An Interview with ACS Volunteer Jamie Zhan

Welcome to another “face of ACS”, an interview series starring ACS Volunteers and their journey in serving the non-profit community.

Jamie is an assistant vice president in Corporate Citizenship team in Credit Suisse. Her day-to-day job is to assist all efforts in relation to grant-making as well as to create opportunities for employees to give back to the society. Previously, she was a project coordinator at Good Lab where she organized and facilitated trainings/workshops for civil servants, NGO professionals and social start-up entrepreneurs. Jamie is a weekend farmer, guqin (古琴) player, and mindfulness enthusiast.

She graduated from the Chinese University in Hong Kong with a M.A. degree in Anthropology.

What 3 words would your friends use to describe you?        

Reflective, positive, genuine

Please share with us your volunteering journey so far and your motivation for volunteering with ACS.

I become heavily involved with ACS because I found that my expertise and experience clearly interlinked to create the most value for the workshop participants when I volunteered on those programs. I was fortunate to support a few teams to win the final awards in different programs, although my main motivation for volunteering is to help the NGO team craft a campaign that they are determined to implement no matter whether or not they win.

From your volunteering experience with ACS so far, what would be your 3 top tips to those who have just joined the ACS Volunteer Community?

  • Partner with someone with experience; ACS usually assigns an experienced volunteer to team up with a less experienced one; or you can proactively invite someone you trust with the relevant backgrounds in relation to NGO operation/focused topics or simply passionate! You may need to call a few friends to understand the topics on your own before the hackathon.
  • Deep dive and play the game! If you want to maximize the opportunity, you have to be in the game; being a facilitator and playing a role as user/donor by providing insights from your lens is definitely necessary
  • Follow ACS’s curriculum but be smart; prioritize your time on those most relevant topics for the NGOs (not for the competition) and be willing to let go

Thank you Jamie!

Share this :

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

Back to News

Other articles:
Stories

An Interview with ACS Volunteer Ada Yip

Hello, I’m Ada Yip. Over the past two decades, my journey has spanned international finance, sustainability, and social entrepreneurship across Toronto, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. Throughout these diverse roles, I’ve found my passion in bringing people and sectors together to address complex social and environmental challenges.

I started my career in banking and finance. In 2015, I had the opportunity to lead the concept-to-enterprise venture building for Urban Spring. It was a rewarding 8-year journey to develop a well-designed water refill network in Hong Kong with a mission to reduce single-use plastic bottles. In the past 2 years, I had the privilege to serve as Deputy CEO at The Women’s Foundation to advocate for gender equity and as CEO of JUST FEEL, where our team works to foster social emotional learning and inclusive school communities through compassionate communication.

Beyond my day-to-day work, I have served on multiple boards of social purpose organizations. Currently I am on the boards of Social Value International and Social Value Hong Kong, and I co-founded WYNG 43 Social Investment.

I believe meaningful, lasting progress rarely happens in isolation. My focus is simply on listening, learning, and building thoughtful partnerships where empathy and innovation can meet to create positive, practical impact.

Read More »
Stories

An Interview with ACS Volunteer Eddie Kong

I was formerly a management consultant at McKinsey, and took on several senior roles at larger companies, such as APAC COO at GLG, the world’s largest expert consulting network. In recent years I have been founder of businesses across different industry sectors.

What I hope to bring to ACS is the rigorous consulting fundamentals from McKinsey, but reshaped to be genuinely useful in the real world, and relevant for smaller organizations with limited budgets and talents. I hope to bring to SPOs practical and impactful advice that they can actually use on the ground.

Read More »
Stories

An Interview with ACS Volunteer Edith Chen

With over 27 years of corporate leadership experience in the luxury retail sector across Asia Pacific, I am passionate about applying strategy, leadership and transformation expertise to strengthen social purpose organizations in Hong Kong. I have been an advocate of Asian Charity Services for the past eight years, serving as a strategic advisor / consultant to small and medium-sized SPOs through ACS’s IGNITE & PIVOT program.

Read More »