Adam Salzer, Director/Greater China at PricewaterhouseCoopers, is an economist by education and practice, with 20 years experience in high level strategic and management consultancy throughout Asia Pacific. Mr. Salzer has extensive experience in Greater China and was responsible for establishing the first HR joint venture consulting group between a Western HR company and a Chinese government ministry in the early 1990s.
Akash Karia is a global authority on storytelling and persuasive communication, trusted by Fortune 500 companies, governments, and top universities. A bestselling author of seven books, he helps leaders simplify complex ideas, craft compelling narratives, and close bigger deals. His Strategic Storytelling Framework has guided brands like Gucci, J.P. Morgan, Sony Pictures, and the Government of Dubai through high-impact keynotes and workshops worldwide.
Amartya Kumar Sen is a distinguished economist-philosopher and a 1998 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences. He is best known for his contributions to welfare economics and his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, gender inequality, and political liberalism. From 1998 to 2004 he was Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University, becoming the first Asian academic to head an Oxbridge college. He is also a former honorary president of Oxfam. He is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. Amartya Sen's books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security. As of 2009 he has had over 80 honorary doctorates from several world renowned universities worldwide.
Dr. Anil K. Gupta is the Michael D. Dingman Chair in Strategy, Globalization and Entrepreneurship and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the Smith School of Business, The University of Maryland at College Park. Anil also serves as chairman, The China India Institute, a Washington DC-based research and consulting organization. He has earlier served as the INSEAD Chaired Professor in Strategy at INSEAD and a visiting professor at Stanford University as well as Dartmouth College. He received a doctorate from the Harvard Business School, an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, and a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur.
Anil is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts on strategy, globalization and entrepreneurship. Ranked byThinkers50 as one of the world's ?most influential living management thinkers,? he has also been named by The Economist as one of the world's 'superstars? in a cover story on ?Innovation in Emerging Economies.? He is one of only 3 professors in the world to have been elected by his peers as a Lifetime Fellow of all three of the most prestigious bodies in the field ? Academy of Management, Strategic Management Society, and Academy of International Business, with a combined membership of over 25,000 scholars worldwide.
Azran Osman-Rani is a trailblazing business builder who takes companies from start-up to scale-up and IPO. As founding CEO of AirAsia X, he pioneered the long-haul, low-cost model and grew the airline to a US$1 billion public listing. He later helped scale iflix to 30 markets and now leads digital health venture Naluri. A seasoned innovator, advisor and Ironman triathlete, he champions practical, entrepreneurial thinking in every organisation.
Bill Birtles was the ABC's China correspondent in Beijing from 2015 to 2020, his posting coming to a sudden end when he was rushed out of the country by Australian diplomats in an unprecedented diplomatic standoff. Reporting from both major cities and remote provinces throughout the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, he covered an era-defining period of change, upheaval and diplomatic tension as China asserted itself on the world stage.
David Thomas is a geopolitical strategist, keynote speaker and author of ten books on Asia, the North-South Corridor and cross-border commerce. Based on the ground in the Philippines, with over 30 years of experience across Hong Kong, Australia and ASEAN, he helps business leaders understand where the real opportunity in emerging Asia sits - and what it takes to move on it.
Dr Andy Xie is Shanghai-based independent economist specialising in China and Asia. He is currently director of Rosetta Stone Advisors and of China Boqi Environmental Science and Technology. Dr Xie is one of the few economists who has accurately predicted economic bubbles including the Asian Financial Crisis and the more recent subprime meltdown in the United States. He joined Morgan Stanley and was Managing Director and Head of the firm's Asia/Pacific economics team. Prior to that he spent two years with Macquarie Bank in Singapore, where he was an associate director in corporate finance. He also spent five years as an economist with the World Bank. Dr Xie earned a PhD in economics and an MS in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr Xisu Wang is a remarkable man who brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about China to western countries. He lived his early life under the shadow of Chairman Mao and Communist China. As a young man he realised that China was slowly opening up to the west and left his position as Associate Professor and Dean of Nanjing University and became the first student from mainland China to complete post graduate studies in America, including a fellowship at Harvard University followed by an MBA at MIT. Returning to China in the early 90s, he worked with the first western companies to establish businesses in China, including EDS, Unilever and Caradon Electric, which provided him with rare insights into the new and unique challenges involved in forming Sino-US joint ventures. It's very rare to meet such a personable and knowledgeable individual who has lived through communism and the cultural revolution, studied political, social, economical, and cultural reform in China, experienced western democracy in the US and Hong Kong, and witnessed China's transition from a socialist planned economy to a free market economy. Now based in Beijing and still consulting to foreign companies doing business in China, Xisu provides insightful commentary on socioeconomic and geo-political issues in China.
Recognized by Inc Magazine as one of the Silicon Valley investors you must know, Edith Yeung is a venture capitalist, technology executive, and China Internet expert. As a partner at 500 Startups, the world's most active early seed investor, Edith has invested in more than 40 mobile, AI and blockchain startups.
