Congratulations to the 2013 Credit Management Excellence Award (CMEA) Winner, Mr. Gordon Yuen. The award was presented by Mr. Jeremy Hampshire, winner of last year's CMEA.

The purpose of the CMEA is to recognize the achievements of an individual in the credit management industry. The winner is selected based on the five criteria shown below and subject to the approval from the Executive Committee of the HKCCMA.

The criteria are:

1. Minimum 10 years or above credit management working experience
2. Solid credit and collection knowledge or distinction in the credit management industry
3. Significant contribution to credit management process in the credit management industry, e.g. credit scoring model
4. Enthusiasm in promoting the education of young credit and collection practitioners.
5. Pre-eminence in the practice of credit management

Mr. Gordon Yuen is currently Head of Receivables & Debt Collection at Total Credit & Risk Management Group, a leading provider of global credit and risk management solutions.

Mr. Gordon Yuen has worked in the field of receivables and collections for over 20 years and is considered an expert in the credit and collections industry. Prior to joining Total Credit & Risk Management Group, Gordon was a member of the Hong Kong Police Force. In 1987, he joined one of the leading debt collection agencies in Hong Kong as a Debt Collection Specialist, where he was able to make use of his investigative background.

Below is the text of the speech as given by Mr. Gordon Yuen, on accepting this prestigious award.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen and members of HKCCMA.

I am extremely happy to receive this prestigious award from HKCCMA. First, I would like to express my thanks to my company, Total Credit and my President & CEO, Mr. Benedict Wong for the support I have been given over the past 20 years. Also, I would like to thank my wife for the opportunity to join Total Credit, as she helped me with finding this role.

To be honest, personally, I never thought that it would be possible to be awarded for working as a debt collector. In my opinion, working as a debt collector can be compared with working as an undercover agent – in general,

you will be operating in the shadows, so any formal recognition will not be forthcoming.

So, I was stunned when I was invited to accept this award, as I’ve always known that traditionally this award has been given to credit managers and practitioners but never to a debt collector.

As a result, I will be looking forward to sharing more of my experiences with both my colleagues and other industry associates. I will continue my hard-work, especially now that my contributions have been formally-recognised.

Thank you to the HKCCMA executive committee again for this award, which will be remembered by me for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for your time and I wish you a Happy Lunar New Year of the Horse!”