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IF16 speaker bios Keynotes and specialists

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Welcome to the 23rd Annual CLSA Investors’ Forum

Keynote speakers Daniela Rus Director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The digitisation of practically everything alongside with the mobile internet, the automation of knowledge work and advanced robotics promises a future with democratised use of machines and widespread use of robots, personalisation and customisation. Daniela Rus explores the technological and societal mega trends in these technologies. Where are the gaps that we need to address in order to advance toward a future where robots are common in the world and can help reliably with physical tasks? What is the role of computation along this trajectory? Through enabling on-demand creation of functional robots from intuitive specifications, we can begin to imagine a world with one robot for every physical task.

Rus is the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT. Rus’s research interests are in robotics, mobile computing and data science. Rus is a Class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of ACM, AAAI and IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University. Prior to joining MIT, Rus was a professor in the Computer Science Department at Dartmouth College.

David Agus Professor of Medicine & Engineering, University of Southern California

David Agus is one of the world’s leading doctors and pioneering biomedical researchers. Over the past twenty years, he has received acclaim for his innovations in medicine and contributions to new technologies, which continue to change the perception of health and empower people around the world to maintain healthy lives. Agus is professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California, where he leads USC’s Westside Cancer Center and Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. He serves as a CBS News contributor.

An international leader in new technologies and approaches for personalised healthcare, he co-founded two revolutionary companies: Navigenics and Applied Proteomics. Dr. Agus’ first book, The end of illness, was published in 2012 and is a New York Times No.1 and international bestseller, and subject of a PBS special. His second book, New York Times bestselling, A short guide to a long life, was published January 2014, and his newest book, The lucky years: How to thrive in the brave new world of health, was published January 2016.

19-23 September 2016 Grand Hyatt Hong Kong

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David Eagleman Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford

David Eagleman is a daring young scientist who provides a new understanding of our brains - and ourselves. As a speaker, this Guggenheim Fellow and New York Times bestselling author is energising, edifying and able to connect scientific discovery to any field. He’s the writer and host of the PBS series The Brain with David Eagleman: a six-hour international event on what it means to be human. This television series tells the story of the inner workings of the brain and take viewers on an epic, visually stunning journey into why we feel and think the things we do.

Often called the Carl Sagan of neuroscience, Eagleman deals with everything from how the brain rewires itself to why art and science must learn from each other. In his PBS series The Brain (and its companion book The Brain: The Story of You), he provides viewers with a deeper understanding of themselves, the unseen world of decisions, and of modern neuroscience. Known for his erudite, engaging style, his unique and active exploration of ideas, and his ability to bring science discovery to everyday life, Eagleman prompts audiences to recognise the beauty of the brain, question what we perceive as reality, and re-think what we know about human nature.

Eagleman holds joint appointments in the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where he directs the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law and the Laboratory for Perception and Action. His influential neuroscience books include the New York Times bestseller Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, and Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia. His novel, SUM, named a Best Book of The Year by Barnes and Noble, has been translated into 28 languages, and inspired U2 producer Brian Eno to write 12 new pieces of music, which he performed, with Eagleman, at the Sydney Opera House. His forthcoming book, Livewired: How the Brain Rewrites Its Own Circuitry (June 2017), presents his new theory of infotropism: why the fundamental principle of the brain is information maximisation.

Eagleman is a winner of the McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication, a Next Generation Texas Fellow, Vice-Chair on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Neuroscience & Behaviour, a research fellow in the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and a board member of The Long Now Foundation. He was named Science Educator of the Year by the Society for Neuroscience, and was featured as one of the year’s Brightest Idea Guys by Italy’s Style magazine. He writes regularly for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, Discover, Slate and New Scientist, and is a repeat guest on NPR, discussing both science and literature - his twin passions. He is founder of the company BrainCheck, the scientific advisor for the television drama Perception, and has been profiled on the Colbert Report, NOVA Science Now, The New Yorker and CNN’s Next List. He appears regularly on radio and television to discuss literature and science.



Drew Barrymore Actor, producer and brand creator

Besides her well know award winning acting career, Drew Barrymore co-founded Flower Films in 1995, a production company behind many of the films in which she has appeared including Never Been Kissed, Charlie’s Angels, Fifty First Dates and He’s Just Not That Into You. In 2013 Drew created Flower Beauty, a line of affordable color cosmetics using prestige formulas sold exclusively at Walmart in North America. Flower Eyewear, Flower Fragrances and Body Mists have followed. To quote Barrymore directly, she not only creates products for the outside but “a little something for the inside”, thus Barrymore Wines was formed with powerhouse vintners Jackson Family Wines in Northern California. In late 2015, Drew also became a New York Times bestselling author with her book, Wildflower.

Eldar Shafir Professor, Princeton University

Eldar Shafir is the Class of 1987 Professor of Behavioral Science and Public Policy at Princeton University, and co-founder and scientific director at ideas42, a social science R&D lab. He studies decision-making, cognitive science and behavioural economics. His recent research has focused on decision-making in the contexts of poverty and on the application of behavioural research to policy. He is Past President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, and a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He was a member of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, and is currently Vice-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Behaviour. He has received several awards, most recently a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the William James Book Award. He was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2013. He edited the book The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy (2012) and co-authored, with economist Sendhil Mullainathan, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (2013). He received his BA from Brown University and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.



