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Asia Business Summit

    About this event

    Event Theme: Asia Business Summit
    Co-organizers: Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Whampoa Group
    Event Time: 14:00-17:00, May 16 (Registration: 13:00-14:00)
    Location: John Jacob Ballroom, St. Regis Hotel Singapore
    Language: English (with simultaneous translation into Chinese)

    Co-organized by Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) and the Whampoa Group, the Asia Business Summit is a half-day, invitation-only congregation of senior Asian government, business and academic leaders to shed light on new frontiers in innovation, impact and investment in RCEP. The summit will address pressing issues and trends in RCEP, amid global uncertainties, geopolitical tensions and economic headwinds. The summit aims to discover growth opportunities for businesses in Asia, including the role of the RCEP agreement and strategies for scaling up in RCEP, one of the world’s most dynamic and fastest-growing regions.

    The summit also serves as a kick-off to the Global Unicorn Program, a three-day intensive training program taking place in Singapore for the first time. This program aims to equip entrepreneurs, founders and venture capitalists with the necessary mindset, tools, and network to identify growth opportunities for their businesses in the RCEP market. It covers relevant topics on developing next generation unicorn companies with an enhanced emphasis on global responsibility, social purpose and a long-term perspective.

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    Agenda

    13:00-14:00 | Summit Registration

    14:00-14:05 | Introduction

    • • Ira ZAKA, Associate Director, Global Marketing and Communications, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB)

    14:05- 14:25 | Welcome Remarks

    Summit Co-Hosts:

    • • ZHOU Li, Assistant Dean, CKGSB
    • • LI Xin (CKGSB Alum), Vice President of Caixin Media and Managing Director of Caixin Global

    Welcome Remarks:

    • • LI Haitao, Dean’s Distinguished Chair Professor of Finance and Associate Dean, CKGSB
    • • Amy LEE, Co-founder and Chairperson, Whampoa Group

    14:25 – 14:50 | Keynote - China’s Business Landscape in the Global Context: 2023 and Beyond

    • • XIANG Bing, Founding Dean and Professor of China Business and Globalization, CKGSB

    14:50– 15:50 | Panel 1 - Navigating Global Uncertainties: the Perspective of RCEP

    • Moderated by: LI Haitao, Dean’s Distinguished Chair Professor of Finance and Associate Dean, CKGSB

    Panelists:

    • • Taimur BAIG, Chief Economist, DBS
    • • Brian SAN, Executive Director, Programmes and Strategic Development, Wealth Management Institute
    • • Katsuhiro SATO, Professor of Strategy and Finance, Waseda Business School
    • • WANG Guangyu (CKGSB Alum), Founder and Chairman, China Soft Capital; CKGSB Alumnus

    15:50 – 16:50 | Panel 2 - Scaling up in RCEP

    • Moderated by: Hau LEE, The Thoma Professor of Operations, Information & Technology, Stanford University

    Panelists:

    • • Oi-Yee CHOO, CEO, ADDX
    • • Willson CUACA, Founding Partner, East Ventures
    • • KIM Jong-yoon, CEO, Yanolja and Yanolja Cloud
    • • LIU Yongyan, Founder, Fintopia

    16:50 -17:00 | Closing Keynote

    • • SUN Tianshu, Professor of Information Systems and Director of the Center for Technology, Big Data and Digital Transformation, CKGSB

    *Speakers below are listed in alphabetical order.

    Speakers

    Taimur BAIG

    Managing Director and Chief Economist, DBS Bank

    Taimur Baig, Ph.D, heads global economics as well as macro strategy for interest rate, credit, and currency at DBS Group Research. He also advises the bank on risk management and investment strategy.

    Prior to joining DBS, Dr. Baig was a Principal Economist at the Economic Policy Group, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Earlier, he spent nine years at Deutsche Bank’s Singapore office, where his last position was Managing Director and Chief Economist, Asia. During 1999-2007, he was the Senior Economist of the International Monetary Fund.

    Dr. Baig sits as a council member for the Asian Financial Think Tank, Economic Society of Singapore, and Women’s World Banking.

    Dr. Baig holds a Ph.D in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He attended London School of Economics and Wabash College for his B.A. in Economics.

    Oi-Yee CHOO

    CEO, ADDX

    Oi-Yee was appointed CEO of ADDX in March 2022. She has 20 years of capital raising and M&A advisory experience.

    Before joining ADDX as Chief Commercial Officer in January 2020, Oi-Yee was with UBS for 6 years, and was Head of Investment Banking for UBS Singapore. She joined UBS from Morgan Stanley, where she was Head of Singapore Investment Banking. Prior to Morgan Stanley, she ran the Southeast Asia real estate investment banking franchise for Nomura Singapore. She started her investment banking career with Citigroup, covering Singapore corporate and real estate clients.

    Between 2006 and 2008, Oi-Yee was Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, for Parkway Holdings, the largest healthcare company in Asia, and helped create the Parkway Life REIT.

    Oi-Yee graduated from Nanyang Technological University with a Bachelor of Accountancy. She also has a Master of Business Administration from Manchester Business School.

