What do Ben Holgate, the new Hong Kong head of 141, and Tim
Balbirnie, MD of AMI Hong Kong, have in common? Plenty. Dig a little
into their backgrounds and you'd swear the pair had been separated at
birth.
Tim is an Irishman who has lived and worked all over the world. Ditto
for Ben, who's from England. But it's their fashion sense - outside of
their daily business suits - which is proof of the links that bind. Tim
is into purple shirts and red Converse sneakers. His favourite though is
a well-worn Bob Marley T-shirt in all its psychedelic glory. He also has
a prized pair of cowboy boots, and has been praying that Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid's sartorial style will soon make a comeback.
Ben, meanwhile, has similar oddities in his closet - a buck-skin,
thonged jacket.
And well you may ask why. In the 1970s, while in college, young Ben
played keyboard in a band called A Certain Ambivalence. But because the
band's greatest claim to fame was that it opened for a Stranglers
Concert in Lancaster in 1979, he wisely threw in the thonged jacket and
went into advertising.
Today, he can be seen relaxing at home in Aussie surf-type gear. But the
surfer look is purely for show. Ben's too wary to surf in Hong Kong's
murky waters. Here's hoping the pair connect.