Frank Luntz CEO and Founder, Luntz Global Partners

Hailed as “The Nostradamus of pollsters” Dr Frank Luntz has become so influential that Barack Obama, prior to his 2008 US presidential win, said, ‘When Frank Luntz invites you to talk to his focus group, you talk to his focus group’. Luntz has gathered proprietary data based on his unique focus groups and survey methodologies on the US Presidential elections between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Luntz has written, supervised and conducted more than 2,000 surveys, focus groups, ad tests, and dial sessions across four continents over the past decade. He has become the go-to consultant when Fortune 100 companies need communication and language guidance to navigate the economic climate and connect more closely with consumers. The “Instant Response” focus group technique he pioneered has been profiled on 60 Minutes, Good Morning America and on the award-winning PBS show Frontline. He also served as a consultant to the award-winning NBC hit show, The West Wing. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller, Words that Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear and What Americans Really Want . . . Really. Luntz graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with honours in history and political science, and was awarded a Thouron Fellowship. He received his doctorate in politics at the age of 25 from Oxford University.

Jeffrey Goldberg National Correspondent, The Atlantic

Jeffrey

Goldberg is a National Correspondent for The Atlantic, a columnist for Bloomberg View, and one of America’s leading commentators on foreign policy, national security and the Middle East. He is the recipient of numerous honours, including the National Magazine Award for Reporting, for his coverage of Islamist terrorism; the Daniel Pearl Prize for Reporting; the Abraham Cahan Prize; and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Prize for best investigative reporter.

Goldberg is a former Middle East Correspondent and former Washington Correspondent of The New Yorker, and a former contributing editor at The New York Times Magazine. Earlier, he covered the Mafia for New York Magazine, and he began his career as a police reporter for The Washington Post, for which he covered the crack epidemic of the early 1990s. In his travels, he has interviewed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Islamic Jihad. He has been kidnapped twice while reporting on terrorism, and has covered numerous wars, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as civil wars across Africa.

He is currently at work on a book exploring the fateful encounter between Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama and the Middle East.



Joseph Stiglitz Professor, Columbia University

Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute. A recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979), he is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and a former member and chairman of the (US president's) Council of Economic Advisers. In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 2001 and received that university's highest academic rank (university professor) in 2003. Based on academic citations, Stiglitz is the fourth most influential economist in the world today, and in 2011 he was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Known for his pioneering work on asymmetric information, Stiglitz's work focuses on income distribution, asset risk management, corporate governance and international trade. He is the author of numerous books and several bestsellers. His most recent titles are The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe, Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity and The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them.

Marc Faber Editor and Publisher, Marc Faber Ltd

Dr Marc Faber was born in Zurich, Switzerland. He went to school in Geneva and Zurich and finished high school with the Matura. He studied Economics at the University of Zurich and, at the age of 24, obtained a PhD in Economics magna cum laude.

Between 1970 and 1978, Faber worked for White Weld & Company Limited in New York, Zurich and Hong Kong.

Since 1973, he has lived in Hong Kong. From 1978 to February 1990, he was the Managing Director of Drexel Burnham Lambert (HK) Ltd. In June 1990, he set up his own business, Marc Faber Limited which acts as an investment advisor, fund manager and broker/dealer.

Faber publishes a widely read monthly investment newsletter The Gloom Boom & Doom report which highlights unusual investment opportunities, and is the author of several books including Tomorrow’s Gold - Asia’s Age Of Discovery which was first published in 2002 and highlights future investment opportunities around the world. Tomorrow’s Gold was for several weeks on Amazon’s best seller list and has been translated into Japanese, Korean, Thai and German. Faber is also a regular contributor to several leading financial publications around the world.

A book on Faber Riding The Millennial Storm by Nury Vittachi was published in 1998.

A regular speaker at various investment seminars, Faber is well known for his “contrarian” investment approach. He is also associated with a variety of funds.



Robert Gordon Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences, Northwestern University

Robert Gordon has taught at Northwestern University since 1973, with previous teaching positions at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London) and the Observatoire Français des Conjunctures Economiques (Paris), and an economic adviser to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In his paper, Is US economic growth over? faltering innovation confronts the six headwinds, Gordon argues that the true driver of economic growth over the last century was a series of one-time inventions whose impacts have come and passed.

These ideas are further developed in Gordon’s book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living Since the Civil War (Jan 2016).

This new research joins his earlier studies showing that conventional data greatly understate the welfare of Europe relative to the US; why European productivity growth has lagged that of the US since 1995; why US income inequality has widened since 1975; and why unemployment increased so much relative to the behavior of output in the 2008-09 US recession.

Gordon’s books include Macroeconomics, twelfth edition, which has been translated into eight languages, and three scholarly books: The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices, The American Business Cycle, and The Economics of New Goods. His book of collected essays is Productivity Growth, Inflation, and Unemployment.

Tali Sharot Director, Affective Brain Lab

Tali Sharot is a leading expert on human decision-making, optimism and emotion. A neuroscientist by trade, Sharot combines research in psychology, behavioural economics and neuroscience to reveal the forces that shape our decisions, beliefs and inaccurate expectations of the future and how those can be altered (or sustained). Why do people discount bad news (a tendency that contributed to the 2008 financial downfall, enhances ill-preparedness in the face of disaster and reduced medical screenings)? Why do we have unrealistic expectations of the future (underestimating our chances of divorce and expecting our kids to be uniquely talented)? Why is it so difficult to change a decision after it is made? Sharot, a visiting professor at MIT, is also an associated professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London where she directs the Affective Brain Lab. Her team is dedicated to answering such questions with an aim at identifying ways to encourage behavioural change that enhance well-being. Sharot is the author of The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain (Pantheon/ Random House, 2011, published in 10 additional countries); The Science of Optimism (TED, e-book) and co-editor of The Neuroscience of Preference and Choice (Elsevier). She has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, The Science Channel, the Today show, the BBC and many publications around the world. Sharot also co-presented BBC’s Science Club (BBC 2). She wrote TIME magazine’s cover story The Science of Optimism (May, 2011) as well as cover stories for The Observer Review, The Guardian, The Washington Post Health Section and a New York Times Op-Ed (Major Delusions, 2011).



