Series
From the assembly chamber to the medal podium, from letters to business, the women of Macau have written 'firsts' and 'mosts' across many fields. This series gathers Macau women who led the way in public life, culture, sport and business — from Susana Chou, the SAR's first Legislative Assembly president, to the Asian Games gold medallist Li Yi, the diva Jenny Tseng and the Macanese writer Deolinda da Conceição.
In a small city known for gaming and trade, women have left a deep mark too. In public life, Susana Chou was the first president of the Macau SAR Legislative Assembly, serving three terms; sits among the SAR's principal officials; the scholar moved from the communications lectern into the legislature; and is a veteran educator who taught generations.
On the cultural and performing stage, Macau's women shine just as brightly. The Macanese writer Deolinda da Conceição gave voice in short fiction to the fate of Macau's women; Jenny Tseng was a Hong Kong diva of the 1970s–80s; Maria Cordero ("Fat Mama") topped the charts as "Hong Kong's big lungs"; Noel Leung was TVB's "Queen of Costume Drama"; Michelle Reis and Isabella Leong went from Macau to the screen; and Ming-Na Wen, born in Coloane, became a leading Chinese-American actress in Hollywood, named a Disney Legend in 2019. In business, Pansy Ho and Angela Leong are powerful figures across the gaming and corporate map.
Sport has been Macau women's most striking stage in recent years. Li Yi is the first woman to win an Asian Games gold for Macau; Sou Cho Man is a current double world wushu champion; Han Jing won the post-handover SAR's first World wushu gold; Lei Fei crossed from wushu champion to the screen; Hoi Long, deaf since infancy, won Asian Games triathlon bronze; and Wong Sok I medalled for Macau in karate. Drawing on public sources, this series salutes the Macau women who led the way.
Susana Chou
Susana Chou was the first President of the Legislative Assembly of the Macao SAR, holding the post across three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2009. Born into a Shanghai industrialist family and resident in Macao from 1968, she won a seat in Portuguese Macao's first direct Legislative Assembly election in 1976 and served across both the Portuguese and SAR eras. One of the city's best-known women in business and among its earliest localised legislators, she later served as a Standing Committee member of the CPPCC and deputy director of the Basic Law Committee, and received the Grand Lotus Medal of Honour in 2003.
O Lam
Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao SAR since 20 December 2024 and at 50 the youngest of Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai's five principal officials. She holds an LL.B. in International Economics & Finance from Jinan University (Guangzhou) and an MBA from the American Graduate School of Business (Switzerland); her career spans the Macao Sport Development Board (2000–2009), Chief Executive Chui Sai On's Office as Adviser and then Chief-of-Office (2009–2019), and Vice-Chair of the Administration Committee of the Municipal Affairs Bureau (2019–2024). She is a 13th- and 14th-term CPPCC National Committee member and comes from a long-standing Macao patriotic family — her grandfather O Lon directed Kiang Wu Hospital and her grand-uncle Ko Cheng-peng was a senior figure at the Xinhua Macau Branch and a Basic Law drafter. From November 2025 she concurrently serves as Deputy Director of the Guangdong-Macao Hengqin Cooperation Zone Management Committee.
Agnes Lam
Agnes Lam Iok Fong is a Macao scholar, poet and former directly elected member of the Legislative Assembly (2017–2021). An associate professor in the Department of Communication and assistant dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Macau, she researches the history of Macao's Chinese- and Portuguese-language press. Running under Macau Civic Power on her third attempt, she won a directly elected seat in 2017 — one of the few legislators in Macao drawn from academia — and focused in office on education, culture, media and urban development.
