Connecting global business leaders and renowned experts to accelerate climate impact
California-China Climate Institute and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) invite you to join the inaugural Energy, Climate & Sustainable Investment Symposium— connecting global business leaders with renowned thought leaders, policymakers and practitioners who are transforming the future of energy, climate policy and sustainable investment and development throughout the world.
Designed to amplify today’s most urgent energy and climate challenges and opportunities, and accelerate global collaboration on solutions through network development, this 2-day Virtual Symposium offers actionable energy and investment strategies to define your sustainable future.
Session 1: Our Global Energy & Climate Imperative
Jerry Brown, Chair, California-China Climate Institute, Former Governor, State of California
Bing Xiang, Founding Dean CKGSB and Professor of China Business and Globalization
David Hochschild, Chair, California Energy Commission
Moderator: Daniel Kammen, Distinguished Professor of Energy, UC Berkeley
Founding Director, Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL)
Co-Director, Berkeley Institute of the Environment
Session 2: Sustainable Investment and Clean Energy Innovation
Max Auffhammer, Professor of International Sustainable Development and,
Associate Dean in the Division of Social Sciences UC Berkeley
National Bureau of Economic Research, Energy and Environmental Economics Group
Kate Gordon, Director Governor’s Office of Planning and Research
Chair, California Strategic Growth Council
Senior Policy Advisor to the Governor on Climate
Jianping Mei, Professor of Finance, CKGSB
Consultant and Financial Advisor to large financial institutions worldwide
Danny Kennedy, Chief Energy Officer, New Energy Nexus
Moderator: Aimee Barnes, Senior Advisor, California-China Climate Institute
Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown
Former Deputy Secretary CalEPA
Closing remarks by David Ackerly, Dean of the Rausser College of Natural Resources, UC Berkeley
September 22 & 23, 2020 (Americas)
September 23 & 24, 2020 (Asia)
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). Since 2002, he has built CKGSB into one of China’s most influential, and globally recognized business schools.
Widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities on Chinese business and economy, Dr. Xiang has been a distinguished recurring keynote speaker at top U.S. university-led China forums for recent years. He has delivered exclusive keynotes at the Penn Wharton China Summit (opening keynotes in 2023 & 2026, and closing keynote in 2024 & 2025), the Harvard College China Forum (opening keynotes in 2018, 2019 & 2023, and closing keynotes in 2017 & 2024), and the Columbia China Forum (closing keynote 2024).
Dr. Xiang has also shared his unique insights with top global corporations and their senior executive leaders, including serving as a special lecturer addressing 200-300 chairmen, board members, and C-suite executives at Malaysia’s Financial Institutions Directors’ Education Forum (FIDE Forum) (January 2026); the only keynote speaker for top executive leaders from 36 major enterprises across Sweden and Finland at the Combient Senior Executive China Deep Dive (November 2025); exclusive speaker for Morgan Stanley Briefing (August 2025); one of the four opening keynote speakers at the Indonesia Economic Summit (February 2025); keynote speaker at the Morgan Stanley Twenty-First Century Asia Pacific Summit (September 2022); and the only closing keynote speaker at the SCMP China Conference: United States, celebrating the 40th anniversary of US-China Relations in New York City (December 2019).
Dr. Xiang is also a prominent participant in high-level global closed-door forums and conferences, including the Twentieth Edition of Roundtable Japan (2025), Ditchley Foundation Annual Forum (2010, 2012, 2018 and 2021-where he served as First Co-Chairman in 2018), Rome Roundtable (2017-2020, 2022, 2024), and the invitation-only Yale CEO Summit in New York City (2016).
Dr. Xiang has served as an independent board member to multiple listed companies, including four Fortune Global 500 companies. He was a member of the Global Board of Trustees for United Way Worldwide (U.S.) (2011-2017) and currently sits on the Advisory Board of Asia House (London) and acts as Counselor for One Young World Summit (Dublin).
Under Dr. Xiang’s leadership, CKGSB has developed a distinctive model of management education that integrates the humanities, philanthropy, and social innovation into its degree and executive programs. Since first incorporating the humanities into its curriculum in 2005, CKGSB has made philanthropy and social innovation central across its programs, launched the Ji’an poverty-alleviation initiative, and received China Philanthropy Times’ “Annual Philanthropic Enterprise” award five times (2017–2020, 2023).
Dr. Xiang’s research focuses on how countries and enterprises navigate periods of profound economic, technological and geopolitical change. His work spans global development models, economic disruption, China-U.S. relations, global trade and investment, and the transformation of Chinese enterprises, with particular attention to scaling, globally relevant business models, and the emergence of “Groundbreaking Innovation.”
Edmund G. Brown Jr., known as Jerry, was born in San Francisco on April 7, 1938. He attended both public and parochial schools, graduating from St. Ignatius High School in 1955. He completed freshman year at the University of Santa Clara before entering Sacred Heart Novitiate, a Jesuit seminary in August 1956. In 1960, he left the Society of Jesus and enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his B.A. degree in Classics the next year and then entered Yale Law School, where he graduated in 1964.