Tim Urban Creator, Wait But Why

Since he started writing the long-form, stick-figure-illustrated blog Wait But Why in 2013, Tim Urban has become one of the internet’s most popular writers. Urban, according to Fast Company, has “captured a level of reader engagement that even the new-media giants would be envious of.”

A world tired of a flood of short, shallow listicles quickly noticed - two months after Wait But Why was born, Urban’s article Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy swept the internet, becoming both the most shared and most commented-on article of the month on all of Facebook. Urban has since produced dozens of viral articles on a wide range of topics, from why we procrastinate to why artificial intelligence is scary to why we haven’t seen any signs of aliens. His articles have been regularly republished on sites like Quartz, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, Business Insider, and Gizmodo.

Urban has gained a number of prominent readers as well, like authors Sam Harris and Susan Cain, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, TED curator Chris Anderson, and Brain Pickings’ Maria Popova. Urban was recently asked by Elon Musk to interview him and write about his companies. Urban spent the next six months writing a thorough blog series that Vox’s David Roberts called “the meatiest, most fascinating, most satisfying posts I've read in ages.” Urban was invited by Musk to host SpaceX’s launch webcast.

Yuval Noah Harari Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Historian Yuval Noah Harari is the author of the bestseller, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. He received his PhD from the University of Oxford in 2002, and lectures at the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His current research focuses on macro-historical questions: What is the relation between history and biology? What is the essential difference between homosapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded?

Harari won the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in 2009 and 2012. He also teaches an open online course that had over 80,000 students in the first run of the course in 2013. In 2011, he won the Society for Military History’s Moncado Award for outstanding articles on military history. In 2012, he was elected to the Young Israeli Academy of Sciences.



Specialist speakers

Andrew Robb Principal, Andrew Robb Pty Ltd

Andrew Robb began his career as an animal health officer and then as an agricultural economist. He then moved on to become the Executive Director of the Cattle Council of Australia, and later, Executive Director of the National Farmers' Federation. In 2003 Robb was awarded the Office of the Order of Australia for his service to agriculture, politics and the community. He was elected to the Federal seat of Goldstein in October 2004, holding positions as Chairman of the Government’s Workplace Relations Taskforce, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and then Minister for Vocational and Further Education. In Opposition, he held positions as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Climate Change, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee and Shadow Minister for Finance, Deregulation and Debt Reduction. Following the Coalition victory at the 2013 election, Robb was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister for Trade and Investment. In this role Robb negotiated Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, Japan and China, as well as the 12-country Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement and the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Singapore. Additionally he conducted 85 investment roundtables with 28 countries.

Andrew is the author of Black Dog Daze: Public Life, Private Demons.

Bill Gifford Author

Bill Gifford is a veteran magazine journalist, specialising in science and health. He is the author of the best-selling book Spring chicken: Stay young forever (or die trying).

Bill Stoops CIO, Dragon Capital Group Limited

Bill Stoops graduated from Brown University in 1978 and has worked in emerging markets since 1980, starting in Hong Kong where he was a journalist and political-risk consultant. Stoops joined Schroder Securities as a conglomerates analyst before moving to Seoul in 1985 with Citicorp to open Korea's first brokerage rep office. In 1989, Stoops was recruited by Baring Securities in London to run its North Asian equity sales team. Four years later, he was transferred to New York to establish the company’s new emerging markets sales desk. Stoops went on to specialise in Emerging Europe, and in this capacity also worked for Deutsche Bank and HSBC over 1998-2006. He then moved to Vietnam as a director of Dragon Capital with responsibility for research and capital markets and was appointed CIO in 2009.



Brian Roberts Senior VP, Head of ETPs, HK Exchange & Clearing

Brian Roberts joined HKEX in 2015 as Senior Vice President and Head of ETPs. His team is responsible for developing the Hong Kong ETP industry focusing on market structure, product development and investor education. Prior to joining HKEX, Brian spent 12 years at Vanguard where he focused on developing their global ETF business. His tenure centered on ETF product development, capital markets and product-specific client engagement. Most recently, he spent 3 years based in Hong Kong as Vanguard’s Asia Head of ETF Product Development.

Calvin Quek Head of Sustainable Finance, Greenpeace East Asia's Sustainable Finance Program

Calvin Quek is head of Greenpeace East Asia’s Sustainable Finance Program and leads its engagement with the financial community. He serves on the Board of the China Carbon Forum, and was the first executive director of the Beijing Energy Network. Prior to joining Greenpeace, he worked at Citigroup for close to a decade. He led Citigroup Singapore’s CSR & Volunteerism committee in 2008. Quek has an MBA from Peking University, and a Master of Science in Wealth Management from Singapore Management University. Quek is a regular commentator on China's energy and environmental issues, contributing to the Financial Times and South China Morning Post, and has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg and CCTV, and speaks regularly at investment summits.

Charles Li Chief Executive, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited

Charles Li has served as Chief Executive of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) since 2010. In this role, Li has orchestrated some of the most significant strategic initiatives in HKEX’s history, including the expansion into fixed income, currency and commodities through the acquisition of the London Metal Exchange in 2012 and the launch of OTC Clear in 2013, as well as enhanced mutual market access with Mainland China through Shanghai and Shenzhen (in preparation) Stock Connect Programmes and other cooperation.

Li’s career in financial services spans over 20 years. Before joining HKEX, he was Chairman of JP Morgan China, prior to which he was President of Merrill Lynch China. Before joining Merrill Lynch in 1994, Mr. Li practiced law in New York with Davis Polk & Wardwell and Brown & Wood.

Before moving to the US for his studies, Li had worked as an offshore oil worker in the North China Sea, and as a newspaper editor-reporter for China Daily from 1984-86.

