Speakers
The speakers are listed in alphabetical order
Aged 67. The Hon Matthew Cheung Kin-chung has been Chief Secretary for Administration since January 2017.
He joined the Hong Kong Government as an Information Officer in July 1972. He transferred to the Administrative Service in September 1979 and was promoted to Administrative Officer Staff Grade A1 in September 2004. He had served in various policy bureaux and departments, including the former Finance Branch, the Home Affairs Department, the former City and New Territories Administration, the former Government House, the former Industry Department, the former Trade Department, the Financial Secretary’s Office, the Judiciary and the Central Policy Unit. He became Commissioner for Labour in January 1999, the Director of Education in June 2000 and Permanent Secretary for Economic Development and Labour in July 2002. He was Secretary for Labour and Welfare from July 2007 to January 2017.
Dr Law Chi-kwong was appointed as the Secretary for Labour and Welfare on 1 July 2017.
Between 1981 and 2017, Dr Law taught in the Department of Social Work (later renamed Department of Social Work and Social Administration) of the University of Hong Kong. He was the Head of the Department from 1993 to 1997 and was associate professor before he joined the Government. Dr Law was a Member of the Legislative Council from 1995 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2004. He also held a number of public offices, including Chairman of the Community Care Fund Task Force, member of the Commission on Poverty, member of the Commission on Strategic Development and member of the Statistics Advisory Board.
The Hon Nicholas W Yang has been Secretary for Innovation and Technology of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region since November 2015.
The Hon Yang graduated in 1977 from the California Institute of Technology in the United States with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics. He pursued further studies at Stanford University and obtained a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1978 and a Master of Business Administration degree in 1982. The Hon Yang worked as a senior design engineer for Intel Corporation in 1978 and later as a strategic management consultant for Bain & Company.
After returning to Hong Kong in 1983, he joined Shell Electric Mfg. (Holdings) Limited as its Executive Director and Deputy Group Managing Director until August 1999. He took up various posts in several technology, venture capital and private equity firms from 1999 to 2003. The Hon Yang worked as the Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited from October 2003 to February 2010. He was Executive Vice President of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University from March 2010 to February 2015. He was appointed as Non-official Member of the Executive Council and Advisor to the Chief Executive on Innovation and Technology in March 2015.
Mr Philo Alto is the founder and CEO of Asia Value Advisors (AVA), a purpose-driven philanthropic capital advisory firm based in Hong Kong. Through bespoke advisory services, convening, and research, AVA seeks to inform and inspire individuals and organizations to create sustainable impacts.
His work included advising The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust on program curation for its inaugural Philanthropy for Better Cities Forum in September 2016 with 60 globally-renowned speakers and attracting over 1,300 delegates. Previously, he co-organized an impact investing forum in Hong Kong for East and South East Asia with the Rockefeller Foundation which adopted an ecosystem approach in developing the impact investing market.
Mr Alto has also co-authored two publications: “Mind the Gap: Lessons and Findings from EngageHK” and “Adopting the London Principles: Policy Considerations to Grow Impact Investing in Hong Kong”. His work has been referenced in the media such as Stanford Social Innovation Review, Alliance magazine, and the book, “The Power of Impact Investing”. Philo was recently appointed as a member of the global editorial advisory board for Alliance magazine.
Mr Alto received his MBA and MPA from Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. He is an investment banker by training (Goldman Sachs and Citibank alumnus) prior to founding AVA. His voluntary engagements include serving as a director and community engagement lead of the Harvard Club of HK, global advisor of Social Ventures HK, and an officer of the HBS Association of HK.
Ms Christine Bader is the author of the 2014 book “The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil”, as well as numerous articles about corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and the intersection of business and human rights. Her writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review and numerous other publications, and she has given talks to conferences, companies and universities around the world, including a TED talk in 2014.
From 2015-17 she was Director of Social Responsibility at Amazon, where she built a global team working to ensure respect for the rights of workers in Amazon supply chains and operations. From 1999-2008 she worked for BP in Indonesia, China, and the UK managing the social impacts of major company projects.
Ms Bader has also served as advisor to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for business and human rights; advisor to BSR; visiting scholar at Columbia University, where she co-taught a master’s seminar on human rights and business; special assistant to the New York City Mayor’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor; and a corps member with City Year.
She holds a BA magna cum laude from Amherst College and an MBA from the Yale School of Management, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2018 she relocated to Bali, Indonesia, with her family.
Ms Chandrika Bahadur is President of Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Association and Director of the SDG Academy. Previously she was Director of Education Initiatives at the UN SDSN. From 2008-11, she was an advisor to the Chairman and Managing Director at Reliance Industries, where she helped set up the Reliance Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic foundation focusing on education, health, rural development and urban renewal.
From 2001-08, Ms Bahadur worked with the United Nations in different roles. In her last assignment, she was a Policy Advisor at UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy in New York, working in Africa to help Ministries of Finance and Planning align their strategies to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) across 20 countries. From 2003-06, she was part of the leadership team of the United Nations Millennium Project, an advisory group convened by then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to recommend strategies for the MDGs. From 2001-02 she worked on trade and HIV and AIDS programmes at the United Nations. She has prior teaching experience at Harvard and Columbia University.
Ms Bahadur holds a Masters degree from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, and a BA (Honours) in Economics from St Stephen’s College at Delhi University.
Dr Jane Barratt is the Secretary General of the International Federation on Ageing (IFA), which comprises government, industry, academic and non-governmental members in over 70 countries. The IFA is a global point of connection for experts and expertise that helps to shape and influence age-related policy globally.
Dr Barratt has direct responsibility for the organisation’s global operational performance, quality, strategic implementation and business development. This includes leadership at the United Nations Economic and Social Council in New York, Geneva and Vienna and relations with the WHO ‘s Department of Ageing and Life-course.
She has many national and international roles, including Chair and Standing Selection Committee Chair for the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada, and is a former member of the Global Agenda Council on Ageing for the World Economic Forum and former Chair, Canadian National Centres of Excellence (NCE) Standing Selection Committee.
Naina Batra joined AVPN as our Chairperson and CEO from September 2013. Naina’s leadership over the past 4 years has grown the AVPN membership by 169% and elevated the organization into a truly regional force for good. Under her direction, the organization has grown from focusing only on Venture Philanthropy to supporting the entire ecosystem of Social Funders from philanthropists to impact investors and Corporate CSR professionals. She was instrumental in developing AVPN’s innovative services that connect, empower and educate the now 400+ members of AVPN.
Prior to joining AVPN, Batra was a member of the senior leadership team of a purpose driven unit of The Monitor Group, a leading global strategy consulting firm, aimed at catalyzing markets for social change. Batra was also partner and Co-Founder of Group Fifty Private Ltd, curating contemporary Indian art with a view to provide a medium for upcoming and established Indian artists to showcase their work directly to a large and diverse audience.
Batra has a master’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University where she graduated at the top of her class. She also holds a bachelor degree in Economics and International Relations from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA and a General Course Diploma in economics from The London School of Economics.
Mr Michael Berkowitz joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2013 to shape and oversee the 100 Resilient Cities, a project pioneered by the foundation. Previously, he was Global Head of Operational Risk Management at Deutsche Bank, where he oversaw the firm’s operational risk capital planning efforts, served as a primary regulatory contact, and connected the myriad operational risk management efforts groupwide.
Earlier at Deutsche Bank he held operational risk management positions in New York, Mumbai, Singapore and London. Before joining Deutsche Bank, he was Deputy Commissioner at the Office of Emergency Management in New York City, where he worked on major planning initiatives, including coastal storm, biological terrorism, and transit strike contingency plans. During his tenure there he was involved with the City’s responses to the 1999 outbreak of West Nile fever, Tropical Storm Floyd, major flooding in Southern Queens, the crashes of SwissAir 111 and American Airlines 587, the 2003 Northeast blackout, and the 2001 anthrax incidents and World Trade Center disaster.
