Panels

Opening Remark

Asia's Leading Role in the New Financial Landscape: From inflow of foreign investment to source of liquidity

Until the collapse of subprime bubble, Asia had traditionally been a target of investments from global investors and companies, resulting in huge capital inflow to the region driven by ample liquidity. The current financial crisis, accompanied by massive liquidity contraction, seem to have changed the economic landscape; Asian companies with better financial standings are becoming the source of capital for undervalued or distressed assets in major developed economies, as illustrated in recent cross border M&As. This panel seeks to explore the new role Asia can play in becoming a more dominant player in a new global financial climate while navigating through the current crisis.

Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital: Thriving in the Face of Adversity and Change

Despite having experienced robust growth in recent years, Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship have not been immune to the effects of the global financial crisis. The crisis has forced many Asian firms to close their doors and has changed the playing field for the ones remaining. Yet, in spite of the tougher financial markets, there is a silver lining for these industries. The new landscape presents long term growth trends and exposes hidden investment opportunities in Asia. The panel aims to explore Asia's Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship outlook, as well as identify the challenges posed by the crisis.

Energy: Quenching Asia's thirst for Energy in a Sustainable Manner

Despite fluctuations in the global economic cycle, Asia’s energy demands are projected to grow dramatically for the foreseeable future. With declining global fossil fuel reserves, energy politics will become more relevant for Asia’s leaders. How will the M&A landscape for resource companies change in the face of changing global and competitive environment? To what extent will renewable energy play in the quest to sustainably satiate Asia's energy thirst?

Opening Remark

Jeffrey A. Sheehan

Associate Dean
The Wharton School

Jeffrey A. Sheehan is Associate Dean for International Relations at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is responsible for a broad range of activities designed to assure that Wharton is a fully globalized educational services business.

Mr. Sheehan established representative offices for the school in Tokyo and Paris in 1988. More recently, he led the team that established a Wharton Representative Office in Shanghai in 2005. He was responsible for the formation of Executive Boards in Asia; in Latin America; and in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Today, the membership of these boards consists of 95 senior graduates from 36 countries. Mr. Sheehan also created a series of annual Global Alumni Forums in Asia, Europe and Latin America. In recent years, they have taken place in Moscow, Shanghai, Mexico City, Istanbul, London, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

He has established educational programs for senior corporate executives in Tokyo, Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, and Mumbai. He also established a Faculty International Seminar, which introduced fifty-six Wharton professors to Japan, Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. During his time at Wharton, international donors from eleven countries on three continents have contributed over US$100 million in support of the school.

Mr. Sheehan earned his graduate degrees in public international law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, at which institution he worked from the time of his graduation in 1977 until his move to The Wharton School in 1983. In 1970, he earned his undergraduate degree in American History from Columbia University. He also studied at the American University of Beirut and was a participant in Operation Crossroads Africa in Bangui, Central African Republic. Mr. Sheehan received the Silver Magnolia Award from the Municipal Government of Shanghai in September 2003.

He is a poor but enthusiastic golfer, and in his leisure time collects antique maps of the countries he visits. He is married and his greatest joys in life are his two young daughters.

Asia's Leading Role in the New Financial Landscape: From inflow of foreign investment to source of liquidity

Matthew Greene

Founding and Managing Partner
Anvil Global Partners

Matthew is on both the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School and the Board of Advisors of Wharton Global Consulting Practicum. Aside from being part of the boards, Matthew has also been an active participant and contributor to various Wharton events, including Wharton conferences, economic forums, career panels, and Wharton Welcome Weekend.

Prior to founding Anvil Global Partners, Matthew has 15+ year of experience at Utendahl Capital and Goldman Sachs. Matthew has an established record in investment banking, investment management, capital markets, sales & trading, and has participated in over 200 IPOs in the US. Matthew has established a strong network and presence in ChInMENA for Anvil, and currently Anvil has a team of Wharton alums working in the various offices, bringing together experiences and expertise in finance, capital markets, strategy, marketing, and operations.

Matthew holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and a BS in Computer Science from Syracuse University.

Mitchell Green

Senior Analyst
Eastern Advisors (Tiger Cub Hedge Fund)

Mitchell Green is an investor at Eastern Advisors, an Asian focused hedge fund seeded by Julian Robertson in 2003.

