Mr. Rodney Ward
Chairman, UBS Investment Bank Asia

Mr. Ward is the Chairman of UBS Investment Bank, Asia, and is responsible for the development of UBS’s business and top-level corporate and governmental relationships in Asia. He joined SG Warburg in 1972 and helped build the firm's business in the US and Canada. From 1990 to 1994, he was Head of Global Corporate Finance, a division he was instrumental in creating. Achievements included the establishment of Capital Markets Groups and a push into the Asian markets.

In 1994, he moved to Hong Kong as Chairman of SG Warburg's Asia Pacific operations, and following its acquisition by Swiss Bank Corporation, became Chairman of the combined group's business in Asia Pacific, the integration of which he oversaw, and a member of the Group Executive Board of the Bank. In 1997, he took on new responsibilities in Zurich, and assumed his current responsibilities in February, 2000.

In this capacity he has been especially active in the PRC, Philippines and Indonesia and has travelled extensively throughout the region. Accomplishments include the development of UBS’ relationship with Bank of China, one of the most important relationships within UBS; collaboration on the QFII foreign investment programme adopted by the PRC where UBS now has the largest facility; and the first major investments by Middle Eastern investors in China.

He was a Government appointed Member of the Board of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited from 2001 to 2003. He was a panel member of the Securities & Futures Appeals Tribunal of Hong Kong from 2003 to 2004.

He was a member of the Founding Advisory Board for the Executive Master of Business Administration Programme sponsored by Bank of China, Shanghai University of Finance & Economics, and City University, London. He has given a number of presentations to Wharton and Fuqua University on China’s financial system and its reform.

He was educated at Cambridge University and attended Yale Law School before joining Simmons & Simmons, the international law firm, which he left in 1972 to join S.G. Warburg. He has more than 30 years of experience in the securities industry.

Dr. Freek Vermeulen
Associate Professor of Strategic & International Management,
London Business School

Freek Vermeulen is an Associate Professor of Strategic & International Management at the London Business School. He is an expert on the topic of growth, examining issues such strategic innovation, stimulating organic growth, international strategy, and the role of acquisitions and alliances. At the London Business School, Professor Vermeulen teaches on the MBA, PhD, and Executive levels. His research on strategies for growth has been published extensively in highly reputed academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Sloan Management Review, the Strategic Management Journal and the Journal of International Business Studies. As a result, he received the prestigious “Academy of Management Journal Best Paper Award”, particularly for his research on international expansion. He currently serves on the Advisory Board and the Editorial Board of the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Organization, and the European Management Review. He is a member of the Strategic Management Society and the Academy of Management.

Dr. Linda Yueh
Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics, London Business School

Dr. Linda Yueh is Fellow in Economics, Pembroke College, the University of Oxford. In 2006-2008, she is Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at the London Business School in. She is a Research Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE and Queen Elizabeth House at the University of Oxford. Prior to academia, she practiced international corporate law while resident in New York, Beijing, and Hong Kong. Her areas of expertise include macroeconomics, globalisation, economic development and growth, law and economics, and the Chinese economy. Her recently published books include Macroeconomics and Globalisation and Economic Growth in China. She serves as Series Editor for the book series on Economic Development and Growth for World Scientific Publishing. Dr. Yueh recently gave testimony before the UK Parliament on the impact of China on the world and the UK economy. She is a frequent commentator on the BBC, CNBC, CNN and other media outlets.

Mr. Benjamin Schmittzehe
Chief Executive, Schmittzehe & Partners

Benjamin Schmittzehe is Chief Executive of Schmittzehe & Partners (www.SandPconsulting.com), an affiliate of The Sustainomics Group. Schmittzehe & Partners is a China-focused high value-add management consultancy offering China in and outbound Business Development and Corporate Finance M&A advisory services as well as execution including interim management. Benjamin is currently based in London but spends much of his time working on consultancy projects and transactions out of the Group’s offices in Beijing and Shanghai. He has advised and assisted medium and large multinational companies and financial institutions in strategy formulation, and investments across a wide range of sectors in China. Prior to consulting, Benjamin worked in Corporate Development and General Management roles for Microsoft and the Swire Group, where he began working in China in 1991. He was the first non-Chinese representative for the Swire Group in China in the Group’s 139 year history there. Benjamin was educated at Oxford University (BA Hons, Chinese; MA Oxon.) and INSEAD (MBA).

