Donny Kwa Soo Chuan

It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved founding partner, Mr Donny Kwa, on the morning of 3 June 2026, at the age of 80.

Donny lived two full professional lives. The first was in banking: a graduate of the University of Malaya in Economics and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (London), he spent 15 years in Hong Kong with an international merchant bank, immersed in corporate lending, loan syndications and M&A financing, before returning to Malaysia to serve as Director and later Chief Executive Officer of a local merchant bank.

His second life began, as the best stories do, with a wager among friends at the golf course. At 60, an age when most retire to the fairway, Donny bet that he could read law — and he was the only one who saw it through. He earned his Bachelor of Laws from the University of London, completed the Certificate in Legal Practice, and went on to found the practice that became Donny & Ong. The law was his final profession, and he practised it to his very last days — proof of his lifelong belief that age is just a number and learning never stops.

To his partners and colleagues, Donny was far more than a founding partner. He was a mentor and a father figure — witty, joyful, endlessly curious. When challenges came, he never asked what went wrong; he supported, proposed and resolved. He asked the hardest questions and then gave us all the space and trust to find our answers. Everything this firm is, it owes to the foundation he laid and the example he set.

His name will remain on our door, as it always has and always will. Donny & Ong is, and will forever be, his legacy.

Rest well, Mr Donny.
You led a truly extraordinary life.

— All of us at and from Donny & Ong