The Hon Bernard Charnwut Chan is a deputy to the National People’s Congress of China, a non-official member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council 2004-09 and from 2012, and since 2017 Convenor of the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council. He is also a former member of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (1998-2008).
A graduate of Pomona College in California, he is President of Asia Financial Holdings and Asia Insurance. He is Chairman of the Hong Kong – Thailand Business Council and an advisor to Bangkok Bank (China) Co Ltd. He sits on the boards of several local and overseas companies in the financial services and manufacturing sectors. He also joined the governing board of the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund in Hong Kong.
Among his public service activities, he is Chairman of the Hong Kong Palace Museum Ltd, Chairperson of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, Chairman of The Jockey Club CPS Ltd Advisory Committee, Chairman of the Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food, and Chairman of the Steering Committee on the Restored Landfill Revitalisation Funding Scheme. Past positions include Chairman of the Council for Sustainable Development, Chairman of the Antiquities Advisory Board, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Revitalisation of Historic Buildings, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Judicial Salaries and Conditions of Service, and Council Chair of Lingnan University.
He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 2002, and a Commander (3rd Class) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand in 2004. In 2006, he was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star by the Hong Kong SAR Government. He has been conferred with honorary degrees from Lingnan University, City University of Hong Kong and the Open University of Hong Kong.
Norman Chan was appointed Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on 1 October 2009. Mr Chan joined the Hong Kong Government as an Administrative Officer in 1976 and became an Executive Director of the HKMA when it was established in 1993. From 1996 to 2005, Mr Chan served as Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA.
From December 2005 to June 2007, Mr Chan was Vice Chairman, Asia of Standard Chartered Bank. Prior to rejoining the HKMA, Mr Chan was Director of the Chief Executive’s Office of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government from July 2007 to July 2009. He was the Founding Chairman of the policy think tank, the Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre established in 2006.
Ms Annie Chen is the principal and Chair of RS Group, a mid-sized Hong Kong-based family office committed to creating a paradigm shift in people’s values and priorities so that economic growth will support, instead of jeopardise, human development and environmental sustainability. Convinced that sustainability is the defining challenge of our times, she believes that one should, and can, “invest in the future one wants to create”.
Not only has Ms Chen challenged RS Group to invest its own capital sustainably, she has made conscious efforts to seed or support innovative philanthropic or impact investing strategies to enable the mainstreaming of environmental and social considerations in the wealth management context, particularly within Asia where such practices remain nascent. Towards that end, RS Group incubated and recently launched a non-profit platform called the Sustainable Finance Initiative to promote sustainable finance in Hong Kong.
Ms Chen also sits on the board of Civic Exchange, an independent public policy think tank in Hong Kong which focuses on the natural and built environments and their impact on the well-being of the community.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Ms Chen obtained her BA from Brown University and her JD from Columbia Law School. After practising tax law in San Francisco and Hong Kong for nearly a decade, she joined her siblings in managing the family office established by their parents. She founded RS Group in 2009.
Mr. Leong Cheung has been the Executive Director of Charities & Community at The Hong Kong Jockey Club since 2014. In this capacity he is also the co-Chair of the Hong Kong Chapter of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Mr. Cheung has had extensive experience before joining the Club. He was an Operating Partner with Bain Capital. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of Global Sourcing & Supply Chain at Esquel Group, the founder and CEO of an education focused Internet venture, and a senior consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Cheung is also co-Founder & Chairman of an innovative social enterprise, RunOurCity.
Mr. Cheung is active in the community. He currently serves in the Elderly Commission, and the Community Care Fund task force under the Commission on Poverty of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. He is a director of the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited and is an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Mr. Cheung has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BBA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Professor Stephen Cheung Yan-leung graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong with a major in Mathematics. He received his PhD in Statistics from the University of Paris VI, and a PhD in Finance from the University of Strathclyde. Professor Cheung is highly active in academic research, focusing on corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and financial market development, and publishes widely in international refereed journals.
Professor Cheung has actively participated in a wide range of community services. He chairs the Supervisory Committee of the Asian Bond Fund Hong Kong Bond Index Fund of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and is a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. In the past years, he held a number of other public offices, including the Chairman of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund Task Force and a member of the Commission on Poverty.
Bonnie Chiu is the Founder and CEO of non-profit social enterprise Lensational, which equips marginalised women with photography training and digital skills. Since being launched in 2013, the organisation has expanded to a team of 120 volunteers and taught photography to 800 women across 21 developing countries, establishing partnerships with Getty Images, Standard Chartered and Colgate. She is also Managing Director of The Social Investment Consultancy, an international strategy consultancy dedicated to helping organisations maximise their social impact, with offices in London, Hong Kong, Milan, Dubai and the Ivory Coast.
Chiu is a Trustee of Student Hubs, a national charity that catalyses social action in universities, and is on the Global Alumni Advisory Board of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She holds a Bachelor in Global Business Studies from CUHK and a Masters in International Relations from the London School of Economics. in 2017, she was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs in Europe. She writes for Forbes on gender and diversity and is a frequent speaker on social entrepreneurship, having been invited to speak in 14 countries and given 2 TEDx talks.
Professor Chiu Chi Yue is a specially appointed expert in philosophy and social science under the National 1000 Talent Scheme and is currently Dean of Social Science, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Psychology and Director of the University Services Centre for China Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).
His research covers the social psychology of education, culture and psychological processes, human motivation and intergroup dynamics, areas in which he has made outstanding research achievements. Since joining CUHK, he has established the Centre for Positive Social Science and, with sponsorships from The Hong Kong Jockey Club and Bei Shan Tang, started to promote systematic, innovative and science-informed positive education in primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong.
Dr Chiu received his Bachelor of Social Sciences and Master of Philosophy degrees from the University of Hong Kong, and two Masters degrees and a PhD from Columbia University in New York. He was previously Associate Dean of Social Sciences and Head of Psychology at the University of Hong Kong, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois and Professor of Management.. At Nanyang Business School in Singapore, he was Professor of Management and Marketing, Director of Research and PhD Studies, Director of the Cultural Science Institute and Research Director of Asian Consumer Insight.
Mr Stephen Ciesinski is President of Silicon Valley-based SRI International, one of the world’s leading independent research and development organisations. SRI’s innovations have led to new products, businesses and industries that impact people’s lives every day – from the computer mouse, interactive computing and Siri to HDTV, medical ultrasound, drugs for cancer and infectious diseases, and many more.
At SRI, Mr Ciesinski and his colleagues work with large companies, universities, governments and the start-up community on breakthrough technologies and product development, new business/venture formation, and the design of regional or national entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Previously, he held executive management positions with Applied Materials, the global manufacturer of semi-conductor capital equipment; Octel Communications, the worldwide leader in voice-messaging products; Resumix, the inventor of web-based personnel recruiting applications; and Laszlo Systems, a pioneer in Web 2.0 software. He started his career at Procter & Gamble, was a consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton, and also served as a venture partner with Earlybird Ventures.
Mr Ciesinski is past Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Union College, and of The President’s Cabinet at California Polytechnic State University. He lectures at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, with emphasis on courses in entrepreneurship in developing economies.
A graduate of Union College with a double major in Electrical Engineering and Modern Languages, he received an MBA from Stanford University.
Mr Ciesinski, his wife and their two sons are founders of the Kalele Foundation, dedicated to providing character and self-esteem development experiences for disadvantaged children.
Dr York Chow is an orthopaedic surgeon by profession. He served as Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Princess Margaret and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals from 1983 to 1992.
