Kuan YAP – Biography

Kuan Yap emigrated to New Zealand more than 30 years ago when New Zealand opened its door to the world.

With long distance and far away from home coupled with loneliness and isolation in the new environment, some immigrants found that they have difficulty in coping with life in New Zealand. Kuan resolutely joined as a Chinese Telephone Counsellor for Lifeline to help his fellow immigrants in any way he could. However, due to his business commitments, he has resigned from the position many years ago.

After graduation in Malaysia, he worked in multinationals, listed companies, and medium-sized private companies and public practice in the last couple of decades honing his accounting and analytical skills.

He set up his own public practice since 1998 to provide accounting, taxation, and business advisory services to SMEs.

In his spare time, Kuan has been involved with The New Zealand Tsi Ming Charitable Trust (Tsi Ming Temple), Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (NZ), International Buddhist Temple (Fo Guang Shan Temple) and other associations in Auckland since the 1990s.

He was the secretary and treasurer of the Chinese Mental Health Consultation Services Trust, Honorary Accountant of The New Zealand Tsi Ming Charitable Trust and Sheng Yuan Buddhist Charitable Trust, Chairman of the Finance Committee and Council Member of the Justices of the Peace Association Inc., Committee Member of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants, Auditor of the Taiwanese Hwa Hsia Society Inc., Honorary Secretary and Treasurer of the New Zealand and China Association Inc.

He is the current Honorary Secretary of the New Zealand Guangdong Association Inc. that has been approved as a charity by the Charities Services in 2018.

Kuan was appointed as a Justice of the Peace for New Zealand and awarded the Queen’s Service Medal for services to the community in 2012 for his services to the community.

Charlie LIM – Biography

Charlie is an Authorised Financial Advisor having more than 30 years’ experience in the financial industry.

He has previously worked in one of the major banks in Malaysia before emigrated to New Zealand. Charlie is also an accountant and worked in various roles for several companies before embarking on his current business venture called Gold8 Financial Services Limited.

He is very enthusiastic in contributing back to the community and is currently a trustee of another charity.

He is versatile and speaks several languages other than English, including Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka (Khek), Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia.