Sir David Clive Crosbie Trench was a British Army officer and colonial governor who served as the Governor of Hong Kong from April 15, 1964 to October 19, 1971 and was High Commissioner for the Western Pacific.

Sir John James Cowperthwaite, KBE, CMG, was a British civil servant who served as Financial Secretary of Hong Kong from 1961 to 1971. His introduction of free market economic policies are widely credited with turning postwar Hong Kong into a thriving global financial centre. During Cowperthwaite's tenure as Financial Secretary, real wages in Hong Kong rose by 50% and the portion of the population in acute poverty fell from 50% to 15%.