With the establishment of the Hospital Authority (HA), Dr Chow switched to hospital and healthcare administration. He was appointed Chief Executive of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1992 and of Queen Mary Hospital in 2001. He was subsequently appointed Cluster Chief Executive of the Hong Kong West Cluster, leading many new services and initiatives.
Dr Chow served in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government as Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food from 2004 to 2007, and as Secretary for Food and Health from 2007 to 2012. During his tenure, he introduced the comprehensive Anti-Smoking Law, established the Food Safety Centre and related laws, and initiated a series of healthcare, rehabilitation and food safety reforms.
After leaving the Government, he was Chairperson of Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) from 2013 to 2016, advocating strongly for inclusion and diversity for the Hong Kong community, and leading a complete review of the discrimination laws in Hong Kong. He joined AIA, Hong Kong and Macau Chief Medical Officer and Corporate Advisor in 2017.
Dr Chow has been an active volunteer in community services with the Community Chest, the Hong Kong Council of Social Services and many non-government organisations. He also led the Hong Kong Paralympic Committee as its Chairman and President respectively for over 25 years and served as First Vice-President of the International Paralympic Committee Council from 1997 to 2005. He remains an active member of the Paralympic family.
Ms Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker is President & CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, an organisation dedicated to connecting people, ideas and resources to improve lives in Western New York.
As CEO at the Community Foundation, Ms Dedecker has led a focused growth and impact strategy. Under her leadership the Foundation has facilitated numerous public/private sector collaborations focused on systems change. These efforts have addressed issues such as school readiness, post-secondary attainment, lead-poisoning prevention and environmental stewardship. Most recently, Ms Dedecker oversaw the Foundation’s effort to launch the Say Yes to Education initiative and the Greater Buffalo Racial Equity Roundtable.
Other highlights of her service to the community include a White House appointment to the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation (2003), co-chairing the US Committee of the United Nations International Year of the Volunteer (2001) and serving as President of the Association of Junior Leagues International (1999). Ms Dedecker has also served on numerous boards, including currently the Foundation Center, FSG and the Global Fund for Community Foundations.
Ms Dedecker’s work has been recognised by many including the Points of Light Foundation; she has received the Governor’s Award for Service and the President’s Award for Service, and been named Buffalo News Citizen of The Year. A native of Cuba, she is now a naturalized US citizen and holds a Master’s degree in Education from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She speaks frequently on the role of philanthropy, community impact and non-profit governance.
Paula DiPerna is a strategic global environmental and philanthropic policy advisor as well as author, with special interest in environmental finance. She is currently a Special Advisor to CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project. She also serves on the Board of Advisors of Global Kids, whose mission is to develop global citizenship, and on the Circle of Advisors of Rachel’s Network, which links women philanthropists who have environmental interests.
DiPerna previously served as President of the International Division of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the world’s first cap-and-trade system covering all six greenhouse gases, which spearheaded the founding of China’s first pilot carbon market, the Tianjin Climate Exchange,. She also served as President of the Joyce Foundation, a major US philanthrop organisation; Executive Vice President for Recruitment and Public Policy of CCX; and Vice President for International Affairs of the Cousteau Society, where she also wrote numerous award-winning television documentary films.
DiPerna is a frequent public speaker and media commentator and a widely published author of books and articles. She has served as a consultant for LEAD International, which fosters emerging leaders, and is a Fellow of the Eisenhower Fellowship, also a global leadership network. She was awarded a Bellagio Center residency by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2015 and served as a Visiting Fellow at Civic Exchange in Hong Kong in 2018. She is also a cmember of the Women’s Forum of New York City and the US Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr Ami Dror is the founder and CEO of LeapLearner, a Shanghai-based education technology company that enables children to code the world of tomorrow. He is also the founder of Zaitoun Ventures, a start-up factory that develops disruptive start-ups across multiple sectors. Prior to founding Zaitoun Ventures, he co-founded XPAND 3D and led its growth into a global 3D Cinema industry front-runner.
He initiated work on the first 3D TV technology and led the formation of a 3D TV licensing company, jointly owned by Sony, Samsung, XPAND and Panasonic. In addition, he played an integral role in the development of Amblyz and Sidis Labs, companies that have revolutionised the treatment of childhood amblyopia and motion sickness respectively.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Mr Dror served as a Captain in the Israeli Secret Service and a diplomat in Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He holds a BSc in computer engineering from the Open University of Israel and serves as a board member of several private companies. He is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a member of the Aspen Institute Moderator Corps. He works closely with international non-profit organisations and is passionate about leveraging technology education to empower underprivileged populations across the globe.
Mr Engelbrecht-Bresges joined The Hong Kong Jockey Club in 1998 and has been its Chief Executive Officer since 2007. Under his leadership the Club has undergone significant transformation, becoming one of the world’s leading racing organisations, while its Charities Trust is now one of world’s top ten charity donors.
Internationally Mr Engelbrecht-Bresges serves as Vice Chairman of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, the world’s highest thoroughbred racing authority, and is Chairman of the Asian Racing Federation. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Aachen-Laurensberger Rennverein e.V. which is the organiser of the World Equestrian Festival, CHIO Aachen.
In April 2006 Mr Engelbrecht-Bresges was appointed to the Board of the Equestrian Events (Hong Kong) of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad Co Ltd, the company charged with managing the operations of the 2008 Olympic equestrian events in Hong Kong. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in July 2009 and was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star in 2016. He is a Board Member of The Community Chest of Hong Kong and a Council Member of the Hong Kong Management Association.
Mr Engelbrecht-Bresges grew up in Germany, where he developed a passion for horse racing, breeding and ownership. He is also an avid football fan, and played football professionally in Germany before graduation. A graduate from the University of Cologne in Economics, Finance and Statistics, he was a Board Member of the German Jockey Club for 10 years, serving as Executive Vice President for six years.
Mr Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich, MD, is Director of the Developmental Neuropsychiatry Clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. His research is aimed at treating children with severe psychiatric disorders. He has helped develop computer applications to help them develop stronger emotional regulation, pioneered psychiatric clinical trials to include children with neurological disorders, and uncovered rare genetic mutations leading to schizophrenia.
Describing his work, Mr Gonzalez-Heydrich writes, “I daily come up against the limits of our art. However, I have never felt those limits more poignantly than since concentrating my practice on children with very early onset psychosis and suicidal tendencies. It has been like watching over and over again a train wreck in slow motion with an unseen hand at the controls pushing the train inexorably towards catastrophe, despite the best treatments available. However, now my work is energised as never before by the new opportunities presented by this unique point in human medical history. We can now sequence patients’ genomes and grow neurons from their blood cells. In this way we are finding the biological mechanisms that make some children particularly vulnerable to environmental stress and can develop new treatments. These new techniques have seemed to me like magic dust that makes the unseen hand visible and has raised the hope that in partnership with families, scientists and community leaders, transformative new treatments can be developed to pry its fingers from the controls and truly treat or even prevent severe psychiatric illnesses.”
Mr Gaurav Gupta works for Dalberg as Regional Director for Asia and leads the firm’s energy practice. He founded Dalberg’s first Asia office in Mumbai, where he is currently based. Gaurav works on a wide range of issues, including energy access, financial inclusion, access to education and inclusive business strategies.
Elsewhere, Mr Gaurav has been a founding partner in a string of social ventures, including two eco-resorts, a sustainable tourism online platform, an organic tea plantation, and an eco-friendly fair trade fashion label. Mr Gaurav is also an avid patron of arts who supports local efforts in preserving traditional arts and culture.
Prior to Dalberg, Mr Gaurav was a Project Leader with the Boston Consulting Group in Sydney and London. He holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University and a postgraduate degree in development economics from Yale University. He was also a Fairfax scholar at the United World College of Hong Kong.
Mr Ananthapadmanabhan Guruswamy, better known as Ananth, is Chief Executive Officer of Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives, established by the 1st Indian businessman who signed the Giving Pledge; Azim Premji. He was earlier Head of Teacher Education at the Azim Premji Foundation, with the mandate to transform the quality of teacher education in the country.
Mr Guruswamy has also served as Chief Executive for India of global human rights watchdog Amnesty International, and International Programme Director for Greenpeace International and CEO of Greenpeace India.
After graduating in electrical engineering from IIT Madras in 1988. Mr Guruswamy started his working life as a schoolteacher for the Krishnamurti Foundation India. During this role he developed the curriculum for an ISC Environmental Studies Course which is still the only such course offered on an all-India basis.
Sophie Healy-Thow is a youth activist who promotes food security, gender equality and anti-bullying. She is on the UK Board of the leading international charity ActionAid and is an Ambassador for both the ONE Campaign and ISPCC.
Healy-Thow was selected by the UN to be a Youth Leader for Zero Hunger at the UN General Assembly in 2015. In 2017 she represented Ireland at the bi-annual Youth Ag Summit where she co-founded Agrikua, an online platform to promote women in agriculture in developing countries. In 2017 she was invited to participate in the inaugural UNleash Innovation Lab in Denmark, working to find solutions to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
A regular speaker at international events, Healy-Thow most recently spoke at the GAIN/WHO conference in Geneva on “Adolescents: Agents of Change for a Well-nourished World”, an expert study of nutrition programming for the next generation. She has also made presentations at events such as The European Development Days, WE Day UK, the Irish Aid Awards, the Thought for Food Conference and Philanthropy Ireland’s “Shape Tomorrow’s World Today” Conference.
Healy-Thow is one of the 10 women leaders featured in the Disney book Choose to Matter by Olympic medallist and ESPN presenter Julie Foudy, which encourages young women to find the leader within.
A past Google Science Fair and European Union Young Scientist winner, she was named by TIME magazine as one of the most influential teens of 2014. She studies International Development and Food Policy at University College, Cork.
Professor James J. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development at the University of Chicago. He has devoted his professional life to understanding the origins of major social and economic questions related to inequality, social mobility, discrimination, the formation of skills and regulation in labour markets, as well as devising and applying economically interpretable empirical strategies for understanding and addressing these questions.
Professor Heckman has published over 300 articles and nine books on these topics. He is the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics, the John Bates Clark Medal, the Jacob Mincer Award, the Dennis Aigner Award, the Ulysses Medal, the Theodore W Schultz Award, the Gold Medal of the President of the Italian Republic, the Frisch Medal and the Dan David Prize, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association.
Mr Wael Hmaidan is the Executive Director of Climate Action Network (CAN) International, which with 20 offices around the world, is the largest network of international and national NGOs working on climate change. He is also expert advisor to the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 48 developing countries working on climate change. His work in CAN is to develop and co-ordinate the network’s global strategy on climate change.
Mr Hmaidan also advises various other governments, UN Agencies and other institutions on climate change policy. He is a regular speaker on climate change at various forums, including United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nation General Assembly, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Mr Hmaidan has more than 20 years’ experience in climate change policies. His work on this issue started as a Greenpeace campaigner for the Arab World, where he helped established anenergy and marine protection campaign for the region. He has been attending all international climate change negotiations for the past eight years, two years of these as a lead negotiator for the Lebanese government. Mr Hmaidan obtained a Global Executive MBA degree from INSEAD.
Executive Director of the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival (HKAF) since 2006, Tisa Ho has increased annual turnover and extended the scope of HKAF programming to include large scale and site specific productions.
Her previous work includes policy and infrastructure planning, including brief development for Singapore’s Esplanade and oversight of government owned venues; marketing and curatorial responsibilities for the Singapore Arts Festival; and management of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Victoria Concert Hall during which she helped to set up the Alliance of Asia-Pacific Region Orchestras and the Singapore International Piano Festival, and built the first Open Air performance stage on Symphony Lake at the Botanic Gardens. As Chair of the HK Arts Administrators’ Association, she initiated the annual Cultural Leadership Summit, which remains an annual highlight for professional arts managers in the region.
Ms Ho is a Member of the Performing Arts Committee of the West Kowloon Cultural District and of the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts of The Education University of Hong Kong. International positions include faculty of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy and the Lisbon Consortium in Portugal; Chair of the International Advisory Committee of the Festival and Concert Hall in Tong Yeong, S Korea; and Chair-Elect of the Board of the International Society for Performing Arts headquartered in New York, USA.
A London School of Economics graduate, Safeena Husain is the Founder and Executive Director of the international award-winning non-profit organisation Educate Girls.
Founded in 2007, Educate Girls partners with the Indian Government in boosting student development in public schools through community ownership, ensuring improved enrolment and the retention of girls and learning outcomes for all children.
Since its inception, Educate Girls has consistently scaled up its operations and presently works in 21,000 government-run primary schools spread across 15 districts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. With support from the government and the community, the organisation has enrolled over 200,000 out-of-school girls, achieving over 90% retention, and has improved learning outcomes for over 650,000 children so far.
Dr Jin Jinping is an Associate Professor of the Law School at Peking University and Director of the Centre for Non-profit Organisations Law. She is also a Director of the China Youth Development Foundation, the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, the Chinese Red Cross Foundation and the China Population Welfare Foundation, as well Vice-Chairman of the Academic Committee of China Charity Alliance. Her research work focuses on civil and commercial law, social law, charity and non-profit organisation law, trust law and estate law.
A native of Ningbo, Zhejiang province, Dr Jin received a dual Bachelor degree in economy and law, then later an LL.M in civil and commercial law, from Peking University. In 2004 she became a Juris Doctor in Civil and Commercial Law at the university’s Law School. She has also undertaken post-doctorate studies at the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and worked in the United States as a visiting scholar at University of Missouri-Kansas City, Yale University Law School and the University of Michigan.
Zofia K Rybkowski, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Construction Science of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University, and Holder of the Harold Adams Interdisciplinary Professorship for Construction Science. She specialises in lean-integrated project delivery, target value design and life cycle cost analysis as a means to successfully reach sustainable design and construction goals.
Dr Rybkowski has consulted for firms in architecture, engineering, and construction in Houston, Dallas, Boston, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and has offered IPD workshops to such varied organisations as Walt Disney Imagineering, Penrose/St Francis Healthcare, and BC Housing for the government of Vancouver. She teaches sustainable design and construction, as well as Lean-IPD, to advanced construction science students at Texas A&M University.
Dr Rybkowski’s integrated research is guided by the breadth of her educational background and professional experience. She earned a BS in biology from Stanford University, an MS in biology from Brown University, an MArch degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, an MPhil in civil engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and an MS and PhD in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Fellow at the Center for Health Systems and Design, the Institute for Applied Creativity, and a LEED Accredited Professional.
Ms Yana Kakar is the Global Managing Partner of Dalberg Advisors, an advisory firm with a social impact mission that provides strategy, investment, research and design services to foundations, corporations, NGOs, governments and communities throughout the world. Yana stewards Dalberg’s strategy and oversees activities across Dalberg’s 23 offices worldwide.
She is highly active in the philanthropic sector, partnering with individual donors, foundations, endowments, non-profits and other forms of charities and trusts to develop strategy, design programs, structure impact funds, identify and execute charitable investments, establish partnerships with business and government, and measure the social and environmental return from philanthropic initiatives. For example, she recently led teams at Dalberg to (i) design Asia’s first gender-lens impact investment fund with a large Japanese foundation, (ii) design and stand up a new corporate foundation for a multinational banking institution, and (iii) create a collective philanthropy strategy for a network of high net worth individuals aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Yana Kakar is a leading voice in international development, with her perspectives published in a number of media outlets including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, Huffington Post, and The Guardian. She was appointed to, and currently serves on, the African Presidential Youth Advisory Group. She is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and the Frontier Markets Council for the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA).
