SPEAKERS
Michael Lawrence
Chief Executive, Asia House (Conference Chair)
Michael Lawrence is the Chief Executive of Asia House, the centre of expertise on trade, investment and public policy. Michael leads the Asia House team as it drives political, economic and commercial engagement between Asia and Europe through its advisory services and programme of briefings with senior political and business figures. Michael was appointed Chief Executive of Asia House in September 2012 after a career as senior editor and executive in international media, including 18 years at Reuters (later Thomson Reuters), the international news and financial information organisation. Michael was Global Editor of Reuters from 2006-2012, leading a team of 3,000 journalists covering news in text, video and pictures from almost 200 bureaux around the world.
Lord Stephen Green
Chairman of Asia House, former Chairman of HSBC and UK Trade Minister (2011-2013)
Lord Green was appointed as Chairman of Asia House in January 2017, bringing with him extensive international business and governmental experience. He was Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2011 to 2013, responsible for all matters relating to trade and investment in both the former Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Prior to entering government, Lord Green was Group Chairman of HSBC from 2006 until 2010.
Mr S Iswaran
Minister for Communications and Information and Minister in Charge of Trade Relations
Mr S Iswaran is currently the Minister for Communications and Information, focusing on strengthening the InfoComm, Media, and Design sectors and accelerating digital transformation across the economy. He also oversees policies and strategies to build a digitally-ready community, a safe and secure cyberspace, as well as efforts to develop libraries of the future and enhance government communications. He is concurrently Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations at the Ministry of Trade and Industry where he oversees various bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations. Mr Iswaran joined the Singapore Administrative Service in 1987. He served in the Ministries of Home Affairs and Education, was seconded to the National Trade Union Congress, and later to the Singapore Indian Development Association as its first Chief Executive Officer. Mr Iswaran was Director for International Trade at the Ministry of Trade and Industry in the lead up to Singapore’s hosting of the WTO Ministerial Conference in 1996. He then joined the private sector, as Director for Strategic Development at Singapore Technologies Pte Ltd. Later, as Managing Director at Temasek Holdings, he undertook investments, takeover, buy-out and merger transactions in the pharmaceuticals, biotech, hi-tech manufacturing, transport and logistics sectors. Mr Iswaran has been elected as a Member of Parliament in five General Elections since 2 January 1997. Prior to his Cabinet appointment in 2006, he served on several Government Parliamentary Committees, and as the Deputy Speaker of Parliament from September 2004 to June 2006.
Barbara Weisel
Managing Director, Rock Creek Global Advisors
Barbara Weisel is a Managing Director at Rock Creek Global Advisors, an international economic policy advisory firm, where she focuses on international trade and investment policy and negotiations, market access and regulatory matters. Weisel has more than 25 years of experience advancing international trade and investment initiatives, expanding market access in Asia-Pacific markets, and resolving specific issues faced by businesses in the Asia-Pacific. Weisel served most recently as Assistant US Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. She was the US chief negotiator for the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) from its inception in 2008 through its signing in 2016. She was responsible for developing US positions in coordination with other government agencies, Congress and the US private sector.
Victor Chu
Chairman and CEO of First Eastern Investment Group
Victor Chu is Chairman and CEO of First Eastern Investment Group, a leading Hong Kong-based international investment firm and a pioneer of private equity investments in China. He is also Co-Founder and Director of Peach Aviation in Japan, as well as a Board Member of Airbus SE. Over the last 30 years, Chu has served as Director and Council Member of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Member of the Hong Kong Takeovers and Mergers Panel, Advisory Committee Member of the Securities and Future Commission, and part-time member of the Hong Kong Government’s Central Policy Unit. He is a member of the Asia House Advisory Board.
Victor Gao
Vice President, Center for China and Globalization
Victor Gao is the Vice President of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG); Vice Chairman of China Beidou Industrial Promotion Organization, a member of the Beijing Energy Club, a Member of the Global Counsel of Asia Society in New York City, a member of the International Advisory Board of the Energy Intelligence Group in London; an advisor to Saudi Aramco and a member of the Board of Directors of several listed companies in Hong Kong. He has extensive experience in government, diplomacy, securities regulation, legal, investment banking, PE, corporate management and media. Victor was Deng Xiaoping’s English interpreter in the 1980s and served as the China Policy Advisor at the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission in 1999 and 2000. Victor’s prior investment banking experience included senior positions with Morgan Stanley (Vice President of Morgan Stanley Asia, in the Merger, Acquisition and Restructuring Department), CICC (General Manager of the Investment Banking Department, Head of M&A Practice, and Head of CICC Hong Kong Investment Banking Department) and Daiwa Securities (Co-Chairman of China, Executive Vice President and Managing Director).
