Benjamin F. Jones

Associate Professor, Department of Management and Strategy,
Kellogg School of Management

Benjamin F. Jones is an Associate Professor of Management and Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management. Professor Jones’s research considers obstacles to growth in developing countries, with recent work considering subjects such as national leadership, higher education, and climate change. He further studies the forces that drive technological progress in advanced economies, with recent work examining collaboration in innovation and the relationship between age and creativity. His publications have appeared in leading academic journals such as the Review of Economic Studies, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Science, and have been profiled in media outlets such as CNN, the Economist, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as in popular books such as Tim Harford’s Adapt.

Professor Jones served in 2010-2011 as the senior economist for macroeconomics for the White House Council of Economic Advisers and earlier served in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In 2011, he was awarded the Stanley Reiter Best Paper Award by his peers at Kellogg for the best academic article written by a Kellogg faculty member in the prior four years.

William Sutter

Senior Lecturer of Finance,
Kellogg School of Management

Professor William P. Sutter, Jr. is a Senior Lecturer of Finance and a member of Kellogg's Larry and Carol Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice. He teaches Venture Capital and Private Equity – The Human Element (ENTR 926), NUvention Medical Innovation (HEMA 915), and Global Governance of Private Companies (ENTR 965). Professor Sutter is a founder of Wildcat Angels and manages the student Associates program for screening deal flow. Professor Sutter is also a Partner of Hopewell Ventures, a $106 million venture capital fund with an investment focus on high-growth companies located in the Midwest. Hopewell has completed fifteen investments ranging from medical device manufacturers to alternative media companies. Before becoming a founder of Hopewell, Professor Sutter was a Senior Managing Director of Mesirow Financial's Private Equity division. During his 17-year tenure, capital under management grew to $300 million, and his successful track record comprised investments in 29 portfolio companies, including four that completed an IPO. He started his career as an investment banker with the Corporate Finance department of Smith Barney. Professor Sutter graduated from Yale University with a B.A. degree in Economics and received his M.B.A. from Stanford University. His interests include scuba diving, military history, and blues guitar.

Timothy Beardson

Founder, Crosby Financial Holdings

Timothy Beardson founded and ran Crosby Financial Holdings, the largest independent investment bank in the Far East. An integral part of Hong Kong’s economic ascendance who has lived and worked in Asia for more than 35 years, Mr. Beardson successfully sold Crosby. Since the late 1990s he has been a frequent speaker on political, economic, environmental and strategic issues at the World Economic Forum at Davos, at prominent universities, and to corporate boards and central banks. He is also Chairman of the China Oxford Scholarship Fund, which gives scholarships to talented Chinese graduates from poor families to study at the University of Oxford.

Zheng Song

Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

Zheng (Michael) Song is Assistant Professor of Economics at Booth. Prior to joining Booth he served as Assistant Professor in the department of economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and as a research fellow in the school of economics at Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

Professor Song studies macroeconomics, Chinese economy, and political economy. His most recent publications include “Growing like China” which was co-authored with Kjetil Storesletten and Fabrizio Zilibotti.

With experience teaching at both the undergraduate and gradu- ate levels, Professor Song has taught courses such as Advanced Macroeconomics, Chinese Economy, and Dynamic Optimization. At Booth he teaches a course on China.

Professor Song earned his PhD in economics from the Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University. He also holds an MPhil in economics from the University College London, a MA in economics from Fudan University and a BA in economics from Shanghai Institute for ForeignTrade.

Jin Li

Assistant Professor, Department of Management
and Strategy, Kellogg School of Management

Jin Li is Assistant Professor of Management and Strategy at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Prior to Kellogg, he received his PhD in economics from M.I.T. Professor Li’s research interests include organizational economics and labor economics,.  At Kellogg, Professor Li teaches strategy and human resources management to MBA students and organizational economics to doctoral students.

Tom Manning

CEO, Cerberus Asia Operations
& Advisory Limited

Tom Manning is a corporate board director and former CEO of numerous Asia-based businesses. Until recently, he was CEO of Cerberus Asia Operations & Advisory Limited, the Beijing subsidiary of Cerberus Capital. Formerly, he was based in Hong Kong for 15 years and served as CEO of Indachin Limited, Capgemini Asia, and Ernst & Young Consulting Asia. He was also a senior partner with Bain & Company and member of the firmís China board. Earlier in his career, he was with McKinsey & Company, CSC Index, and Buddy Systems.