Yana Kakar serves on the Board of Directors of Convergence Finance, a non-profit platform that brings private, public and philanthropic investors together in blended finance transactions, and The Access Challenge, a non-profit that partners with African celebrities in music, film, sports and other cultural arenas to deliver high-profile media campaigns advocating for national policies to provide essential health services and primary and secondary education in their communities across Africa. Ms Kakar holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from McGill University and a Master’s in Business Administration from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania.
Alexandre Kalache is the current Co-President of the International Longevity Centres Global Alliance (ILC-GA), a seventeen-country consortium of think tanks on ageing with consultative status to the United Nations. He shares the Presidency of the ILC-GA with Dr Mary Anne Tsao who heads ILC-Singapore and the Tsao Foundation. Dr Kalache has been a protagonist on world-wide ageing policy issues for four decades as both academic (at the Universities of Oxford and London; 1975-1995) and as international civil servant. It was in the latter role as Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) global programme on ageing (1995-2008) that he instigated the Age-friendly Cities movement with the launch of the WHO Age-friendly Cities Guide (2007) and the policy document that informed it, the WHO Active Ageing Policy Framework (2002; revised in 2015). Dr Kalache is involved in the implementation of specific age-friendly initiatives in a range of urban locations worldwide from mega-cities to small municipalities. He advises governments at the national, state and municipal levels, as well as private foundations and businesses worldwide on ageing policy initiatives. His interests go beyond urban planning to such areas as age-friendly hospitals, universities and hotels. He serves on a variety of boards for such bodies as the World Economic Forum (WEF), Oxford University, WHO, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and the Gulbenkian Foundation. He also represents HelpAge International (HAI) as their Global Ambassador. Dr Kalache is a national of Brazil and founded ILC-Brazil in his birth city of Rio de Janeiro in 2012 and additionally serves as its inaugural President.
Elizabeth is the Country Director, China for the Ford Foundation overseeing grant-making and operations. Elizabeth first moved to China in 1998 to be the American Co-Director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center after ten years at the National Committee on US-China Relations. She then spent 11 years in the private sector as president of Pearson Education; Chief Representative, Pearson Group; and Managing Director, Kamsky Associates. She studied Chinese at Middlebury from 1979-82, including six months in Taiwan in 1981. She received her MA in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan. Elizabeth sits on several not-for-profit boards, including the Institute for Sustainable Communities and the National Committee on US-China Relations.
Ms Erica Kochi is the co-founder of UNICEF Innovation, which works with the private sector around the world to apply technology that can address the challenges facing today’s children, especially in the light of rapid urbanisation, and open up opportunities for them.
The Office of Innovation has had recognised success in the design of innovative international development solutions. Ms Kochi was named on TIME 100’s “World’s Most Influential People” List in 2013. Other examples of the Office’s work include RapidPRO, a messaging system that has registered seven million births in Nigeria, provided antenatal care to pregnant women across Rwanda, and provided a direct feedback loop for three million young people across 18 countries to engage with their governments and change policy in real time.
A Teach For India fellow and staff alumnus, Ms Jigyasa Labroo is the Founder and CEO of Slam Out Loud, an initiative at Arts for Social Change, India.
Slam Out Loud works at the intersection of arts, education and leadership with a vision that “Every individual will have a voice that empowers them to change lives”. It establishes art-based learning and access to artistic opportunities in safe spaces for children in at-risk communities. The transformational power of the arts enables the children to build 21st Century skills, and the artists to create a movement towards driving universal social change. Partnering with the Government and communities, it has already worked with 5,000 children and 40 artists in India.
Passionate about people development, Ms Labroo has worked on curriculum design for leadership with the University Grants Commission and facilitated organisational development as a consultant. She coaches social entrepreneurs at School for Social Entrepreneurs India and is herself an entrepreneur incubatee of the Government of Delhi and N/Core. She is a recipient of the Gold International Award for Young People and has given two TEDx talks
Mr Ming Wai Lau is the Director of MWYO, a youth-oriented think tank. He is also the Chairman of Chinese Estates Holdings Limited and the Vice Chairman of the Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre, an independent policy think tank.
Mr Lau is active in public affairs. He is the Vice-Chairman of the Youth Development Commission. He is the Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Ocean Park Corporation, a Council Member of the City University of Hong Kong, a non-official member of the Commission on Poverty, a non-official member of the Commission on Strategic Development, and a member of the Financial Infrastructure Sub-Committee of the Exchange Fund Advisory Committee. He is awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star (GBS) for his meritorious public and community service in 2017.
Mr Lau holds LLB, LLM, and PhD degrees from Kings College London and the London School of Economics, University of London. He is also a registered attorney in the State of New York and a CFA Charterholder. He has been a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard Law School since 2014.
Lei Yongsheng is the President of Lao Niu Foundation; he serves as the Executive Director of China Charity Alliance, Vice President of China Philanthropy Research Institute, a Board Director of China Global Philanthropy Institute, President of China Foundation Center, an editorial board member of China Philanthropist, first Co-Chairman of China Environmental Grantmakers Alliance (CEGA), a member of One Foundation Development Committee and a Board Director of China-France Culture Research Center.
Mr Lei has been awarded the “Chinese public figures – Top 100 Most Influential People Engaged in China’s Philanthropy” for three years in a row.
From 1985 to 1990, he taught in Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics.
From 1991 to 2001, he worked in the financial departments of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Government. He served first as the Deputy Director of Assets Appraisal Center of Inner Mongolia State-owned Assets Administration Bureau and later as the Deputy Director of General Office of Inner Mongolia Department of Finance.
From 2002 to 2008, he worked in Inner Mongolia Mengniu Dairy (Group) Co., Ltd., serving as CEO of China Mengniu Dairy Co., Ltd. (listed in Hong Kong) and the Executive Vice President and the Secretary of the Board of Inner Mongolia Mengniu Group. He works as part-time Secretary General of the Lao Niu Foundation when the foundation started.
Since July 2008, he has served as Secretary-General and President of the Lao Niu Foundation.
Ms Catherine Loh joined the Community Foundation of Singapore (CFS) having spent more than 20 years in the financial industry where she held various leadership positions in the Singapore offices of Nomura, Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs. Catherine started her career at the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC).
Since 2012, Ms Loh has been leading CFS on a strategic growth path with a steady increase in the number of philanthropic funds and volume of donations, all while raising social impact through effective philanthropy. Ms Loh works in close partnership with the Board to ensure that the organisation fulfills its mission and creates strategies for its future success.
Ms Loh’s involvement in charity and volunteer work began in 2004 when she first chaired the philanthropy committee at Lehman Brothers Singapore. She currently serves on various committees in non-profits including those of Assisi Hospice, Metta Welfare Association, Telok Kurau Primary School as well as the Advisory Committee of the National Youth Fund established by the National Youth Council.
Mr Loh holds a CFA and graduated with an Honours Degree in Economics and Statistics from the National University of Singapore.
Professor Christine Loh, SBS, JP, OBE, Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite, is Chief Development Strategist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She was Under Secretary for the Environment in the HKSAR Government (2012-17) and a Member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (1992-97 and 1998-2000). Loh has been active in public policy and politics since the 1980s. She founded and was the CEO of the non-profit think tank, Civic Exchange (2000-12), and helped to establish several non-profit organizations in Hong Kong related to the environment, equal opportunity, arts and culture, as well as human rights.
