Profile | Ovolo Hotels founder on going from watches to serviced apartments to building a boutique hotel chain in Hong Kong and Australia
- Girish Jhunjhnuwala, founder of Ovolo Hotels, got an early taste for entrepreneurship from his father and followed him into the watch manufacturing business
- He later opened a chain of serviced apartments before pivoting into hotels after the 2008 financial crisis
My father moved to Hong Kong in 1953 and I was born here in 1963. I grew up at 3 Arbuthnot Road in Central on Hong Kong Island – there were two low-rise residential buildings on the site of what is now the Universal Trade Centre.
I was one of five siblings, number four in the pecking order, with two older sisters and a brother and a younger sister.
My dad had factories in Wong Chuk Hang, in the Southern district, in the early days and later moved the manufacturing to China. Dinner conversations were always about dad’s business and what he was doing and where he was travelling to. It gave me a taste for entrepreneurship.
On the fast track
I went to Island School on Borrett Road in Mid-Levels. My brother and younger sister and I were always late, so we’d share a cab to school and walk home. The friends I met at school are still my friends today. It’s nice to have known so many people for so many years.