Ms. Rebecca Yuancao Yang
Co-Founder and Marketing Director, Wild Grass Productions Ltd,

Dr. Chris W. Chan, Ph.D. C.M.A.
Associate Professor, University of Hong Kong

Dr. Chris Chan is an Associate Professor in Accounting at The University of Hong Kong (HKU). Dr. Chan also serves as the Director for the HKU MBA program.  Dr. Chan has more than 10 years of MBA teaching experience in Asia-Pacific and China.  He currently teaches accounting and managerial finance, both core subjects of the HKU MBA, as well as developed and teaches elective courses such as Management Control Systems and Corporate Governance.  Dr. Chan has won several teaching awards for postgraduate business teaching at HKU as well as for effective use of technology in teaching. Dr. Chan is actively engaged in consulting and executive education programs which include being a certified instructor for corporate universities of Fortune 500 companies in the Asia-Pacific region.  In connection with those programs, he has developed and written proprietary cases for Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, ABN-Ambro Bank, and General Mills.  A sample list of clients includes:  Lucent Technologies, Agilent Technologies, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, Social Welfare Department of the Hong Kong Government, Hong Kong Government Civil Service Bureau, MinSheng Bank of China, ABN-Ambro Bank, General Mills, and Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican Church) Welfare Council of Hong Kong, New World Mobility, SGS SA, and South China Morning Post.

Ms.Rachel Hill
Director Marketing Operations , Dragon Capital

Rachel Hill graduated in 1984 from Cambridge University with a degree in Natural Sciences. Over her career she has worked for a variety of financial institutions including Vickers da Costa, James Capel, WICO, and latterly Dragon Capital, all of whom have taken her via Hong Kong, London, Thailand, and more recently, Vietnam.

Dragon Capital manages in excess of US$1.5bn in domestic and international funds, with a primary focus on investments and opportunities in privatised companies and the private sector. The Company is also active in corporate finance and capital market development; establishing Vietnam’s first domestic asset management company in 2003; and acquiring a strategic stake in Ho Chi Minh City’s Securities Company in 2005.  Rachel is a director of the marketing operation based in the UK.

She has 2 children and her interests include gardening, needlepoint, reducing her carbon footprint, and being a school governor.

Stephen Phillips
Chief Executive, China Britain Business Council (CBBC)

Mr. David Lightbody
General Manager, Cameron Mackintosh Ltd.

Mr. Jerry Zheng
VP Corporate Finance, Evolution Securities China Limited

Mr. Ting Wee Liang
Regional Director (Europe), Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB)

Stefano Turconi
Senior Consultant, LabCom

Stefano Turconi is a Senior Consultant at LabCom. With more than ten years experience in industry and consulting, he brings in valuable insights and expertise in marketing and management innovation. Stefano has extensive experience in brand licensing and strategy in luxury goods. His clients include Allison, Giorgio Armani, Iceberg and Zeis Excelsa.

Stefano has devoted time to researching emerging markets including Central Europe and Asia. He co-authored a paper on Intellectual Property in China which was awarded the 2007 edition of the PricewaterhouseCoopers fellowship. The paper is available online at the PwC website: http://www.pwc.com/extweb/ncevents.nsf/docid/4EB8F109D1382B908025728F004BD00C.

Stefano is completing the Sloan Fellowship Masters at London Business School and holds a Masters of Science in Management and Production Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. He is a regular lecturer at ASERI, the Post-graduate School of Economics and International Relations of Università Cattolica, Milan.

Philip Dodd
Made In China, Chairman

Philip Dodd is an internationally recognised expert in the field of creative industries, who has been described recently as a " visionary Briton" by the Australian newspaper, Herald Sun. He has won many awards, including an award as one of the top five UK creative entrepreneurs (Elle Deco '99) and as one of the top 50 UK design gurus (Design Week magazine 2007). He is Chairman of Made In China, a company brokering cultural, commercial and educational deals between China and Europe.
He has worked extensively with national and city governments in the field of creative industries. At present, he is contributing to the development of UK government policy on creative industries, is advisor to Beijing's Chaoyang District Government in the same field and is working with Shanghai in its development of a major new digital festival.
He has not only worked at a policy level with the creative industries but has set up practical support networks which have gained global attention. In 2000 in the UK, he set up The Club, which attracted 500 of London's top creative businesses. This initiative has been copied as far afield as Holland and Taiwan, where he worked with the former culture minister there to develop creative industries.
He works for the BBC and is formerly director of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, which Tony Blair has described a unique home of 'innovation and new ideas'.

A graduate of the London School of Economics, in Economic History, he spent 10 years in the private sector, before joining TDC in 1986.

David worked as part of the broad front pushing HK to the forefront of public awareness in the late 1980's and early 1990's, culminating in the campaign to reassure the British about the continued vitality of HK as the SAR of China after 1997. Following the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR, David worked on the promotion of the new Hong Kong in close partnership with the UKTI (with whom a formal partnership was established in 2004), the FCO, CBBC, British chambers of commerce, and with British companies large and small.

Although mostly London-based, he has worked in the HKTDC’s Frankfurt office, as well as in Head Office itself on various secondments. His extra-curricular interests include sport of all kinds (now only as a spectator) public speaking, reading, theatre, ballet, music and walking, in both town and country. A keen member of the Victorian Society in England, he is a lover of the past, especially in architecture and interior decoration.

Ms. Katherine Liu
China Services Consultant, BDO Stoy Hayward LLP