Professor Loh is currently a board member of the Robert HN Ho Family Foundation, board member of CDP Worldwide, and an Advisor to the WYNG Master Award in photography. She is a published author of many academic and popular works. Her expertise in environmental policy is well-known, including advising the World Health Organization and International Energy Agency on issues relating to air pollution and public health. Loh is a lawyer by training, and a commodities trader by profession. She received her legal training in England, and received honorary degrees of Doctor of Law from the University of Hull and Doctor of Science from the University of Exeter.
Professor Terry Lum is the Head of Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong, as well as Henry G Leong Professor of Social Work and Social Administration. His research focuses on elderly services and policies. He is currently directing several large-scale social interventions to prevent physical frailty and geriatric depression and to develop innovative models of medical social collaboration.
Professor Lum received his undergraduate training in economics and graduate training in social work at the University of Hong Kong, before undertaking doctoral training in social policy at Washington University in St. Louis. He then taught at the University of Minnesota for 12 years before returning to join the University of Hong Kong staff in 2011. He was elected a Fellow by the Gerontological Society of America in 2011 and honoured with the Career Leadership Award by the Association of Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW) in the United States in 2016.
Mr Philip Mok is the president of Hong Kong Tennis Association and the co-founder and Vice-Chairman of Verde Holdings Limited, an apparel design and manufacturing company based in Hong Kong and China. Since its conception in 2001 the company has expanded rapidly, serving major international brands.
Mr Mok also holds a special interest in internet ventures and was a co-founder of Campusall.com, an education-related portal in China, and Funshare.com, an e-commerce platform in Hong Kong.
He believes strongly in giving back to society and serves as a Trustee and Executive Council Member of the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong, and a member of the Board of Governors of the Hong Kong Adventist Hospital Foundation.
Mr Mok received his BSc degree from Johns Hopkins University and MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also well known in Hong Kong tennis circles, having won several championships in local open veterans’ tournaments and served on the council of the Hong Kong Tennis Association since 2011. He is the Association’s current President, and was also elected to the board of the Asian Tennis Federation in 2017.
Professor Ng Mee Kam is Vice-Chairman of the Department of Geography and Resource Management, Director of the Urban Studies Programme, and Associate Director of the Institute of Future Cities, the Hong Kong Institute of Asian Pacific Studies and the Yunus Social Business Centre at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, a Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Planners and academic advisor to the Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in the United Kingdom in 2016.
Professor Ng has completed over 30 research projects and published widely on planning, governance and sustainability issues in the Asia-Pacific region. Her publications have earned her six Hong Kong Institute of Planners’ Awards and the 2015 Association of European Schools of Planning Best Published Paper Award. She has been a consultant to the United Nations, the European Union and the Municipal Government of Shenzhen. She is an associate editor of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s academic journal, Planning Theory and Practice as well as an associate editor of ARI-Springer Asia Book Series (Cities section). She also serves as a member of the editorial board of Town Planning Review, Urban Studies, DisP—The Planning Review and City, Culture and Society, and Business Strategy and the Environment. The Urban Studies Programme she directs is an Associate Member of the UN-Habitat’s World Urban Campaign, promoting the implementation of the New Urban Agenda.
Mr Francis Ngai is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk). He is also the Founder of Playtao Education, Bottless, Hatch co-working factory and the Sonova Institute, and Co-Founder of Green Monday and RunOurCity.
Since its establishment in 2007, SVhk has initiated and incubated more than 40 social innovation projects, including LightBe affordable housing and Diamond Cab. As an Impact Purpose Organisation, it is dedicated to innovating social change through pioneering impact ventures, aggregating impact capital and providing Business 2.0 consultancy.
Prior to establishing SVhk, Mr Ngai was the Head of Strategy in a listed technology conglomerate in Hong Kong. He graduated from the City University of Hong Kong, where he was conferred as an Honorary Fellow in 2013. He was named one of the 100 Asia Pioneers by The Purpose Economy in 2014, a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in 2012, one of Hong Kong’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons in 2011 and Honorary Fellow of the Education University of HK in 2018. He also serves as Deputy Chairman of the Asia Venture Philanthropy Network.
Mr Ngai is an ultra-running veteran and has completed The North Pole Marathon, the Sundown Ultra-Marathon 100km Race and the 250-km Gobi March of the Four Deserts race series.
Michael Phelps is the most decorated swimmer in history, capturing a total of 28 medals, including a record-setting 23 gold medals, over the course of his career. Phelps utilised his performance bonus for winning eight gold medals in 2008 to establish the Michael Phelps Foundation. Committed to growing the sport of swimming, the Foundation addresses the need for water safety through its signature programme – IM – that is available through the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Special Olympics International. Phelps also launched his own competitive swimwear brand – MP – in partnership with Aqua Sphere in 2014. He has published two autobiographies – No Limits: The Will to Success and Beneath the Surface – that were New York Times and USA Today best sellers, as well as published one children’s book – How to Train with a T-Rex and Win Eight Gold Medals. He is a highly-regarded inspirational speaker, sharing his message of “Dream, Plan, Reach” with audiences ranging from children to business executives.
Tracy Pun Palandjian is CEO and Co-Founder of Social Finance, a nonprofit dedicated to reimagining the role of capital markets to drive social progress. After a career at McKinsey, Wellington and the Parthenon Group, Tracy co-founded Social Finance in 2011 to develop innovative financing mechanisms to deliver measurable results for communities. The firm pioneered the Social Impact Bond, an innovative public-private partnership that harnesses data and evidence, and enlists private capital to reorient public spending toward outcomes. Over 100 projects in 24 countries have addressed pressing social issues in education, health, workforce development and more.
Tracy is a frequent speaker and writer on impact investing, social innovation and results-oriented policy making. She is co-author of Investing for Impact: Case Studies Across Asset Classes. She is vice chair of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance to the Global Impact Investment Steering Group. She is a trustee at the Surdna Foundation (where she chairs the Investment Committee), and a Director of Affiliated Managers Group (NYSE: AMG). She also serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Community Development Advisory Council. A former Vice Chair of the Harvard Board of Overseers, Tracy continues to serve on several Standing and Visiting Committees at Harvard University.
A native of Hong Kong, she graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. magna cum laude in Economics, and holds an M.B.A. with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar.
Ms Roopa Purushothaman is Chief Economist and Head of Policy Advocacy at Tata Sons Ltd, where she leads a team of economic and policy researchers assessing significant macroeconomic, geopolitical, and legislative developments. She also leverages the experience of the Tata Group, one of India’s oldest and largest conglomerates, to drive thought leadership on key policy and economic issues.
Ms Purushothaman has held leadership positions at Everstone Capital Advisors and Goldman Sachs, where she provided expert advice on demographics, income and consumption patterns, and long-term economic growth. A co-author of the path-breaking Goldman Sachs BRIC report, Ms Purushothaman has contributed to a number of publications on globalisation and development, as well as writing on the economic potential of enhancing women’s workforce participation in India.
She is also the founder of the Avasara Leadership Institute, a non-profit educational institution focused on accelerating educational and leadership outcomes for adolescent girls in India. Avasara has worked with over 2,000 young women in scholarship, after-school and residential academic programmes since 2011.
Ms Purushothaman is a graduate of Yale University and the London School of Economics. She has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and a Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and has served on the Prime Minister of India’s advisory council on urban infrastructure.
Rip Rapson is president and CEO of The Kresge Foundation, a $3.5 billion private, national foundation dedicated to expanding opportunities for low-income people living in America’s cities, including Kresge’s hometown of Detroit. Since 2006, he has expanded the foundation’s grantmaking and investing tools to improve the economic, social, cultural and environmental conditions of city life across the nation. In 2016, the foundation made grant and investment commitments totaling more than $150 million.