Li obtained a BA degree in English literature from Xiamen University of China in 1984, a MA degree in journalism from the University of Alabama in 1988, and a JD degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1991.



Christopher Case Chief Technology Officer, Oxford PV

Dr Christopher Case runs his own consultancy providing high-level strategic technology commercialisation advice to global companies and small companies alike, including Voltaix (recently acquired by Air Liquide and Surrey NanoSystems).

Case has a strong scientific background in patents and IP management, and is passionate about realising their commercial value. His experience spans markets across the world including the US and he has worked for a number of companies - from large corporates to small startups - to help manage their IP portfolios, broaden their scope of influence and build successful and profitable businesses.

As well as being extensively published in international press and periodicals, Chris is also a regular speaker and lecturer on integrated circuits and photovoltaics. He has chaired the interconnect team of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) for more than 10 years.

Christopher Chau Manager, Eastspring Investments

Christopher started his career in Eastspring Investments (formerly known as Prudential Asset Management) in 2008. He is responsible for dealing in Asia ex-Japan & Latam/EMEA equities. In addition he also trades ETFs & derivatives actively assisting his tactical asset allocation team to optimize investment returns for the firm.

Prior to joining Eastspring Investments, Chau spent over 9 years in the Futures Industry. In his early days, he was a Floor Trader in SIMEX (Open outcry) for 5 years before he moved on to Man Financial Institution Desk as a futures broker for another 2 years. At Man Financial, he managed the institutional clients' orders in equity/interest rate derivatives. After Man Financial, Chau joined a local bank as an Institutional Desk Manager and was responsible for overseeing the overall execution and operations of the team.

Christopher Davidson Reader in Middle East policy, Durham University

Christopher Davidson is an academic who has taught in leading British universities for more than a decade. He has also lived and worked in the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Japan. He is the author of several acclaimed books and monographs, most recently, After the Sheikhs, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2013 and reviewed by both The Economist and The Guardian. His shorter, policy-focused articles have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy.



Daniel Abdinoor (meetings only) CTO and cofounder, Wherehouse Inc

Daniel Abdinoor is a serial entrepreneur and tech executive, solving difficult problems with internet technology. He is the cofounder and CTO of Wherehouse, a location data analytics platform. Prior to Wherehouse, Abdinoor was the second engineer at marketing software company HubSpot and helped build it from startup to IPO in 2014. He also held high-level positions at other prominent tech startups in Boston, such as BabbaCo and Jana Mobile.

Dave McCaughan Managing Director, Bibliosexual

Dave McCaughan has spent the past three decades in Asia Pacific in senior management roles with McCann, one of the world’s largest advertising and communication firms. There, he developed strategic planning strategies for brands including Coca-Cola, L'Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Cathay Pacific, Sunstar, Hawley & Hazel. In 2015, he initiated Bibliosexual, a consultancy that brings together his long-term passion for understanding the interaction of people and media with brands and stories. He is heavily involved in developing artificial-intelligence research platforms to understand these issues. Dave is also on the board of the World Toilet Organisation, a global non-profit group committed to improving sanitation conditions.

David Hart Director, E4tech Sàrl

Dr David Hart has been working as an advisor, consultant and researcher on fuel cells for 20 years. He has led and conducted projects on fuel cells in different industry sectors for governments, corporations and investors worldwide, and sits on the investment committee of Conduit Ventures, a fuel-cell-focused venture capital fund, as well as chairing the Grove Fuel Cell Symposium Steering Committee. He has been an invited speaker on fuel cells on six continents. In 2001, having built a successful research group at Imperial College London, he cofounded E4tech's London office to work on sustainable-energy strategy consulting. Now based in Switzerland, he is a director of E4tech and heads the fuel-cell consulting practice, while retaining a role as a visiting professor at Imperial.



Dominic Scriven Chairman, Dragon Capital Group Limited

Dominic Scriven was educated at Winchester and graduated from Exeter University in Law and Sociology. His 30 years of investing have ranged from London to Hong Kong, but have been concentrated in Vietnam. He studied at Hanoi General University for two years before founding Dragon Capital in 1994. Dragon Capital is active in investment management, capital markets and microfinance, and runs capital in the region of US$1.5bn. A Vietnamese speaker, he is an active advocate of financial market development and governance, and is a director of various Vietnamese public companies. He was appointed OBE by the British Queen in 2006 and awarded the Labour Medal by the Vietnamese President in 2014. His external interests range from Vietnamese art, propaganda, and philately, to biodiversity and reduction of the illegal wildlife trade.

Douglas Arner Professor, University of Hong Kong

Douglas W. Arner is a Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong and Project Coordinator of a major five-year project funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council Theme-based Research Scheme on “Enhancing Hong Kong’s Future as a Leading International Financial Centre”. In addition, he is co-Director of the Duke University-HKU Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law, and a Senior Visiting Fellow of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. Douglas served as Head of the HKU Department of Law from 2011 to 2014 and from 2006 to 2011 he was the Director of HKU¿s Asian Institute of International Financial Law, which he co-founded in 1999 along with the LLM in Corporate and Financial Law (of which he serves as Director along with the Faculty's new LLM in Compliance and Regulation).

Arner has published fifteen books and more than 100 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation, including most recently Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016). Douglas is a member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council and of the International Advisory Board of the Australian Centre for International Finance and Regulation.



Gerbrand Ceder Chancellor’s Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Gerbrand Ceder is The Chancellor’s Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley. Previously, he was a Professor in Materials Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests lie in materials design for clean energy technology. He has published over 370 scientific papers, and holds several US patents. He has served on MIT’s Energy Council as well as on several DOE committees, including the workgroup preparing the Basic Needs for Electrical Energy Storage report, and has advised the government’s Office of Science and Technology Policy on the role of computation in materials development, leading to the Materials Genome Initiative.