He currently serves as an independent board director of several publicly-listed companies in China, including: Chinaís leading telecom software company, AsiaInfo-Linkage Holdings; Chinaís largest retailer, Gome Electrical Appliances; and Chinaís largest IT company, iSoftStone. Mr. Manning was the first American invited to join the board of a top Chinese bank, Bank of Communications, where he served for six years as a director. He was an advisor to the World Economic Forum on its Global Agenda for China, a founding director of the Chicago-China Development Corporation, launched by Mayor Daley, and the founder of The US-China 2025 Project. A native of Chicago and a graduate of Harvard College (A.B., East Asian Studies, 1977) and Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA, 1979), Mr. Manning is a frequent commentator and op-ed contributor on topics such as US-China relations, global corporate governance, and technology innovation. He speaks Mandarin and divides his time between Beijing and Chicago.

Dingxin Zhao

Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago

Mr. Dingxin Zhao is currently a professor at the Social Science Department of University of Chicago.

Mr. Zhao’s research covers the areas of social movements, nationalism, comparative historical sociology, social change and economic development. His interests also extend to micro-sociol- ogy, ecological sociology, sociological theory, and methodology. His past research was on the 1989 Prodemocracy Movement in China and issues related to China’s economic development.

Currently, Mr. Zhao is researching student nationalism and US- China relations. He has also started a project on historical sociology, which, based on a comparison with the European experiences, is intended to develop an empirically-grounded theory to explain the changes in state, military, economy and philosophy during China’s Axial Age (722-221 BC), the unification of China under the Qin Empire (221-206 BC), and how the developments of this period shaped China’s later history.

Victor C. Shih

Victor C. Shih is currently associate professor at School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California at San Diego and chief China strategist at ESG. He received his doctorate in government from Harvard University, where he researched banking sector reform in China. He is the author of Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation, which is about the linkages between elite politics and banking policies in China. He is also the author of numerous journal articles appearing in American Political Science Review, The China Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, The Wall Street Journal, and The China Business Review (among others), and a frequent adviser on the banking industry in China.

Erping Kou

Vice President, Solution Sales &
Marketing, Huawei Enterprise USA

Mr. Kou is Senior Vice President of Huawei. He is in charge of overseas business development. Mr. Kou has worked for Huawei for more than 15 years and he is very experienced in R&D (himself holds a few patents) and business development management. Mr. Kou helped Huawei successfully tap into the European market and grew its European business significantly. Huawei is the second largestTelecom and IT network equipment and service provider in the world.

Karthik Rao

Managing Director, Media Advertising and Analytics, Nielsen

Karthik Rao has led the Nielsen Media Analytics group, based in New York, since July 2012.

Mr. Rao started his career in advertising with an advertising agency in India, came to the U.S. for business school and joined Nielsen right after. His tenure at Nielsen started with working in the Nielsen BASES business, based in Cincinnati. During this time, he was a consultant to Consumer Packaged Goods companies, delivering innovation insights to clients. He then moved with his family back to Asia where he ran various Nielsen businesses, first in Japan, then Singapore and finally China, where he was the Managing Director for Nielsen, Greater China. His expertise lies in areas of client consulting across various business topics such as innovation, brand health and pricing, and building strong commercial teams across various cultures. 

David Wang

Former President, Boeing China

David Wang served as President of Boeing China and Vice President of International Relations of The Boeing Company from 2002 to 2011. He retired from Boeing in August 2011.

Prior to joining Boeing, Mr. Wang served as chairman and chief executive officer of General Electric (GE) China for 5 years. Prior to this, he held leadership positions with GE in Malaysia/ Singapore, Mexico, and the U.S. He started GE’s first China joint venture in 1990 and has had numerous operating and corporate roles with GE over a 22 year GE career.

Currently, Mr. Wang serves on the Board of Directors of two publicly listed companies in the US. He also served on a number of charitable boards, including Junior Achievement China and various university advisory bodies.

While based in China Wang also served as the founding co-chairman of the US-China Aviation Cooperation Program (ACP), the US-China Energy Cooperation Program (ECP) and the Export Compliance Working Group (ECWG) at the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham China). He is currently a Founding Advisor of the ECP. Both ECP and ECWG are collaborative programs between AmCham China and AmCham Shanghai.

Mr. Wang holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from St Louis University, and both an MSEE and a honorary professional degree from the Missouri University of Science and Technology (MST). He is a current member of the Academy of Electrical and Computer Engineering at MST.

Steven Wang

SeniorPartner, CDH Venture

Steven Wang, CFA, is a partner with CDH Investment, China’s leading alternative asset investment fund focused on private equity, venture capital, real estate and public equity markets. CDH manages over $7 billion from more than 100 international and domestic institutional investors.

Mr. Wang joined CDH in 2009 with a strategic focus on the health- care and consumer industries. He has closed multiple deals in the hospital service, medical devices and pharmaceutical subsectors. Prior to joining CDH, he spearheaded the healthcare practice for Avenue Capital Group in Asia, where he led five deals with over $150mil investment (2 already IPOed).