    Willson CUACA

    Founding Partner, East Ventures

    Willson Cuaca is the Founding Partner at East Ventures, the most active venture capital firm in Southeast Asia. Willson manages both the Seed and Growth funds at East Ventures, which has invested in 300+ tech companies across Southeast Asia, with a central focus in Indonesia, the largest archipelago in the world.

    Under Willson’s leadership, East Ventures captured the early wave of digital transformation in Indonesia by becoming the 1st investor of Indonesia’s unicorns, Tokopedia and Traveloka. East Ventures is also the early backer of many fast-growing companies in Southeast Asia such as Ruangguru, Shopback, Moladin, Sociolla, Xendit, SIRCLO and Waresix and is a shareholder of Grab and Gojek.

    Willson was listed in Asia’s Top 100 People Transforming Business in 2020 by Business Insider and named Fortune Indonesia Businessperson of the Year 2022.

    KIM Jong-yoon

    CEO, Yanolja

    KIM Jong-yoon leads Yanolja Co., Ltd., one the world’s fastest growing global travel platform and travel technology companies. Yanolja operates through the platform business for travel and leisure-related services and SaaS solutions business driven by Yanolja Cloud. Yanolja is leading the digital transformation of the global travel tech companies. Yanolja is funded by SoftBank, and the only unicorn company among travel related companies in South Korea.

    Prior to joining Yanolja, Kim has worked at McKinsey & Company, Google, Bearing Point and 3M. He received his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and his BS in Chemical Engineering from Seoul National University.

    Amy LEE

    Co-founder and Chairperson, Whampoa Group

    Amy Lee was a Senior Partner at Lee & Lee, a renowned Singaporean law firm co-founded by her father, Lee Kim Yew, uncle, Lee Kuan Yew and his wife, Kwa Geok Choo.

    She was later the Singapore CEO of international law firm, Hogan Lovells. Today, she serves as a Board Member of her family’s investment company, Lee Kim Yew Ltd. Throughout her career, she also sat on the boards of Clifford Capital Holdings and Infraco Asia.

    Hau L. LEE

    Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology, Stanford Graduate School of Business

    Hau L. Lee is the Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His areas of specialization include global value chain innovations, supply chain management, global logistics, inventory modeling, and environmental and social responsibility. He is also the faculty advisor for the Stanford Institute for Innovations in Developing Economies, and is a co-director of the Stanford Value Chain Innovation Initiative. Professor Lee has published widely in journals, such as Management Science, Operations Research, Harvard Business Review and Sloan Management Review, and served on the editorial boards of many international journals.

    Professor Lee has consulted extensively in the public and private sectors. He is a co-founder of DemandTec, which went public in 2007. He is on the board and advisory board of several logistics services and supply chain software companies. Professor Lee obtained his B.Soc.Sc. degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Hong Kong in 1974, his M.Sc. degree in Operational Research from the London School of Economics in 1975, and his MS and PhD degrees in Operations Research from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1983.

    LI Haitao

    Dean's Distinguished Chair Professor of Finance, Associate Dean for Business Scholars Program, Associate Dean for Alumni Affairs and the Development Foundation, Director of the Family Business Research Center, CKGSB

    Dr Li Haitao is the Dean’s Distinguished Chair Professor of Finance, Associate Dean for Business Scholars Program and Associate Dean for Alumni Affairs and the Development Foundation at CKGSB. Previously, he was the Jack D. Sparks Whirlpool Corporation Research Professor in the Finance Department of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He also served on the faculty of the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. Dr Li serves on the editorial boards of Management Science (the Department of Finance) and the International Review of Finance. Dr Li holds a PhD in Finance from Yale University.

    LI Xin

    Managing Editor and Managing Director of Caixin Global; Vice President of Caixin Media

    Li Xin is the Managing Editor and Managing Director of Caixin Global, and Vice President of Caixin Media, leading the company’s global news and intelligence services, as well as Caixin’s international branding and events.

    Before Caixin, she was the Managing Editor of the Chinese Wall Street Journal and Chinese Dow Jones newswire. This is her second stint at Caixin, where she was formerly the Managing Editor of Caixin: China Economics & Finance, an English-language magazine, and Caixin Online at Caixin Media. In 2006, she founded Caijing Magazine’s first bureau in the United States, as a correspondent of politics and economics. Li moved back to China in 2007 to head Caijing Magazine’s English website. Li was a documentary producer at China Central Television between 2001 and 2004.

    Li holds a bachelor degree in English language from Tsinghua University, a master degree in journalism from University of Missouri-Columbia and an Executive MBA degree from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. Li is the co-chair of China Council of the WEF future councils. She is also an Aspen China Fellow.

    LIU Yongyan

    CEO, Fintopia

    Liu Yongyan is the founder and CEO of Fintopia Group. Founded in 2015, Fintopia’s mission is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of financial services through technology and provide superior credit experiences to users around the world. The group has business across multiple countries, including China, SE Asia, and Latin America. Since its inception in 2015, it has accumulated 57 million registered users, worked with more than 60 financial institutions and facilitated more than USD $15 billion in consumer loans.

