John So
Hong Kong Australian businessman and Lord Mayor of Melbourne
John Chun Sai So (Chinese: 蘇震西; Cantonese Yale: Sou1 Jan3 Sai1, pronounced [sou̯ jɐn sɐi̯]; born 2 October 1946) is a Hong Kong Australian businessman who served as the 102nd Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, Australia. He was the first Lord Mayor in the city's history to be directly elected by voters; previously, Lord Mayors were elected by the councillors. He is also the first Lord Mayor of Melbourne of Chinese descent.
First elected in 2001 and re-elected in 2004, So is the second-longest-serving Lord Mayor of Melbourne, serving for seven and a half years. In 2006, he won the World Mayor award. On 1 October 2008, So announced that he would not seek re-election for a third term as Lord Mayor. He was succeeded by Robert Doyle.
So currently serves as chairman of the Global Business Council, an international forum established by the World Chinese Economic Forum in Malaysia aimed at facilitating trade between China, India, ASEAN and the Middle East. In December 2013, So was appointed by the Chinese government as a special advisor to the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.
Background
So was born in British Hong Kong on 2 October 1946.
The public source identifies “John So” as hong Kong Australian businessman and Lord Mayor of Melbourne. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Hong and Kong.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q926168. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 2001, 2004 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “John So” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.