Previously, Mr. Wang worked as Manager of M&A and Venture Department for Becton Dickinson at its New Jersey Headquarters for 6 years, where he executed M&A deals with total investment over $500mil.

Mr. Wang holds graduate degrees in Biochemistry from New York University and an MBA degree from London Business School.

James Clark

Managing Partner, Granite Creek

Mr. Clark has spent his business career in the private equity and consulting fields. He joined Granite Creek in 2006 and was promoted to Managing Partner in 2010. On behalf of Granite Creek, Mr. Clark’s responsibilities include deal origination, structuring, transaction execution, and portfolio management. In tandem with Peter Lehman, Mr. Clark focuses on Granite Creek’s food, agribusiness, and transportation industry verticals as well as oversees the firm’s activities in China. For Granite Creek, he has overseen the extension of five portfolio companies’ business into China, negotiated cross-border joint ventures and distribution agreements, as well as raised equity capital from Chinese co-investors to support business development activities. Mr. Clark currently serves on the boards of Weld Racing (www.weldracing.com), Big Lift (www.bigjoeforklifts.com), and Packerland Whey Products (www.packerlandwhey.com/) in addition to being the primary contact for the Fund’s investment in The Chia Company (http://www.thechiaco.com.au/).

Previously, Mr. Clark was a consultant at a leading strategy advisory firm, L.E.K. Consulting, where he led engagements in private equity due diligence, corporate strategy & business development, and shareholder value maximization. Mr. Clark also has worked at Deloitte Consulting, where he was an analyst in the strategy and operations practice working on a variety of merger & acquisition and operations management engagements. Across these two experiences, Mr. Clark worked with leading companies in the consumer packaged goods, food, retail, health care, media & entertainment, and financial services sectors.

Mr. Clark holds an M.B.A. from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University. In addition to his professional responsibilities, Mr. Clark is involved with the Northwestern Club of Chicago and is a member of the Chicago Association for Corporate Growth as well as the Chicago Association of Private Equity Executives.

Milton Kotler

President, Kotler Marketing Group

Milton Kotler has over forty years of professional experience in marketing strategy and management. He is Founder and Chairman of Kotler Marketing Group USA (KMG, Inc. –founder in 1984: (www.kotlermarketing.com),headquartered in Washington DC, and Chairman of Kotler Marketing China (www.kotler.com.cn), with offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

KMG USA conducts projects in marketing strategy and organization; brand management; and pricing, product development, distribution and pricing analysis and tactics. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies.

KMG China has been registered and operating in China for twelve years, with offices Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai and a staff of 50 FTEs who provide strategic marketing planning to Chinese companies and strategic urban and industrial planning for local governments and major property developers. Chinese clients include AVIC, Bank of China, Sany, Great Wall Property, Ping An Insurance, Merchant Group and China Resources Corporation and many other major State-owned and private Chinese companies. KMG China. In 2011, KMG was ranked the #$1 marketing strategic consultancy in China.

Mr. Kotler is an economic advisor to the Mayors of Xian, Dalian and Harbin and Zhengzhou. He has delivered public seminars in over 100 Chinese cities and is co-author with Philip Kotler of Market Your Way to Growth: Eight Ways to Win (2013, Wiley); A Clear-Sighted View of Chinese Business Strategy (Renmin University Press, 2004 Beijing). He is a frequent contributor to Chinese business newspapers and magazines, and is a frequent guest on CCTV. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and resides in Washington and Beijing. 

Richard Lee

Chairman, Amsino Medical Group

Richard Lee founded Amsino Medical Group in California In 1993, and has been Chairman, President, and CEO ever since. Under his leadership, Amsino has grown to a multinational conglomerate, with R&D, manufacturing and distribution facilities in the US and in Asia. As a leading developer and manufacturer of disposable medical products, Amsino is dedicated to advancing healthcare worldwide to help improve the safety and effectiveness of patient care, and its products can be found in the US and more than 50 other countries.

Mr. Lee is recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the Chinese American community and is serving as President of Chinese CEO Organization, Supervisory Chairman of Roundtable of Southern California Chinese American Organizations, Economic Advisor of Changchun Municipal Government, Board Director of the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics, Board Director of Beijing Association USA, and Board Director of Peking University Alumni Association ofSouthern California.

Mr. Lee, graduated from Peking University in 1985 in Economics, and received his Doctorate of Philosophy degree from the University of Arizona under the guidance of Dr. Vernon Smith, 2002 Nobel Prize Laureate. He then taught as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania.