SPEAKERS
Mrs Carrie Lam, GBM, GBS
Chief Executive of Hong Kong SAR
Mrs Carrie Lam joined the Administrative Service of the Hong Kong Government in August 1980 and rose to the rank of Administrative Officer Staff Grade A1 in September 2006. She became a Principal Official on July 1, 2007 when she was appointed Secretary for Development. She was appointed Chief Secretary for Administration on July 1, 2012.
Before assuming the post of the Chief Executive, Mrs Lam had served the public for more than 36 years in 20 public service positions including Director of Social Welfare, Permanent Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands (Planning and Lands), Director-General of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs, Secretary for Development and Chief Secretary for Administration.
Mrs Lam was elected as the Fifth-Term Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on March 26, 2017, and was officially appointed to this position by the Central People’s Government on March 31, 2017 to assume office on July 1, 2017.
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.
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.
Fergal Whyte
Director, Arup Group
Fergal Whyte is a Director of Arup based in Hong Kong. For the past 30 years, he has worked on a range of infrastructure projects in the developed and developing world from planning stage through to construction. He has spoken at numerous conferences and workshops on the impact of climate change to infrastructure and examined case studies of how cities are addressing the associated challenges.
He sits on the Arup Group Board that is responsible for overseeing Arup’s global activities across all sectors. His project experience spans railway, highways, water, waste, energy, planning and aviation throughout the East Asia Region and in Hong Kong, India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Macau and the Philippines.
Ambassador Robert Holleyman
President and CEO, Crowell & Moring International and former US Deputy Trade Representative
Ambassador Robert Holleyman is the president and CEO of Crowell & Moring International and a partner in Crowell & Moring’s International Trade, and Privacy and Security groups. He advises clients on a range of trade and investment issues, including market access, global trade negotiations, tariffs, cross-border data flows, and privacy/cybersecurity. Ambassador Holleyman has significant trade, international business, economic policy, and legal experience from his service as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, as CEO of a highly successful information technology advocacy association, and work as counsel in the U.S. Senate. He served as Deputy United States Trade Representative from 2014-2017, with the rank of Ambassador.
Ada Li
Vice President - Senior Credit Officer, Moody's Investors Service
Ada Li is a Vice President - Senior Credit Officer with the Project & Infrastructure Finance Group, covering a portfolio of Chinese infrastructure companies across state-owned or privately-owned utilities, ports, railways, toll roads, and local government finance vehicles.
Before joining Moody’s, Ada worked as a Vice President at Deutsche Bank, where she oversaw Greater China corporates and financial institutions. Ada has also worked at Barclays Capital, where she covered Chinese financial institutions and commodity companies.
James Kynge
Editor, Tech Scroll Asia, Financial Times
James Kynge is global China editor, based in Hong Kong. He also edits the FT's Asia tech newsletter, Tech Scroll Asia. He won the 2016 Wincott Foundation award for Financial Journalist of the Year. His prize-winning 2006 book, “China Shakes the World”, was a bestseller translated into 19 languages.
He spent 25 years reporting from Asia with postings in China, Japan, former Soviet Central Asia and Southeast Asia. He is chairman of FT Confidential Research, having founded “China Confidential”, a research company, in 2009.
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.
Julian Vella
AsPAC Regional Head - Global Infrastructure Advisory, KPMG
Julian is based in Hong Kong and is the Asia Pacific Regional Leader for KPMG’s Global Infrastructure Practice and is a member of KPMG’s Global Infrastructure Leadership team. Julian also previously developed and led KPMG Australia’s infrastructure practice and was a Board member of KPMG Australia for 6 years. In his current role, Julian travels widely throughout Asia Pacific working with governments and the private sector to develop and advise on infrastructure programs, projects and assets. He has extensive experience as a lead adviser on a large range of commercial transactions, particularly in the transport and industrial markets sectors. Julian’s advice to Government organisations and corporations includes advice in respect of: infrastructure projects and financing (including Public Private Partnerships), privatisation, corporate strategy, corporate/debt restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, divestments, and business valuations.Julian is currently leading the delivery of a major project to develop ways to facilitate greater application of commercial investment and financing to Chinese infrastructure projects in third country markets.
Steven Okun
Senior Advisor, McLarty Associates
Steven Okun is a leader in the business community across Asia Pacific on corporate public affairs, communications, sustainability, and stakeholder engagement. He has lived and worked in Singapore since 2003. He serves as a Senior Advisor to international strategic advisory firm McLarty Associates, where he advises clients ranging from global corporations and financial service firms to social enterprises and NGOs on how best to operate at the intersection of business, government, and media. As KKR’s first Director of Asia Public Affairs from 2011-2017, his responsibilities encompassed government affairs, communications, stakeholder engagement, and sustainability. Previously, he created and led Asia public affairs for global logistics firm UPS. Steven serves as President of the Asia Business Trade Association and is in his fourth term as a Governor of AmCham Singapore. He was awarded a Special Service Commendation from the Clinton Administration, having served as Deputy General Counsel at the US Department of Transportation.
Alicia García Herrero
Chief Economist for Asia Pacific, Natixis
Alicia García Herrero is the Chief Economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis. She also serves as Senior Fellow at European think-tank BRUEGEL and non-resident Research Fellow at Madrid- based political think tank Real Instituto Elcano. She is currently Adjunct Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and member of the advisory board of Berlin-based China think-tank MERICS. Finally, Alicia is advisor to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s research arm (HKIMR) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as well as a member of the board of the Hong Kong Forum and co-founder of Bright Hong Kong.
Lukas Petrikas
Managing Director and Head of Innovation Lab, HKEK
Lukas is a Managing Director and the Head of Innovation Lab of HKEX, where he looks for creative business models and disruptive technology innovations that can deliver value and open new opportunities for HKEX. During his career he has been involved in many of the initiatives that have broken new ground for Hong Kong's markets, including the acquisition of London Metal Exchange; Shanghai & Shenzhen Stock Connect; China Bond Connect; 2018's listing reform; and the HKEX Innovation Lab.
Prior to HKEX, Lukas was an investment banking adviser at Rothschild Hong Kong.
Charles d'Haussy
Director, ConsenSys
Prior to joining ConsenSys, Charles was Head of FinTech with Hong Kong government department InvestHK. He has served more than 450 FinTech companies and steered the growth of the Hong Kong Fintech Week to 10,000 global attendees.
Charles has 13 years experience in Hong Kong private sector and holds SFC license 1 and 4. In 2018, he was elected Top 50 & 200 FinTech influencer in Hong Kong and Asia. He is also the author of the book 'Block Kong, 21 Brilliant Hong Kong Blockchain Entrepreneurs'.
Iris Pang
Economist, Greater China ING Bank
Iris Pang joined ING in June 2017 as Economist for Greater China. She is responsible for research on the macroeconomic and industry trends in the Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Research reports from Iris are shared with ING clients on a regular basis. She is also often interviewed by the media and invited to contribute regular commentary.
Before joining ING, Iris held a similar position at Natixis between January 2016 and June 2017. Prior to that, she was with OCBC Wing Hang Bank in a similar role for almost a decade.
Iris was an instructor at the Summer School for Applied Econometric of HKUST and taught distance learning programme on Modern China Economy at the Open University of Hong Kong.
Jessica Lam
Group Head of Strategy, WeLab
Jessica is the Group Head of Strategy at WeLab – a leading fintech company in Asia with one of the first virtual banks established in Hong Kong. WeLab provides financial services by creating seamless digital experiences to over 40 million individual customers, and also provides B2B enterprise solutions to traditional financial institutions which utilise WeLab’s technology to offer fintech-enabled services to their customers. WeLab operates WeLend and WeLab virtual bank in Hong Kong, WeLab Digital (我来数科), Taoxinji (淘新机) and Tianmian Lab (天冕) in Mainland China and a fintech joint venture AWDA in Indonesia.
Jessica drives the group’s overall strategy which includes spearheading the rollout of the WeLab virtual bank. Prior to joining WeLab, Jessica spent over 12 years at Goldman Sachs in the areas of Investment Banking as well as Private Wealth Management.
Jessica is a Board Member of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong (FTAHK), an independent association of members who are representing Hong Kong’s fintech community globally.