Stuart Gulliver
Non-Executive Director of Jardine Matheson Holdings and former Group CEO of HSBC
Stuart Gulliver joined the boards of Jardine Matheson Holdings and Hong Kong Airport Authority as a non-executive director with effect from 1 January 2019 and June 2019 respectively. He was appointed as a member of the CE of the Hong Kong SAR’s Council of Advisers on Innovation and Strategic Development in March 2018 and a member of the HKEX International Advisory Council in February 2019. He is also on the board of Maggie’s Cancer Charity. Gulliver was Group CEO of HSBC Holdings Plc from 2011 to 2018 and an Executive Director from 2008 to 2018. He also served as Chairman of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited from 2011 to 2018 and an Executive Director of that entity from 2006 to 2018. Gulliver is a member of the Asia House Advisory Board.
Dr David Hardoon
Special Advisor (Artificial Intelligence), Monetary Authority of Singapore
Dr David Hardoon is the Special Advisor (Artificial Intelligence) at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). In this role, he leads the development of the AI strategy for Singapore’s financial sector, as well as MAS’ efforts in promoting open cross-border data flows. Formerly Dr Hardoon was the Chief Data Officer and Head of the Data Analytics Group (DAG) at the MAS, spearheading efforts to harness the power of data analytics to unlock insights, enhance the supervision of financial institutions, and make regulatory compliance more efficient for financial institutions. Prior to his employment at MAS, Dr Hardoon was co-founder and Executive Director at Azendian Solutions Pte. Ltd., where he was responsible for the advanced analytics practice, serving clients across business sectors in Asia.
Marjan Delatinne
Global Head of Banking, Ripple
Marjan is an entrepreneurial business developer who enjoys establishing effective strategies and directing major initiatives from conceptual to implementation. With more than two decades of experience in various commercial positions (mainly big, complex and new product commercialisation), Marjan has gained valuable insights into the financial industry and the market infrastructures globally. Since joining Ripple in 2017, she has been responsible for the definition and execution of the go to market strategy and sales of Ripple products and services. Previously, Marjan worked for SWIFT and was responsible for the commercialisation of large scale projects both in securities and payments, namely Target 2 Securities & resiliency solutions for national central banks.
Stephanie Davis
Managing Director of Sales & Operations in Southeast Asia, Google
Stephanie Davis is Google’s Sales & Operations for Southeast Asia, responsible for business strategy and operations. Prior to this, she has held such positions as Country Director for Singapore and New Zealand, as well as Managing Industry Director for Travel in the United States, looking after many of Google’s largest and most complex Travel partnerships. Stephanie first joined Google in 2006 and has held a number of other leadership roles, including looking after operational design for EMEA, working in the United States as Head of Industry for the financial services and insurance sector, and before that as Head of Publisher Partnerships. Before joining Google, Stephanie was Managing Director of Research and Marketing for Knight Ridder Inc, the second largest publisher in the United States.
Fajrin Rasyid
Co-Founder and President, Bukalapak
Fajrin is the Co-founder and President at Bukalapak.com, an Indonesian based marketplace that provides an e-commerce platform for Small Medium Enterprises (SME) to trade online and grow their businesses.
Bukalapak currently has more than 4 million merchants, over 100 million products and 50 million monthly active users and is listed as one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in Indonesia. Fajrin previously worked as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) with extensive experience across major industries including public services, financial services, IT, automotive, retail, and FMCG. He was awarded with the Endeavour Entrepreneur in 2016.
Lay Lim Teo
Senior Managing Director of Accenture ASEAN
Lay Lim is Senior Managing Director of Accenture ASEAN and is a member of Accenture’s Global Leadership Council. With a passion for building new businesses, she has held several leadership roles across practices in Asia Pacific including Sustainability Services, Analytics and CRM, growing its China practice and most recently driving Accenture Singapore and ASEAN business across practices. Outside of Accenture, Lay Lim serves as a member on various councils and committees including Singapore’s Future Economy Council (FEC) and co-chairs the Modern Services Sub-Committee for the FEC. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for HR Professionals, and the Singapore Accountancy Commission.
