Teresa Cheng on advice for young professionals: Boring start, real growth

Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, secretary-general of the International Organization for Mediation and former Secretary for Justice of the Hong Kong SAR, advises young professionals stuck in jobs they don't like to shift their mindset when circumstances cannot be changed. With nearly 40 years of legal experience, she served as Hong Kong's Secretary for Justice from 2018 to 2022 and became the Secretary-General of the #IOMed in Oct 2025. In an exclusive interview with China Daily, Cheng encourages young lawyers starting out with tedious tasks like document translation to adopt a Stoic approach—treating mundane duties as paid opportunities to master core skills, and using early challenges to build enduring professional strength.