Alumni Kaleidoscope: Lewis Yau - MTM(GLM), BBA(ISMT)-IS

With a passion for bringing Hong Kong's renowned tailoring services to the world, luxury fashion veteran and entrepreneur Lewis Yau recently launched ShirtStylist, offering a unique customer proposition of integrating quality personalized custom-made shirt services with digital experiences. The ShirtStylist team will engage the customers with personal styling advice, measurement and fitting in the ShirtStylist's studio or customer's office. Customers will then be able to access their style profile and measurements in the ShirtStylist online store, where they can explore different fabrics and have a fun experience to create custom-made shirts tailored to their own styles and needs, all delivered to the customers at a click.

One of the key challenges that Lewis faces is getting customers on board with this innovative model. "Human touch remains our top priority. Our team of stylists guide new customers through every step of using the platform," says Lewis. "At the moment, we are reaching out to large audit firms and legal associations as well as hosting lifestyle seminars to promote our services and platform." The team – all of whom have an extensive background in luxury fashion – is now providing services in 8 cities in Asia, i.e. Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Macau and Taipei and is also gearing up to enter the Japan market in 2020.

Beginning his career as a Management Trainee at P&G, Lewis became an e-Commerce consultant in 2000 and then went on to business process re-engineering for Lane Crawford. There, he was later invited to switch to the operations side as a Store Manager of a 50,000 sq. ft. department store. With his strong background in consulting and business, Lewis was soon able to bring new vision and ideas to the company, and he continued to work in retail and fashion in a leadership role for the next decade. In recent years, he has focused on helping international brands expand to Asia, overseeing a wide scope of activities from opening new stores to e-commerce. The market insights, experience and network that he built up over the course of his career provided him with a strong foundation from which to launch ShirtStylist. He also credits his wife, who founded a business in STEM education, as a strong supporter of his entrepreneurial venture. Like him, his wife, brother, sister-in-law and brother-in-law all graduated from HKUST, taking pride in their unique bond as an alumni family.