He is a Lead Scientist for new battery technologies at the Joint Center for Energy Storage (JCESR) of the US Department of Energy, and the Chief Scientist of the Energy Frontier Research Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society and a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is an advisor to several companies and governmental institutions in the battery space. He has received awards from Electrochemical Society, the Materials Research Society, the Metals Minerals and Materials Society and the National Science Foundation. He is a co-founder of Computational Modeling Consultants, Pellion Technologies and The Materials Project.

Guo Shengbei Managing Director, Head of Alternative Investments, CITIC Securities

Shengbei Guo joined CITIC Securities in 2015. He currently oversees the Alternative Investment business line of CITIC Securities. Guo carries two decades of extensive investment experience from Wall Street’s biggest investment banks, as well as the hedge fund industry, covering both proprietary trading and hedge fund investments.

Guo joined CITIC Securities in 2015, and currently oversees the Alternative Investment business line of CITIC Securities. He is also responsible for the company’s overall proprietary trading.

Guo carries two decades of extensive investment experience from Wall Street’s biggest investment banks, as well as the hedge fund industry. From 2010 to 2014, Guo was the Founder & CEO of GSB Podium Advisors LLC, an investment management firm based in New York, specializing in quantitative & macro research and trading. From 1997 to 2009, Guo first was Managing Director responsible for Deutsche Bank’s Proprietary Technical Trading group and he later ran multiple hedge fund strategies for Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division, including statistical arbitrage, CTA, and currency trading strategies. From 1992-1997, Guo was Vice President at Morgan Stanley, where he developed managed futures and equity based trading models for proprietary trading.



Herman Brodie Managing Director, Prospecta Limited

Herman Brodie is founder of Prospecta. Here, and formerly as a director of Cognitrend, he has advised some of world’s leading fund management groups and financial institutions on behavioural finance and its applications over the past 17 years. He previously held investment banking roles in London, Paris and Frankfurt. Brodie studied Finance and Management at the University of Manchester in the UK.

Ibrahim Suffian Programs Director, Merdeka Center

Ibrahim Suffian is a co-founder and programs director of Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, a leading public opinion polling and political surveys organization in Malaysia. Besides undertaking research assignments, Ibrahim is actively involved in briefings for the diplomatic and the financial community about political developments in Malaysia. He presently manages Merdeka Center’s portfolio of clients ranging from political parties, government departments as well as local and international institutions of higher learning. Through Merdeka Center, Ibrahim has been involved in organizing surveys in Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore and Myanmar.

Prior to his role in Merdeka Center, Suffian worked as a project finance specialist in a Malaysian investment bank and a project manager in an international development agency.

Suffian received education from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and obtained an MBA from the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. Suffian was a World Fellow at Yale University in 2011.

Jameson Toole CEO and cofounder, Wherehouse Inc

Jameson Toole is CEO and cofounder of Wherehouse Inc, a company dedicated to helping others unlock the potential of location data. He holds degrees in physics, economics and mathematics from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Engineering Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jameson's research is highly interdisciplinary, spanning from understanding human mobility patterns in cities, the adoption of innovations through social networks, and developing novel predictors of critical economic indicators from new data sources. Previously, Jameson was a senior data scientist and head of analytics at Jana Mobile and spent summers at Google X building analytics pipelines for Project Wing, a drone delivery service. Above all, Jameson is interested in understanding human behaviour and using technology to make cities better places to live.



Jamie Allen Secretary General, Asian Corporate Governance Association

Jamie Allen is the founding Secretary General of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA). He is a published author and has more than 29 years’ experience as a writer, editor and analyst covering Asian business, finance and economics from Hong Kong.

Joby Warrick Journalist, The Washington Post

Joby Warrick covers intelligence for The Washington Post, where he has been a reporter since 1996. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and has appeared on CNN, Fox and PBS.

John Plender Journalist, Financial Times

After completing his degree at Oxford University, John Plender joined Deloitte, Plender, Griffiths & Co in the City of London in 1967, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1970. He then moved into journalism and became financial editor of The Economist in 1974, where he remained until joining the Foreign Office policy planning staff in 1980.

On leaving the Foreign Office, Plender became a senior editorial writer and columnist at the Financial Times, an assignment that he has since combined with publishing and current affairs broadcasting for the BBC and Channel 4. A former member of the London Stock Exchange's quality of markets advisory committee and past chairman of Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (PIRC), a leading corporate governance consultancy, Plender is currently a non-executive director of Quintain PLC. He is also a member of the advisory council of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.

Plender served on the UK Company Law Review steering group and consults on corporate governance for the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector lending and investing arm of the World Bank. His book, Going Off The Rails - Global Capital And The Crisis Of Legitimacy, was published by John Wiley in February 2003.



John Springford Senior research fellow, Centre for European Reform

John Springford works on economic issues as a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER) in London. He acted as secretary to the CER’s commission on the economic consequences of leaving the EU, which published its final report in June 2014. Before joining the CER, he worked at the Social Market Foundation and CentreForum think-tanks. He studied at Oxford and Glasgow universities and at the London School of Economics.

John has contributed opinion pieces to various newspapers, including The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. He commentates regularly on economic issues for the broadcast media. He has given oral evidence to the House of Lords and the British government’s Balance of Competences Review.

Jonathan Weisgall Vice President, Berkshire Hathaway Energy

Jonathan Weisgall is Vice President for Government Relations for Berkshire Hathaway Energy. He serves as chairman for the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies and Vice President of the Geothermal Energy Association. He is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught a seminar on energy issues since 1992, and he received the law school’s award for outstanding adjunct professor of the year for 2015. Weisgall graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia College and from Stanford Law School. He previously practiced law in Washington DC at Covington & Burling and has published articles in Legal Times, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, SAIS Review, and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

John Pomfret Author and independent consultant

John Pomfret is an award-winning author who spent decades as a foreign correspondent with The Washington Post. His book, Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China is a best seller and his upcoming a history of US-China relations: The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: The United States and China from 1776 to the Present will be published by Henry Holt.



