Sonia ran her family’s hotel business, growing it into a vast collection of resorts and luxury properties.
Sonia Chen, pictured left, is head of the Rosewood Hotel Group, which owns 51 hotels and has plans for two dozen more. The group also includes the Carlyle in New York City, pictured right. Pascal Le Segretan/Getty Images, The Business of Fashion, Thomas Iannaccone/Penske Media via Getty Images
According to a 2019 profile by CNBC, the 43-year-old studied applied mathematics at Harvard University and worked as a real estate banker at Morgan Stanley and in the private equity division of Warburg Pincus.
She joined the family business in 2008 at age 28 and became CEO of Rosewood Hotel Group three years later when the Chen family purchased the properties from Rosewood Corp. and Maritz Wolff & Co.
At the time, the luxury hotel brand owned 19 hotels, including the lavish Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan, a celebrity hangout spot for the Met Gala.
Since Sonia took the helm, Rosewood has grown into a global leader in luxury hotels, currently operating 34 hotels with another 24 in the pipeline.
The company has been aggressively expanding into mainland China under the brand name “New World Hotels,” opening 16 more hotels and resorts in cities such as Beijing, Sanya, Shanghai and Shenzhen, bringing its total to 51 hotels and resorts.
Sonia likes to say that she grew up in the hotel industry since her father, Henry, began his career as a hotel general manager.
According to Singaporean media Channel News Asia, her philosophy is to ditch stuffy hotel standards and attract younger travellers looking for bespoke experiences.
“Going to a hotel inspires discovery and curiosity, so I don’t want to go to a place that doesn’t reflect the local culture,” she told the outlet.
Rosewood’s Hong Kong hotel ranked second on the 2023 World’s 50 Best Hotels list, with two other hotels in Sao Paulo and Paris also making the list.
Sonia is married to Paulo Peng King Yi, a member of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families, the Peng family, who are the founders of wine wholesaler Altaya Group and boutique restaurant company Classified Group, which runs five outlets.