He previously served as president of the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis, where he led early childhood development efforts, created a regional public-private-philanthropic economic development organization, and enhanced environmental protections along the Mississippi River. He earlier served as the deputy mayor of Minneapolis, with responsibility for designing a $400 million Neighborhood Revitalization Program, revamping the municipal budgeting process, and elevating the city’s commitment to children and families.
James Davitt Rooney is Senior Fellow at the Boston Foundation and Ambassador for the Community Foundation of Northern Ireland. He co- founded the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of London when living in the UK from 2012-17 and has advised foundations, universities, corporations, and governments across the globe on strategy, business development, and public affairs.
Rooney served as the Boston Foundation’s first Director of Public Affairs from 2005-10 when it won the Council on Foundations’ top national award for public policy impact. He also served as Brown University’s first state and local Director of Community and Government Relations in the 1990s and in its Development and Alumni offices.
Rooney was Vice President of the Mass. High Tech Council in 2010-11, leading its clean energy, talent, and tech transfer portfolios and helped to launch and lead the seminal national urban think tank CEOs for Cities from 2001-05.
He often appears in the media, providing commentary on U.S. presidential elections and making the first known call for Pope Francis to write an encyclical on climate change. He has served on several NGO boards and earned an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School and a BA in Ethics and Political Philosophy from Brown.
Robert Rosen is the director of Philanthropic Partnerships. In this role Robert leads a team that oversees the foundation’s relationship with philanthropists and charitable organizations across the globe. Previously Rosen served as Director of the foundation’s Executive Office and in various roles in Communications.
Before joining the foundation in 2007, Rosen served as Senior Director of the Corporate Finance Practice of the Corporate Executive Board, the international business strategy and research firm. Previously he served as Political Director for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and in the White House as Assistant to the President and Director of Advance for President Clinton.
Rosen received a Juris Doctorate from Cornell Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Vermont.
Professor Michael J. Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard University. His writings on justice, ethics, democracy and markets have been translated into 27 languages. His course “Justice” is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Professor Sandel was named by China Newsweek as the “most influential foreign figure of the year” in 2011.
Professor Sandel’s books relate enduring themes of political philosophy to the most vexing moral and civic questions of our time. They include “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets; Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?”; “The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering”; “Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics”; “Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy”; and “Liberalism and the Limits of Justice”.
Professor Sandel has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, and delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Oxford, the BBC’s Reith Lectures, and the Kellogg Lecture on Jurisprudence at the US. Library of Congress. His global lectures have taken him across five continents and packed venues such as St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sydney Opera House, the Public Theater in New York and an outdoor stadium in Seoul, where 14,000 people came to hear him speak.
In the US. Professor Sandel has served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A graduate of Brandeis University, he received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Dr Moitreyee Sinha is a humanitarian, scientist and seeker. Her life has been guided by the belief that everything is connected, and that large-scale social transformation happens when people, communities, and institutions work together.
Originally from India, Dr Sinha moved to the United States and earned a PhD in physics before beginning her career in research and development at General Electric (GE). Here she led multidisciplinary teams in establishing connections across the disparate fields of healthcare, consumer goods, water, and energy, enabling the development of several transformative technologies and innovations.
Ten years later, Dr Sinha’s journey took her to the world of impact work, leading the GE Foundation’s Global Health portfolio in 22 countries. In this role she made use of multi-stakeholder initiatives and public-private partnerships to develop programmes for critical care for children, maternal child health, clean water, ICT, humanitarian relief and education.
These experiences brought her to the Global Development Incubator, where she directed the Beyond Health portfolio. There, she honed her ability to bring together social entrepreneurs and large institutions to deliver social impact and build healthier communities. The insights she gained from this role became the inspiration for citiesRISE, her vision for bringing collective, community-based action to the issue of mental health.
Bradford Smith is the president of Foundation Center, the leading source of information about philanthropy worldwide. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. and, increasingly, global grantmakers—a robust, accessible knowledge bank for the sector, together with research, education and training programs designed to advance knowledge of philanthropy. Before joining Foundation Center in 2008, Smith was president of the Oak Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, a major family foundation with programs and grant activities in 41 countries. With the Ford Foundation, he worked as representative in Brazil before becoming vice president in the New York headquarters, responsible for the global Peace and Social Justice Program. During his 10-year tenure as vice president, the program provided hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations working on the issues of human rights, international cooperation, governance, and civil society, while supervising field operations on three continents and overseeing the creation of TrustAfrica.
Smith serves on the board of directors of the Tinker Foundation and the advisory board of the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security.
Mr Matthew Spacie set-up Magic Bus to empower children and youth in India, using activity- and sports-based approaches. Since 1999, he has grown the NGO from an informal, volunteer-led activity for disadvantaged children into a leading organisation that mentors over 400,000 children across the country. The Magic Bus programme uses a seven-year format, taking an individual in at the age of 12 through a journey from childhood to livelihood.
Formerly Chief Operating Officer of Cox and Kings and Founder of Cleartrip.com, Mr Spacie comes with an extensive experience in senior positions in the corporate sector. He has been elected an Ashoka Fellow and a TED Fellow, and in March this year was named Business Standard Social Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2007, he was awarded an MBE for services to children in the Commonwealth.
Mr Raymond Tam is currently working at The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) as Executive Director, Corporate Affairs. Before joining the Club, Mr Tam was Vice Chairman of New Frontier Health from 2017 to 2018.
Mr Tam has spent 30 years in the public service. He was Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs from 2011 to 2017. Before then, he was Director of the Chief Executive’s Office from 2009 to 2011, and Under Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs from 2008 to 2009. During his earlier years as a career civil servant, Mr Tam worked in various government departments such as the Financial Secretary’s Office, the Central Policy Unit, Home Affairs Bureau and the Geneva Economic and Trade Office.
Mr Tam was awarded a Gold Bauhinia Star (GBS) in 2012 and was appointed as a Justices of the Peace (JP) in 2017 by the HKSAR Government. Mr Tam graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor of Science degree.
Professor Wang Ming is Dean of the Institute for Philanthropy, Professor of Public Management and Director of the NGO Research Centre at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and Chief Editor of the China Non-profit Review. He has written a dozen books, some published in English and Japanese, including The Emerging Civil Society in China, 1978-2007, NPOs in China. His research work mainly focused on NGO development and innovation in China. He won Fukuoka Prize in 2017.
Bryan Wong is responsible for strategy and business management of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.
Previously, he was the CEO of Lark Group, a holding company with operation in cinemas, restaurants and consumer products businesses. He has also held various operation and business planning positions at Hong Kong Disneyland, and was a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He was also a director of Social Ventures Hong Kong, a social enterprise investment fund and incubator.
Mr Wong holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, also MSSc and BBA from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Mr. Stephen Wong received a B.A. Degree in Economics from the University of Chicago, Phi Beta Kappa, and an M.A. Degree in East Asian Studies (Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies) from Yale University. Since then, he worked for a number of global financial institutions, including as an Executive Director in UBS (London) and a Managing Director at RBS. Mr. Wong joined Our Hong Kong foundation as Senior Consultant in May 2015, and was appointed Deputy Executive Director and Head of Public Policy in November of the same year. He is now Deputy Executive Director and Head of Public Policy Institute.
Mr. Wong’s public service includes various advisory roles appointed by the Hong Kong Government, including Member of the Financial Services Development Council, Member of Task Force on Land Supply, Sub-committee Co-opt Member of the Sustainable Development Council, Member of Investment Committee of the Beat Drugs Fund, Member of Investment Sub-Committee of the Housing Authority, Member of Feasibility Study Working Group of “Special Needs Public Trust” and Co-opted Member of Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Fund Task Force of Commission on Poverty.
