William Charles Langdon Brown, CBE (born 9 September 1931) is a British banker of the Standard Chartered Bank. He was an unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1980 to 1985.
Biography
Brown was born on 9 September 1931 in London to Charles Leonard Brown and Kathleen May Tizzard. He married Nachiko Sagawa in 1959 and has two sons and one daughter. He was educated at the John Ruskin School, Croydon and the Ashbourne Grammar School, Derbyshire. Brown joined the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, serving throughout Far East from 1954 to 75, He became the Area General Manager, Hong Kong from 1975–87 and Senior General Manager (London) for Asia Pacific Region and the Executive Director of the Standard Chartered Bank PLC (SCB) in 1987. In 1988 he was promoted to Managing Director and Deputy Group Chief Executive. From 1989 to 1991, he was the Group Deputy Chairman. He became the non-executive Director from 1991 to 94, the Director and Treasurer Royal Commonwealth Society and the Commonwealth Trust from 1991 to 95. He was also Director of the Hongkong Investment Trust PLC, the Kexim Bank, the Arbuthnot Latham & Co. and Chairman of the Atlantis Japan Growth Fund Ltd in the 1990s.
Brown was appointed to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong as an unofficial member from 1980 to 1985, at the time when the rate of the Hong Kong dollars was highly unstable due to the unsolved question of the Hong Kong sovereignty in the early 1980s. As a member of the Banking Consultative Committee and the Exchange Fund Advisory Committee, Brown helped to stabilise the dollars. He was also director of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the Community Chest of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Mass Transit Railway, and the Hong Kong Girl Guides Association. He was also chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Banks, the Hong Kong Export Credit Insurance Advisory Committee, the Special Committee on Land Supply and the Hong Kong Ballet Academy. He was the member of the Council of the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1979 to 1987. For his public service, Brown received an honorary doctoral degree of Social Science, awarded by the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1987.