Lau Sin Peng
A veteran Macao educator and historian of education. Born in 1934 in Zhongshan, Guangdong, she moved to Macao in 1950 and devoted more than forty-eight years to Macao's Chinese-language education. From 1984 to 2000 she was principal of the Commercial Night Secondary School attached to the Macao Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, and long served as President of the Macao Chinese Educators Association, a standing member of the Macao Education Committee, and a member of the MSAR Preparatory Committee. Through part-time study from 1985 to 1993 she earned a master's degree in education from South China Normal University in Guangzhou. She is the author of A History of Macao Education (People's Education Press, 2002) and Traces of a Century: A Chronicle of 20th-Century Macao Education, systematic works on the local lineage of Macao schooling; she received the Macao SAR Medal of Merit – Education in 2001.
Song Man Lei
A Macau judge who became President of the Court of Final Appeal in December 2024 — the first woman to head Macau's highest court. She has worked in Macau's judiciary since 1996, served as a judge of the Court of Final Appeal, and presided over major cases, including that of former Prosecutor-General Ho Chio Meng.
Ao Ieong Seong
A Macau-born official, Commissioner Against Corruption of Macau, and the first woman to hold the post. She has long served in Macau's public sector, with a background in law and oversight; her appointment marks a further step for Macau women into the senior levels of public governance.
Deolinda da Conceição
Deolinda da Conceição (1913–1957) is regarded as Macau's first Macanese woman writer and journalist. Writing in Portuguese, she ran a women's column in a Macau newspaper. In 1956 she published her only book, the short-story collection Cheong-Sam — A Cabaia, centred on the fate and suffering of Chinese women, regarded as a pioneering work of Macanese Portuguese-language literature.
Jenny Tseng
A Macau-born Mandarin and Cantonese pop singer who reigned over the Hong Kong and Taiwan charts in the 1970s and 80s. A six-time winner at Hong Kong's Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards, she remains best known for television theme songs and Cantopop standards still sung today.
Maria Cordero
A Macanese singer, actress and cooking-show host born in Macau, affectionately known as "Fat Mama" (肥媽). Her powerful, soaring voice made her a Hong Kong Cantopop star in the 1980s — earning the nickname "Hong Kong's big lungs" — and she appeared in many films before becoming a beloved cross-generational cooking-show host from the 2000s.
Pansy Ho
Group Executive Chairman & Managing Director of Shun Tak Holdings and Chairperson & Executive Director of MGM China Holdings. The eldest daughter of Stanley Ho, she is a substantial figure across cross-border transport, hospitality, and gaming, and serves as UNESCO Special Envoy for Cultural and Heritage Tourism.
Angela Leong
Co-Chair & Executive Director of SJM Holdings and a long-serving member of the Macao Legislative Assembly. The fourth wife of Stanley Ho, she is the most politically visible heir in the Ho family — bridging SJM's casino operations with public-affairs work.
Li Yi
A wushu taolu athlete for Macau, China specialising in changquan, jianshu and qiangshu. At the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games she won the women's changquan gold — becoming the first woman to win an Asian Games gold for Macau — and is a multiple World Wushu Championships gold medallist, honoured with the Silver Lotus Medal.
Sou Cho Man
A Macau-born wushu taolu athlete for Macau, China, born in 1997 and competing across changquan, gunshu, daoshu and jianshu. At the 2023 World Wushu Championships she won gold in both changquan and gunshu to become a double world champion, and is one of the leaders of Macau's current wushu team.
Han Jing
A wushu taolu athlete for Macau, China, born in mainland China in 1973. Trained on the Beijing Wushu Team, she transferred to Macau in 2000 and, at the 2003 World Wushu Championships held on home soil, won jianshu (sword) gold — the first World Wushu Championships gold for the Macau SAR after the 1999 handover — adding further medals at the Asian Games, World Championships and East Asian Games.
Lei Fei
A wushu taolu athlete turned actress, known by the stage name Jewel Lee. Born in Guangxi, China in 1975, she was recruited to Macau in 1993 to help build its competitive wushu program. She won nanquan silver at the 1994 Hiroshima Asian Games, world titles at the 1995 and 1999 World Wushu Championships, and was runner-up at the 1996 Miss Macau pageant before moving into film and business.
