Dominic Ng () is an American banker who has been chairman and CEO of Los Angeles–based East West Bank since 1992. In 2022, Ng was appointed by the Biden administration to be a U.S. member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council.
Early life and education
Ng was born in the then British Hong Kong in 1959, the youngest of 6 children. His parents had lost most of their property after the Chinese Civil War and fled from Shanghai to Hong Kong in 1949. In Hong Kong, his father operated a bus transport business while his mother ran a small business sewing school uniforms.
Ng was part of a wave of Hong Kong students who came to the United States to study in the 1970s and earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Houston. He became a United States citizen in 1988.
Career
Ng began his career as a Certified Public Accountant with Touche Ross in Houston and Los Angeles. He was the head of the China business practice in the Los Angeles office. One of his clients convinced him to head up its investment company, Seyen Investment Inc. in 1990. He helped them purchase East West Bank.
In 1991, Ng became East West Bank's third chairman, president and CEO. As CEO of East West Bank, Ng built a reputation as one of the top US bankers connecting Hollywood film studios to investors in China. In 2006, the Los Angeles Times named him as one of the 100 most powerful people in Southern California. In 2010, Forbes listed him as one of 25 notable Chinese-Americans, noting the survival of the Chinese-American bank after the 2008 financial crisis.
From 2005 to 2011, Ng served on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Los Angeles Branch.
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council
In 2022, Ng was appointed by the Biden administration to be a U.S. member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council, and later that year was announced to chair the 2023 APEC summit to be hosted by the U.S. In February 2023, six Republican representatives led by Lance Gooden asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate Ng's ties to alleged front organizations of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, the China Overseas Exchange Association (COEA) and the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA) as The Daily Caller reported him as an executive director of both organizations. A spokesperson for East West Bank described Ng's position with the COEA, which invitation was accepted in 2013, as being strictly honorary and involving no attendance and stated that Ng had never accepted any position with the COFA. Several members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus characterized the request for investigation as being racist in nature.
Advocacy work
Ng has advocated for and sponsored the showcasing of Chinese culture and art by major U.S. institutions including Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Huntington Library, Bowers Museum, and the USC Pacific Asia Museum.
From 2011 to 2014, Ng served as chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of Chinese Americans seeking to address partnership between China and the United States.