Cross-cultural communication with Cecilia Lui

At an age when every young adolescent typically are searching for their identity, it was doubly challenging for Cecilia Lui for such self-discovery growing up in two cultures. Originally from Hong Kong, Cecilia grew up in different parts of Canada since the early 70s when her family decided to uproot to Canada after the 1967 riot in Hong Kong. Growing up abroad with working parents, Cecilia and her four siblings had much autonomy to pursue extracurricular activities and academic studies of their choice. Between going after her first choice of pursuing secretarial studies at a local college and attending university, Cecilia opted for the latter. Cecilia struggled with the math and the economics and was not enjoying her business administration studies. Two years into her academic journey, the university added a new bachelor degree. Take a guess what that might be. The rest was history. After 18 years in corporate administration where she felt being in supporting roles allowed her best attributes to shine, Cecilia decided that it was time, she could not see herself retiring in the same profession for another 20 years. Married young, and also divorced young, Cecilia experienced many challenges much sooner in life than many of her peers. By the time she was 30, she was a single mom. In 2001, Cecilia decided to return to her birthplace wanted to reconnect with her roots. It was through her journey back to the East that led her to unravelling her childhood dream in understanding “what makes others tick” and also fulfilling her desire to deepen her understanding towards her own culture. Little did she know that this over time became an important part of her work. Today, Cecilia’s work brings together the intersectionality of people, culture and communication. Her work with corporations and professionals often involve helping teams and individuals become more adaptive in their communication and leadership abilities, bringing to light how personality and cultural conditioning can often get in the way in achieving a connected and collaborative work environment. With our world increasingly diverse and multicultural, Cecilia continues to promote a message to all on the importance of developing a genuine interest in the people and the world around us with better relational skills and nurturing our sense of empathy, awareness and understanding that we need for a world with more inclusivity and less biases.

Cecilia's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cecilia-lui-iliaconnect

Professional BIO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16FcA-_pZzUK3LX32ClpClGXWzjUkoCEL/view?usp=sharing

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