Mr. Wong is also active in community service. He is Chairman of the Clean Air Network, Vice Chairman of the Admissions, Budgets & Allocations Committee and Investment Sub-Committee Member of the Community Chest, and Executive Committee Member & Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Social Enterprise and Innovation Platform of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. Mr. Wong is also a part-time Lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for the Master of Social Science in Global Political Economy, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Hong Kong University SPACE for the Institute for China Business.
Xu Yongguang is the Chairman of the Narada Foundation, the Vice President of the China Charity Alliance, State Department counselor researcher and the Honorary Chairman of the Chinese Charity Federation. He was a member of the Ninth and Tenth National Committees of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
Mr. Xu founded the China Youth Development Foundation after he resigned from head of the Organization Department under the Central Committee of the China Communist Youth League in 1988. The Project Hope founded by him has been developed and recognized as the most influential philanthropic brand in China. In 2007, he co-founded the Narada Foundation with a mission to foster civil society and promote the development and social innovation of the philanthropy sector.
Mr. Xu is a renowned thinker and practitioner in the field of civil society organisation operation and research with over 25 years experience and tremendous contribution to the civil society sector. He is the Chief Editor of two renowned books on that area: China’s Third Sector Study Series and Inquiry of the world—Project Hope in Xu Yongguang’s eyes. In recent years, he has been endeavored to push for structural reform of China’s philanthropy sector and shape a modern philanthropic culture. He initiated and co-founded the China Foundation Center which has made significant progress in promoting transparency and credibility of foundations in China.
Marjorie Yang is the Chairman of Esquel Group, a leading Hong Kong-based textile and apparel manufacturer with operations throughout the world.
Ms. Yang serves as Deputy Chairman of the Seoul International Business Advisory Council (SIBAC), with the purpose of providing advice to the Mayor of Seoul. In Hong Kong, she is the representative on the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and a member of Chief Executive’s Council of Advisers on Innovation and Strategic Development. She served as a Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference from 2003 to 2018.
Ms. Yang is dedicated to promoting education, innovative technologies and sustainable development. She is the Co-Chairman of the advisory board of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Chairperson of the Steering Committee of CoolThink@JC, organized by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, and member of the Advisory Council of China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED)
She also serves as a member of various advisory boards including Harvard University, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Tsinghua University’s School of Economics & Management and Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University. She had been the Chairman of the Council of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for six years until 2015.
Ms. Yang is an Independent Non-executive Director for The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.
Ms. Yang has a Bachelor of Science degree from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ms Nancy Yang is the Co-Founder and former Executive Director of Asian Charity Services. Asian Charity Services is a registered NGO in Hong Kong that “serves those who serve”, providing pro bono NGO leadership training and business consultancy to local NGOs. Since its inception in 2007, ACS has served over 500 local NGOs, representing a broad range of social causes across Hong Kong, including: poverty, children’s health and education, elderly, and youth development. Developing and mobilizing local business professionals as volunteers to serve NGOs is a critical and unique part of ACS’ service model; ACS runs one of Asia’s largest pro bono volunteering platforms.
Prior to founding ACS, Ms Yang was the Chief Strategy Officer with a mobile gaming company in Beijing, developing and distributing games for major Japanese and US gaming companies. The company was later sold to The Walt Disney Company. Before that, she worked as a management consultant with AT Kearney Hong Kong, specializing in business and organizational strategy for multinationals and family owned conglomerates operating in Asia Pacific. Ms Yang also worked as a finance associate with JMB Realty in Chicago, Illinois. Ms Yang is actively involved in serving various community groups. She is a board director of Mother’s Choice, a trustee of the Groton School, and a member of the Wharton Asia Executive Board. She holds an MBA in Marketing from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and a BS degree in Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Yao Ming is President of the Chinese Basketball Association and Chairman of the CBA League Company. He has been a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference since 2013. A member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, he played for NBA Houston Rockets and CBA Shanghai Sharks in his professional basketball career. Yao has also represented China in three Olympic Games.
Apart from managing Absolutely Fabulous Theatre Connection, Lynn Yau conceptualises, produces and maintains a steady teaching schedule from primary to postgraduate level in arts and cross-disciplinary sectors.
Having grown up in the local school system, she realised that teaching and engagement in learning should neither be linear nor a case of one-size-fits. She became highly aware that the arts have powerful potential to capture many different imaginations for personal growth and transformation, thereby driving an Arts for Change agenda in the past decade at AFTEC.
An avid speaker on the arts & education, she has been invited regularly by diverse jurisdictions including Hong Kong, London, Brisbane, Penang, Venice and most recently by the Education Bureau in Kaohsiung (Taiwan) at the 2018 International Education Forum and Workshop for arts education practitioners.
She has constantly been involved in the arts community in various advisory, board and consultant capacities as well as being a guest artist with local performing companies in theatre and music.
She was recently appointed an Honorary Tutor to the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong for the Medical Humanities (Performance Arts) module.
Ms Carol Yu is currently the Assistant Chief Editor of Phoenix Infonews Channel and the Producer and Host of Phoenix TV interview show "Visionaries". Based on worldwide horizons, "Visionaries" leads in-depth discussions over current topics ranging from economic, investment, technology, education to health together with global thought leaders, sharing their professional insights, addressing the future and positive values as inspirations for life. In recognition of her leadership and influence, Ms Yu was selected as one of the Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum. Previously, she was the Head of Phoenix URadio, responsible for launching and running a new radio business for the group. She also held the post of a TV news reporter and broadcaster.
Phoenix TV is one of the most popular Chinese TV stations in China and internationally. It reaches almost 400 million viewers in Asia alone and a global audience over 180 countries and regions. Prior to joining Phoenix TV, Ms Yu was with the Investment Banking Division of Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, the World Bank office in Beijing, and the UNDP in New York. Carol is a regular columnist for several leading publications across mainland China and Hong Kong, including Nanfang Metropolis Daily, Caixin Media and Ta Kung Pao (Hong Kong edition). Earlier on, she studied in the United States and received her undergraduate degree in Economics from Stanford University and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.
Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is considered the father of both social business and microcredit, as the founder of Grameen Bank and more than 50 other companies in Bangladesh. For his constant innovation and enterprise, Fortune Magazine named him“one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time” in 2012.
In 2006, Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
He is the recipient of 60 honorary degrees from universities across 24 countries. He has received 132 awards from 30 countries including state honours from 10 countries. He is one of only seven individuals to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. Other notable awards include the Ramon Magsaysay Award (1984), World Food Prize (1998), The Prince of Asturias Award for Concord (1998), Sydney Peace Prize (1998) and the Seoul Peace Prize (2006).
In 2006, Time Magazine listed Professor Yunus under “60 years of Asian Heroes” as one the top 12 business leaders. In 2008, in an open online poll, Yunus was voted the 2nd most intellectual person in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (United States). In 2010, The New Statesman (UK) listed him as one of “The World’s 50 Most Influential Figures”.
He has appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, Newsweek and Forbes Magazine.
Starting from 1999, Zhang Jianyu has been working with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a leading US environmental NGO and advocacy group, which focuses on the use of market based instruments (MBIs) in solving environmental problems in China.
Mr. Zhang helped found and manage the first professional Joint Venture environmental consulting firm ERM China established in the People’s Republic of China. He served as China project manager for U.S. Air and Waste Management Association (AWMA) implementing a Clean Production project on behalf of USEPA.
Mr. Zhang is an executive board director of China Association for International NGO Cooperation (CANGO). He is a Fellow of the second class of the China Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He has served as board directors of China-based publicly traded companies and advisory board members of Fortune 500 companies.
Mr. Zhang is a visiting fellow at the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University. He is a member of the Lead Expert Group (LEG) for China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), the renowned expert body advising the Chinese government on environment and sustainability issues.
Zhang got his advanced degrees from Tsinghua University, Stanford University, and Carnegie Mellon University. He recently completed his PhD studies in Finance from the Chinese Academy of Social Science.