Justin Dombrowski Senior Manager Fintech Innovation & Blockchain, PwC

Justin Dombrowski is Senior Manager for Fintech Innovation & Blockchain Technology for PwC's Asia Pacic region. He is a noted expert on blockchain and other emerging financial technologies, possessing a wealth of experience assisting clients understand and apply emerging tech in payments, capital markets, insurance, trade finance and telecommunications in the US, EU and South East Asia.

He presently chairs the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance’s Innovation Committee, serves as a mentor at the the incubator Founders Institute, and is the blockchain technology chair for NACHA Payments. He speaks on the application of blockchain technology for a variety of events, including NACHA Payments, Orange Institute, and the World Economic Forum’s Financial Innovation Workshop. Before joining PwC, Justin founded Historiocity, a NYC-based financial technology consultancy.

Karen See Cofounder, {embrace} worldwide

Karen See has lived in Sydney, London, New York and is currently based in Hong Kong. With nearly 25 years’ experience in marketing communications specialising in public relations, advertising and media strategy, Karen has led regional teams in Europe and Asia working with multinational companies across industries including consumer electronics, IT, banking and finance.

As a woman in leadership, Karen understands the trials and tribulations of juggling life and work.

A big believer in mentoring and coaching, Karen is committed to arming - all that will let her - with the tools to become better versions of themselves.

Kay McArdle CEO, PathFinders

Kay McArdle joined PathFinders as its first CEO in 2013. She is responsible for PathFinders’ strategic development with particular focus on government, consular, academic and agency relations, access to justice and communications. A Hong Kong- and England-qualified lawyer and CEDR-accredited mediator, McArdle previously worked at Mayer Brown JSM, Goldman Sachs and Masons. She is a visiting lecturer at the Centre for Rights and Justice at the Law Faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and contributed a chapter about PathFinders' work to "Gender, Violence and the State in Asia" (Routledge, July 2016). McArdle is Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee of the Child Development Centre (NGO). She was Board Chair of The Women’s Foundation (NGO) from 2011-2014.



Lenlen Mesina Executive Director, Enrich

Lenlen Mesina is the Executive Director of Enrich – a Hong Kong charity that promotes the economic empowerment of migrant domestic workers through financial literacy education. Lenlen is from the Philippines and is a development worker and an advocate for women’s rights. Prior to joining Enrich in 2008, Lenlen worked as Programme Manager at The Women’s Foundation in Hong Kong; in project management and programme evaluation at the Office of the President of the Philippines; and at various women’s rights NGOs in the Philippines. Lenlen was compelled to join Enrich after conducting research on migrant women returnees, and the importance of financial education for them in securing a brighter future for themselves and their families. As Executive Director, Lenlen is responsible for managing Enrich’s strategic direction and the day-to-day operations of the organisation.

Michael Johannes Professor, Columbia Business School

Since receiving his PhD in Economics at the University of Chicago in 2000, Michael Johannes has taught at Columbia Business School. He has held visiting appointments at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Fall 2005 and at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in Spring 2006. He has also taught a short-course at Princeton University on derivatives and mortgage-backed securities.

Johannes has broad industry experience, serving as an advisor and consultant to hedge funds, fund-of-funds, pension funds, law firms, family offices and financial technology firms. His academic research focuses on issues in applied and theoretical finance, especially on understanding and modelling non-standard risks in the context of derivatives pricing, portfolio management and risk management. He has a particular focus is building predictive models and statistical models to analyse data in real-time. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of the American Statistical Association and Review of Financial Studies and Statistical Science. He has written chapters in a number of books on quantitative methods, including the Handbook of Financial Econometrics and the Handbook of Financial Time Series. His teaching interests are in the areas of capital markets, investments, derivatives and risk management.



Nicholas Carr Author

Journalist Nicholas Carr is the author of acclaimed book The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us, which examines the personal and social consequences of our ever-growing dependency on computers, robots, and apps. His previous work, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. His new book, Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations, explores the internet’s impact on society, and is due to be released in September 2016.

Carr also authored The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, which the Financial Times calls “the best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing,” and Does IT Matter?: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages.

Carr has written for The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Wired, i, MIT Technology Review and many other periodicals. He is a former member of the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s editorial board of advisers, was on the steering board of the World Economic Forum’s cloud computing project, and was a writer-in-residence at the University of California at Berkeley’s journalism school. He also maintains the popular blog Rough Type.

Peter Tertzakian Chief Energy Economist & MD, ARC Financial Corp

Peter Tertzakian is the Chief Energy Economist and also a Managing Director at ARC Financial, an energy-focused private equity manager. Peter's career began as a geophysicist with Chevron Corporation in 1982. He moved from oil and gas to finance in 1990, where he has been since.

An accomplished author, Peter's two best-selling books, A Thousand Barrels a Second (McGraw-Hill, NY 2006) and The End of Energy Obesity (John Wiley, NY 2009) provide insight into the dynamic world of energy transitions through a thoughtful examination of economic, environmental geopolitical pressures. His books have been translated into several languages worldwide.

Tertzaitian has an undergraduate degree in geophysics and graduate in econometrics. He also holds a Master of Science in Management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. In addition to his role at ARC, he is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Calgary, where he teaches an MBA course in the business of energy transitions.



