, at 10 a.m. in Steele Hall. The master's and Certificate of Advanced Study ceremony is slated for Thursday, May 15, in the evening, in the Michael C. Rockefeller Arts Center.