    Before Fintopia, Yongyan managed the Payment Platform team for Facebook in 2010. He was a founding member of the team and led the team to build a stable, flexible, and easy-to-use platform that enables payment for 180+ countries with 40+ payment methods for Facebook. Prior to Facebook, Yongyan was the tech lead for Google Product Search (now called Google Shopping Express) since 2007, after he graduated from Fudan University.

    Brian SAN

    Executive Director, Programmes and Strategic Development, Wealth Management Institute

    Brian San serves as the Executive Director, Programmes and Strategic Development, Wealth Management Institute. He co-leads the Global-Asia Family Office Circle (GFO Circle) at WMI, a network platform for the family office community in Singapore and Asia.

    Brian is also the Program Development Director for the Dalio Market Principles Program, a landmark initiative at WMI supported by Dalio Philanthropies, which aims to teach universal principles of market behavior to both private and public sector leaders and investors. Brian also leads program teams in the family office, investment and impact-related programs. 

    Before WMI, Brian was on the senior leadership team at NTUC LearningHub, where he led the division focused on re-training low-income and unemployed workers and helmed the LHUB GO digital learning platform. He previously led M&A and partnerships for an Asia-focused education investment group and helped to launch new colleges in Myanmar, Indonesia and Vietnam. Brian started his career as a strategy consultant with Bain & Company, leading private equity, financial services and retail projects.

    He holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

    Katsuhiro SATO

    Professor of Strategy and Finance, Waseda Business School

    Katsuhiro has unrivaled expertise and experience in strategy and corporate finance from both professional and academic angles. He started his professional career at the Development Bank of Japan, where he led corporate planning, corporate finance, project finance, and global capital markets. He then advised Japanese and global leading companies and government ministries on strategy and corporate finance as a partner at McKinsey & Company.

    Katsuhiro holds a PhD in Management Science from Kyoto University, M.Sc. from Stanford University, and L.L.B. from Keio University, and has published books and articles on general management, strategy, and corporate finance topics in leading media, e.g., Diamond Harvard Business Review.

    SUN Tianshu

    Professor of Information Systems and Director of the Center for Technology, Big Data and Digital Transformation, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business

    Sun Tianshu is the Professor of Information Systems and Director of the Center for Technology, Big Data and Digital Transformation at CKGSB. He has been tenured at USC Marshall School of Business, held a joint appointment in Computer Science and been recognized with Robert R. Dockson Named Professorship. 

    Tianshu’s research is focused on digital transformation, digital technology, digital platform, and digital economy. His research conducted in collaboration with leading private and public sector organizations addresses how firms and governments can combine data analytics, field experiment, causal inference, machine learning, and economic models to improve business decisions and industry policies. He has worked closely with a variety of organizations including Facebook, Alibaba and Adobe. Many findings from these studies have been implemented by collaborating organizations.

    Tianshu received his Bachelor in Physics from Nanjing University, and Master in Physics and PhD in Information Systems from University of Maryland.

    WANG Guangyu

    Founder and Chairman, China Soft Capital

    Wang Guangyu founded China Soft Capital Group (CSC) in 2008, which ranks top 10 among China’s venture capital and private equity investment enterprises. He is also the controlling shareholder of “Tianma Group” (002453.SZ), and heads the China Academy of New Supplyside Economics, which is a famous think-tank founded in 2013 that aims to support academic research on supply-side reform.

    Wang is an expert in investment and financial science and technology. He has been invited to participate in the national “9th to 13th Five-Year” research. He is also the author of many renowned books such as “Equity Investment in China”, “2049 The Rise of Intelligence”. He is a professor at the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a board member of Renmin University and Jilin University, and a member of the consulting committee of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council.

    Wang Guangyu graduated from China Youth University of Political Studies, Tsinghua University and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is also an alumnus of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), where he completed the CEO Program and the Business Scholars Program (DBA).

    XIANG Bing

    Founding Dean and Dean's Distinguished Chair Professor of China Business and Globalization, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB)

    PhD, University of Alberta

    Dr. Xiang Bing is the Founding Dean and Dean’s Distinguished Chair Professor of China Business and Globalization at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB). Under his leadership, CKGSB has evolved from a fledgling school to one of the most influential business schools in China with a global reputation since 2002.

    Renowned as a foremost authority on China’s business and economy, Dr. Xiang serves as the first opening keynote speaker at the Harvard College China Forum in 2018 and 2023 and the Penn Wharton China Summit in 2023, the closing keynote speaker at the Columbia China Forum in 2024, the first closing keynote speaker at the Harvard College China Forum in 2024, and the closing keynote speaker at the SCMP China Conference on US-China Relations in New York City in 2019. Additionally, he was the First Co-Chairman for the Ditchley Foundation Annual Forum in 2018. He was also a lunch keynote speaker for the Foreign Policy Association’s Board of Trustees in 2018.

    Dr. Xiang has served as an independent board member to several listed companies, including four Fortune Global 500 companies. He was a member of the Global Board of Trustees for United Way Worldwide (US) during 2011-2017.

    His research interests include innovations from China, globalization of Chinese companies, China-US relations, economic disruption, social innovation, and the next-generation unicorns.

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