Phil Groves President, DAC Management

Phil Groves has more than 15 years of experience in distressed credit and special situations investments in China. In 2001, he pioneered the first foreign acquisition of Chinese non-performing loans (NPLs). After sourcing and managing additional NPL portfolios, Groves established DAC’s wholly-owned PRC distressed asset servicing platform, Gao Fei Consulting Services (Beijing). Today, Gao Fei Consulting is the most accomplished Western firm in the market, and it is the only such licensee with permission to operate nationally (2005 - Present).

As Founder and President of DAC, Groves guides the firm’s investment strategy and advisory practices. He also serves as Chairman and Legal Representative of Gao Fei Consulting. Prior to DAC, Groves was Managing Director at myCFO, where he was responsible for distressed asset investments in Asia. He began his career as a certified public accountant (CPA) with Arthur Andersen. Groves received his BS from Boston College and MBA from the University of Notre Dame.

Rahat Ahmed Cofounder and Chief of Strategy, Trinity VR

Rahat Ahmed is the Cofounder & Chief of Strategy of TrinityVR. The company has built a data-driven virtual reality simulation platform targeted towards enterprise applications. Their latest product is DiamondFX, a VR-based data capture and analysis system for scouting and player development in professional baseball. He oversees the overall business strategy, drives fundraising, and manages capital and resources. Prior to joining TrinityVR, Ahmed managed emerging markets assets for Prince Street Capital Management, where he spent a significant period covering technology, internet and telecom sectors with a focus on emerging tech and its effects on consumer behaviour. Most recently, Ahmed was also the primary strategist at DKMS US, the American division of the world's largest bone marrow donor center, where he helped lay the groundwork for increasing transplant conversion efficiency for blood cancer patients in the United States. He is also the cofounder of B-deshi, an organisation that mentors Bangladeshi youths in immigrant communities for leadership roles. Ahmed has a Bachelor's in finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Scott Pearson Chief Executive Officer and President, Aquion Energy

With over 20 years of experience leading a wide range of technology-based companies and organisations, Scott Pearson joined Aquion in 2011 as its CEO and President. Pearson’s professional experience spans a broad range of industries including defense systems, digital imaging, electronics assembly equipment, uninterruptible power systems, personal electric vehicles, fuel cell power systems and stationary batteries. Prior to joining Aquion, Pearson served as President and CEO of Protonex Technology for six years and subsequently held the role of Chairman of the Board through a successful sale to Ballard Power Systems in 2015. Before Protonex, he held executive or senior roles at Eastman Kodak Digital, Cookson/Speedline, Invensys Powerware and Nova Cruz LLC.

Pearson holds an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, an MSc in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and a BSc from the University of Massachusetts.



Sharn Bedi (meetings only) Leadership, Business & Marketing Specialist and Professional Coach, {embrace} worldwide

A management and marketing professional with a MBA, Sharn Bedi has succeeded within a broad range of professional roles, across global markets, and diverse industries - automotive, healthcare, agency, publishing and portals. Bedi is a strategic and practical player able to gain support across various cultures and organisation structures.

A career spanning 23 years, Bedi is now focused on organisation and behaviour change via corporate workshops and executive coaching. {embrace} is a proprietary leadership and diversity management philosophy based on neuroscience and positive psychology. Inspired by Harvard Business School’s ‘service profit chain’ and the notion that happy, successful, diverse, employees generate greater value, growth and profits for corporations - Karen and Sharn also draw on their past experience in corporate leadership, marketing communications and branding.

Prior to starting {embrace} worldwide, Sharn led the Asia Pacific Region for Web MD, the leading healthcare portal for healthcare information for consumers and medical education for healthcare professionals (Medscape). She was tasked to launch the platform in APAC and drive the P&L through sponsored/branded content and media for multi channel marketing solutions.

For seven years, Sharn started the healthcare brand for DDB, a leading communications and advertising agency (Omnicom Group); initially as lead of Singapore, thereafter SEA and finally as the Managing Director for APAC.

In 2016, Sharn launched her own talk show, 'Secrets of Womanhood', designed to help {embrace} women of Asia and Middle East to empower and voice the unspoken truths that often leave them feeling isolated, guilty and helpless. In 2014 Sharn also had her own cooking show on TV; 'A Kitchen Abroad'; fulfilling her passion to nurture and develop.

As a woman in leadership, Sharn has been admired for her tenacity and commitment to people, organizations and personal success. Described as a 'career-omnivore', she successfully juggles many roles. Sharn is definitely a lady that likes to live life fully - with confidence, defying the odds, constantly challenging failure, continuously learning and nurturing - all with a dose of laughter and fun.

Simon Evenett Professor of Economics, University of St Gallen Simon Evenett is Professor of International Trade at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland and Coordinator of the Global Trade Alert, the independent global trade policy monitoring service. He was educated at Cambridge and Yale Universities and has taught at the Universities of Oxford and Michigan.



Simon Moores Managing Director, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence

Simon Moores is the Managing Director of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, an independent publishing business focused on critical mineral supply chains and disruptive technologies. He has specialist knowledge in critical and strategic minerals and markets including graphite, lithium, cobalt, batteries, electric vehicles and China. He has specialised in the lithium-ion-battery supply chain and, in particular, the upstream sector from mine to battery cell manufacturing.

He has launched subscription products: Benchmark Membership and Benchmark Data | Graphite and the events: Benchmark World Tour 2015 and Graphite Supply Chain 2016.

Simon Rabinovitch Asia economics editor, The Economist

Simon Rabinovitch is the Asia economics editor of The Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of a special report on the Chinese financial system, Big but brittle, which is due to be published in early May. Simon previously served as a correspondent with The Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also fit in a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Simon has a BA from McGill University in Canada and a Master’s from the University of Oxford.

