Women in Leadership: Spotlight on Jacqueline Shek

How did you get into the industry?

I started out as a tax accountant advising multinational enterprises and later became a tax lawyer, advising private clients as well as international companies.

Much of my early career centred on cross‑border structuring, with a focus on tax structuring for corporates and wealth structuring for private clients, which eventually led me into the trust and private wealth space.

What has been a key learning in your career?

Relationships and context matter, often even more than having the most technically efficient structure or the most profitable client portfolio.

The human element really comes to life when working with private clients. Two family trusts may look identical on paper, yet the trust journey can be completely different depending on the wealth owner’s stage of life, cultural background, family dynamics, and the family’s level of trust in their trustee. It is never a cookie‑cutter exercise.

What would you say to someone considering a career in your industry?

The industry welcomes talent with open arms. What we do can feel niche, but the exposure we gain is unparalleled. Working alongside highly successful entrepreneurs and ultra‑high‑net‑worth families as they pursue their goals and pass on their legacy is a privilege.

Excellence in your core skills is essential, but there is no single pathway into the profession. Throughout my career, I have upskilled tax lawyers into trust lawyers, chartered secretaries into trust administrators, and accountants into wealth planners. The career path is genuinely as rewarding as what you put in.

What are the opportunities and challenges you’re seeing in the industry?

The opportunities are significant: a shift from public‑market fundraising toward private wealth and family office investment, major intergenerational wealth transfer, and increasingly mobile families.

The challenges are equally real. For businesses, safeguarding the privacy of individuals and families who trust us with extremely sensitive information is becoming increasingly complex in a world defined by rapid information flow and evolving data‑security risks.

AI is another important area. It offers huge potential, especially in streamlining paperwork, record‑keeping, and repetitive administrative work that has been eating up a professional trustee’s time. The real opportunity lies in how automation can elevate our people – freeing up their time to focus on judgement, relationships, and the nuanced decision‑making that makes a discretionary trustee truly valuable to beneficiaries.

But with this comes a structural challenge for the private trust industry: the impact on pricing and profitability. Those who lean into AI early will capture efficiency gains, while businesses that remain highly dependent on rising labour costs may find their competitiveness erode. The shift is already underway; the question is how quickly each of us choose to adapt.

To explore how Jacqueline and our team in Asia support families and their advisers, get in touch.