Mitchell primarily invests in public and private companies in the consumer, internet, software and digital media sectors in Asia and the US. On the private side, the fund was an early investor in Alibaba Group, the largest internet/ecommerce company in China as well as Bazaarvoice, a late stage US software company. Prior to joining Eastern Advisors, Mitchell was an Analyst at Bessemer Venture Partners. Prior to Bessemer, Mitchell worked at UBS Investment Bank in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group. Mitchell graduated from Williams College with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Euan Rellie

Joint Founder and Senior Managing Director
Business Development Asia LLC

Euan Rellie is joint founder and Senior Managing Director and is based in New York. Since founding BDA in 1996, Mr. Rellie has been based in Singapore, New York and London and has worked across China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India and the Middle East. From 1990 to 1996 he worked in the Corporate Finance Department of Schroders, the leading UK investment bank now part of Citigroup, and was based in New York, London and Singapore. For most of this period, Mr. Rellie worked on behalf of Western multinationals, assisting them in their international development.

In 1995 and 1996, he was Head of SE Asia Execution for Schroders' Asia-Pacific Regional Advisory Group. Mr. Rellie's clients in Asia have included BUPA, DuPont, Hanjin, ICI, Intel, Kraft Foods, Lubrizol, Nalco, Philip Morris, Reuters, Rohm and Haas, Sara Lee and Tenneco. He was educated at EtonCollege and CambridgeUniversity (BA Hons, History) and is a Corporate Finance Specialist Registered Representative.

Richard Wise

Head of ECM
JP Morgan

 

Richard Wise was educated at Cambridge University, graduating with a double first in mathematics in 1990. He worked at the regulatory forbear of the UK Financial Services Authority, the Securities and Futures Authority, as a risk analyst before joining JP Morgan Chase in 1995. He has worked in various roles at JP Morgan including being an interest rate derivative trader in the London office prior to relocating to Japan. Prior to relocating to New York this year, he spent the last seven years in Japan building the market risk management function for Asia-Pacific. He is now in a global role heading risk management for the institutional equities business of JP Morgan.

Alex Edmans

Assistant Professor of Finance
The Wharton School

Alex Edmans is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Wharton. After graduating from Oxford University, Professor Edmans worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley in London, initially covering chemicals clients and latterly financial institutions. He then earned a PhD in Financial Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. During his studies, he was a Summer Associate in Morgan Stanley's Fixed Income Division in New York.

Alex joined Wharton in 2007 and has won five teaching awards in two years. Alex's research interests are in incentives and behavioral finance. His research has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Financial Times and New York Times, and he has appeared on CNBC, ESPN, Fox and the BBC. His PhD thesis on the effect of international soccer results on investor sentiment and stock returns was a finalist for the Smith-Breeden Prize for best paper in the Journal of Finance.

Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship: Thriving in the Face of Adversity and Change

Alex Grove

Founder
WhizDream

Alex is the co-founder of WhizDream.net (soon to be renamed AkadGroup.com), a pan-Asia education and career consulting firm founded in 2008. WhizDream(AKAD) provides premium in-language counseling services for Asian applicants to undergraduate, MBA, and other degrees, and also provides career training and counseling, and has already begun building an impressive track record of successes.

After less than one year of rapid expansion, WhizDream(AKAD) has established footprints in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam. Alex has authored an MBA application strategy book, "The AKAD MBA Method," that has been translated into Chinese and will soon be translated into Korean, and also speaks at Asian Universities like the Chinese University of Hong Kong about career development.

Alex worked at Morgan Stanley Principal Investments Group in Hong Kong from 2007 to 2008. He also advised Chinese corporations on strategy and operations while working as a management consultant at Monitor Action Company in Beijing. He received a joint MBA/MA from the Wharton-Lauder joint degree program in 2007 and a joint BA/MA in Chinese Political Economy from Harvard University in 2001.

Jacob Hsu

Chief Executive Officer
Symbio

As Chief Executive Officer, Jacob Hsu is responsible for the overall strategic direction and development of Symbio, one of the world's largest outsourced product development companies. In September 2009, he helped lead the formerly named Symbio Group through a merger of equals with Flander, one of Europe's largest mobile and embedded product outsourcing companies, and Ardites, a leading expert in user experience technologies.Symbio Group was named a 2009 Global Outsourcing 100 Company by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals and has been ranked one of the Top 10 China-Based Software Development Outsourcers by IDC.

