Shidler College of Business 60th Anniversary

Victor Lim (BBA ’73, MBA ’75)

President, LWD, Inc., dba McDonald’s®

Victor Lim is owner and operator of seven of Hawai‘i’s most successful McDonald’s franchises.

Born in Burma (Myanmar), Lim moved with his family to Thailand at the age 13. He moved to Hawai‘i to attend college in 1969, graduating from the Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a BBA in marketing in 1973 and an MBA in 1975.

Throughout his college years, Lim worked in diverse jobs eventually joining McDonald’s of Hawai‘i in 1974 as a management trainee. For 14 years, Lim worked in various positions for McDonald’s rising to operations manager for the Asia Pacific region.

In 1987, he left the McDonald’s corporate world to become a McDonald’s franchisee and today owns and operates seven restaurants in Hawai‘i located at Fort Street Mall, Dole Cannery, Ala Moana Shopping Center, Discovery Bay, Waimanalo, Enchanted Lake, and Kailua.

Over the years, Lim has received many awards and recognitions from McDonald’s including the coveted Golden Arch Award given out once every two years as the highest McDonald’s franchisee honor. Lim was one of 12 in the U.S., out of 3,000 plus, to receive the award.

In 2006, Lim and a group of McDonald's franchisees of Asian heritage helped form APIASF(Asian Pacific islander Scholarship Fund), the first national scholarship program to benefit people of Asian and Pacific islander heritage. He is also currently co-chairing the capital campaign for the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawai‘i and last year co-chaired the fundraising efforts in Hawai‘i for victims of cyclone Nagris in Myanmar. Lim is also the immediate past chair for the Hawai‘i Restaurant Association and was recently elected to serve on the National Restaurant Association board. Lim is also the chair for the Fort Street Mall Business Improvement District.

In 2008, Lim was named the “Citizen of the Year” by the United Chinese Society of Hawai‘i and was presented with the Small Business of Hawai‘i’s Civic Leader Award.