Pierre Gaudreault
President, Asia Emerging Markets Region, Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals Group
Pierre is the Regional President of Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals Group, Asia Emerging Markets Region with responsibility of more than 13 Asian countries and more than 4,000 colleagues. Prior to this current position, Pierre was Regional President, Asia Pacific Region for Pfizer Essential Health. With more than 25 years of experience in Canada, Europe, China and Japan, Pierre has gained in-depth knowledge and expertise of regional and local General Management, Marketing and Sales.
In 2012, he briefly left Pfizer, returning to Canada to take on the role of General Manager at Pharmascience, the third largest Generics company in Canada. In 2014, Pierre returned to Pfizer as Chief Marketing Officer for Pfizer China, Global Established Pharma business, leading marketing functions in China. In 2016, he was named Country Head of Pfizer Essential Health, Japan.
Peter Chamley
Chair, Australasia Region of Arup
As Chair of Arup in Australasia, Peter covers one of the most exciting regions for infrastructure development, including markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia. He has more than 35 years’ experience in leading major projects across the UK, Europe, Australasia, East Asia and the USA, including Crossrail and HS2 in the UK and the Second Avenue Subway in New York.
Aileen Zosa
Executive Vice President of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, Philippines
Aileen Zosa was appointed Executive Vice President of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) in 2010, and also serves as Chief Operating Officer. She executes and administers BCDA policies, plans and projects, and coordinates policy measures and action plans internally and with other government agencies in the Philippines and private sector entities. Prior to this, she was Vice President for Planning and Business Development for 13 years – actively involved in the privatisation and revenue generation projects in former military lands under the stewardship of BCDA. Zosa worked in the Office of the President under the Office of the Executive Secretary during the administration of President Fidel V. Ramos.
Dr Derek Wang
General Manager, Alibaba Cloud Singapore
Dr Derek Wang is the General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Singapore, leading teams across marketing, sales, pre-sales and technical support, to deliver success for Singapore customers in Cloud Computing and Data Intelligence. Prior to this, he was the Chief Cloud Architect of Alibaba Cloud international, and led the global technical team distributed in several regions, including US, Europe, ASEAN, ANZ, MENA, North Asia and India. His team is responsible for high quality solution design and service delivery in terms of cloud and big data, AI and IOT, to ensure the success of all customers in building applications on top of the Alibaba Cloud platform, has several big data related patents.
Yasser Helmy
Head of Smart and Connected Communities, Asia Pacific, Cisco
Yasser Helmy is the Head of Smart and Connected Communities for Cisco in Asia Pacific. He joined Cisco in 2005 for the creation of the Connected Real Estate business in Dubai and was a founding member of the global Smart+Connected initiative at Cisco. Yasser has extensive experience in Smart City projects on five continents including Dubai, Sao Paolo, Barcelona, Nice, Jaipur, and Adelaide. He is on a personal mission to bridge the gap between technology and community under the mantra: “Sensors do not live in cities, people live in cities!” Prior to joining Cisco, Yasser held business development and leadership roles with Hewlett-Packard, Fastlane, and SITA.
Arancha González
UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, International Trade Centre
Arancha González, an expert in international trade issues with 20 years of experience, serves as Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) and as Assistant Secretary-General at the UN. She has extensive knowledge on international trade and economics, coupled with broad experience in trade and development matters in the public and private sectors, as well as in management at multilateral organisations. Before joining ITC, González served as Chief of Staff to World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy from 2005-2013. During her tenure at the WTO, she played an active role in launching the WTO’s Aid for Trade initiative and served as Lamy’s representative at the G20. Prior to working at the WTO, González held several positions at the European Commission.
Eddie Lee
Head of APAC Operations, Revolut
Eddie Lee is a business builder and lifelong learner who loves solving challenging problems. He thrives in jumping into new industries, learning its core principles, and building businesses that significantly raise the standards. Eddie is currently building Revolut in Asia as Head of APAC Operations - where he is responsible for building the business and product infrastructure, putting together the market leadership team, and establishing systems and processes that help the company to scale across the APAC region. Eddie was one of the early members of Uber Asia team and, most recently, worked as Regional Operations and Strategy & Planning Head for Uber Eats APAC within its regional leadership team.
Anne Ruth Herkes
Former State Secretary at German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Anne Ruth Herkes has built a portfolio of non-executive directorships following a successful career in diplomacy, during which she served as State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, where she led Germany’s global trade policy interests, and EU and WTO negotiations. Anne Ruth previously served as Ambassador to Qatar for the German Embassy in Doha and, before that, was a member of the Executive Management at BP Biofuels in London in her role as Vice President, Policy and Communications.