Stephen Hull Head of Asset Allocation, Asia Pacific, Blackrock Solutions

Stephen Hull, CFA, Director, leads the Client Solutions team in BlackRock Solutions for the Asia-Pacific region, outside of Japan. The Client Solutions team provides complex solutions support for the Firm's largest institutional clients. The team has a broad set of investment experience across fixed income, equity, alternatives and a wide range of specialised investment strategies. It also focuses on outcome-oriented investing solutions, taking into account liabilities, capital and other drivers of investment strategy.

Prior to assuming his current role, Hull was based in London and was a member of the Multi-Asset Strategies group, where he was a senior investment strategist with responsibility for institutional Global Tactical Asset Allocation mandates and retail multi-asset portfolios managed from London. Hull's service with the firm dates back to 2000, including his years with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM), which merged with BlackRock in 2006. At MLIM he was an investment strategist and, as well as developing the EMEA Retail platform, was involved in the development of Diversified Growth and Fiduciary mandates for the Institutional Client Business. Prior to joining MLIM, Hull worked at two other investment management firms, Henderson Global Investors (formerly AMP Asset Management) and First State Investments (previously the international investment department of Colonial First State).



Steven Ciobo Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Government of Australia

Steven Ciobo was sworn in as the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment on 19 July 2016.This is Mr Ciobo’s third front bench role in the foreign affairs and trade portfolio. He has previously served as the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade and Investment. In these roles Mr Ciobo championed economic integration in the Pacific through private sector-led growth; promoted the benefits of Australia’s Free Trade Agreements; led delegations of industry leaders to our key trading partners; and supported the Minister for Foreign Affairs in advancing Australia’s diplomatic interests overseas.

Steven Radelet Professor, Georgetown University

Steven Radelet holds the Donald F McHenry Chair in Global Human Development at Georgetown University and serves as an economic adviser to the President of Liberia. He has served as the Chief Economist of USAID, Senior Adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. From 1990 to 2000 he was on the faculty of Harvard University. He served for four years (1991-95) as a resident adviser to the government of Indonesia and for two years (1986-88) as an adviser to the government of The Gambia. Radelet is the author/coauthor of several books and dozens of articles, including The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World. He holds a PhD and Master's in public policy from Harvard University.

Tessa Tennant Project Originator, NDC Finance Tessa Tennant is a serial innovator in green and climate finance. She co-founded the UK's first green investment fund in 1988, the Jupiter Ecology Fund. She is a founding director and President of The Ice Organisation, creator of the environmental rewards programme myice.com, and is a non-Executive Director of the UK's Green Investment Bank.

She has served on numerous fund, company and not-for-profit boards, including the US Calvert Funds, SynTao and is an adviser to Carbon Tracker and other initiatives. She also led the creation of the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (ASrIA, now part of PRI), and The Carbon Disclosure Project. She is now focused on financing the Paris climate agreement’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).



Thomas Poullaouec Managing Director, State Street Global Advisors, US Thomas Poullaouec is a Managing Director of State Street Global Advisors and Head of Strategy & Research in Asia Pacific for our Investment Solutions Group (ISG). The team engages with clients to identify complex investment issues, conduct needs-based analysis, and design targeted solutions supported by proprietary research and market viewpoints. Actionable solutions include tactical multi-asset allocation, tail risk solutions and exposure management. Previously at SSGA, Poullaouec was Head of Portfolio Strategists in Asia ex Japan, with a particular focus on asset allocation, currency and alternative strategies.

Prior to joining SSGA, Poullaouec spent seven years as an Asset Allocation Product Specialist at BNP Paribas Investment Partners. He participated in the development and launch of absolute return strategies which combined tactical asset allocation and capital preservation methodologies. He started his career at a financial software firm in Paris (ARPSON), where he was involved in research and development of risk control methods.

Tobias Bland CEO, Enhanced Investment Products Ltd

Tobias Bland has the primary responsibility for managing Hong Kong based asset management firm Enhanced Investment Products (EIP). Bland oversees the group’s operations, which include a suite of Alpha and Beta products under EIP and EIP Alpha. In 2014, CLSA Hong Kong acquired 49% of the XIE Shares Hong Kong ETF platform.

Prior to founding EIP in December 2001, Toby spent eight years at Jardine Fleming Securities (now JP Morgan), where he was responsible for establishing and running the proprietary trading desk. As the head of proprietary trading, he was responsible for a relative value portfolio invested in South East Asia. Prior to establishing the proprietary trading desk, Bland was involved in convertible bond, tax and warrant arbitrage. He joined Jardine Fleming in 1993 as a member of the securities lending department in Hong Kong.

Bland has a Bachelor of Sciences from Southampton University, UK. He has obtained qualifications in financial derivatives and financial engineering, as a broker's representative and as an options/futures trading officer with the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. He is a patron of HOPE for Children, and dedicates time to philanthropic pursuits in Asia.



William Rojas Principal and Managing Director, William Benton & Associates

William Rojas is the founder and principal of William Benton Associates, a Hong Kong-based consulting and market research firm specialising in microelectronics, telecommunications and information-technology sectors. Rojas has more than 30 years’ experience in the semiconductor, IT and communications industries, having worked for IBM Corporation, Reuters and Nomura Research.

Rojas has provided consulting services to a number of international companies including Pyramid Research, The Economist Intelligent Unit, IDC, Cisco Systems, Hong Kong SAR, China's State Economic & Trade Commission, Alcatel-Lucent, Intel, NEC and NTT. He is co-author of Brave New Unwired World (2002), which was one of the first books to document the advent and potential of 4G technologies. He holds a Master’s in electrical engineering (EE) from the University of Tokyo and a Bachelor’s in EE from California Institute of Technology.

if16 speaker bios - clsawales.clsa.com/event/if16/if16_speakerbios.pdf · incognito: the secret...

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