Mr. Hsu's focus on innovation in China and passion for bridging China with the rest of the world has been instrumental to Symbio's success. In addition to pioneering Symbio's China start-up incubator program, which supports the development of Chinese entrepreneurs, he led the establishment of the Symbio Software Institutes at three of China's top universities (Harbin Institute of Technology, Sichuan University and Beijing Jiao Tong University). He also launched the Symbio Technology Institute, which advises Chinese universities on their software curriculums. An active speaker at conferences around the world, Jacob Hsu is a thought leader on China's emerging role in global technology innovation, and is passionate about helping Chinese companies better engage with the rest of the world.

Prior to his appointment as CEO, Mr. Hsu served as President, COO and CMO, having led Symbio Group's North American and Japan operations. Before joining Symbio Group, he was CEO of Trilogica Technologies, a data aggregation software company, and CEO of Epitome Software, an IT services company focused on financial services. He began his career as an investment banker focused on mergers & acquisitions at Fox-Pitt, Kelton.

Named by Chief Executive Magazine as one of the world's Top 12 Young Global Leaders of Tomorrow in 2008, Mr. Hsu is a graduate of Wharton School of Business.

Jovan Hsu

Founding Partner
The Chinese Founders Fund

Jovan is the founder of Chinbid.com (1999), merged with Eachnet.com - later acquired by eBay (2003). He also founded The Chinese Founders Fund, a new telecom, new media, new technology-focused angel investing group, and Jovan Ventures, a strategic global investment firm involving entrepreneurs around the world. Jovan's investment experiences include some of the early startups in the areas of DNS, C-C auction, online payment, social networking, online dating, mobile search engine, digital publishing, gaming, mobile services, e-commerce, green, and health. Currently, there are at least 30 portfolio companies under Jovan's management. In Jovan's book, entrepreneurs are the future of this world and he shares the philosophy of "one for all, all for one" for both business and life. Jovan chairs and serves on the boards of several companies in Asia and holds a Doctorate degree in Business Administration, sharing and exchanging ideas as a guest speaker in several universities in greater China and the United States.

Vivian Lo

Founder
9 in the Box

Ms. Vivian Lo received a bachelor degree from University of California State, Sacramento in 1994. After graduating, she worked as Country Head in Taiwan for Mitsui Trading, a premier trading house (import-export) of the Japanese Group Mitsui Trading. For many years, Vivian had been a VP of E-Commerce Department at PCHome Online Inc. PCHome Online is the leading B2C e-commerce website in Taiwan, with over US$200 million sales. Under Vivian's direction, PCHome e-commerce business achieved 800% growth in terms of transaction value. After realizing that limited sources of merchandise are unable to satisfy the sizable local e-commerce markets, she started up a B2C e-commerce site called http://www.9inthebox.com, where local shoppers to be able to shop luxury designers and fashion brands internationally with a reasonable price without language barriers. 9 in the box is now the leading luxury e-commerce site in greater China. Vivian is a visionary entrepreneur who is committed to making fashion brand products affordable for online shoppers and growing 9 in the box into a world class e-commerce company. Furthermore, Vivian invites passionate young men and women to join her actions to fulfil this vision together.

George Wang

Founder and President
Chinese Professional Network

George Wang is founder and chairman of Chinese Professional Network (CPN) (www.cpnhome.com), China's leading resources platform for career development. CPN provide wide range of career opportunities, industry and company insights, networking activities, experience sharing events, and skill development workshops, and referral services that helps its member grow professionally and personally. As a result, CPN has emerged as an integrated platform for top employers, educators, advertisers, and brands to reach China's high value population.

Prior to CPN, Mr. Wang was a management consultant with Bain & Company and A.T. Kearney in Asia, and a government official in China's National Environment Protection Agency. Mr. Wang received his MBA from Kellogg School of Management and B.S/M.S. from Dalian University of Technology.

Mr. Wang has deep insight on career development and has served as advisor and mentor for numerous companies, universities, government agencies, and individuals.

Michael Kelsen

Co-Founder and Principal
Miro Capital Partners

 

Co-founder and principal of Miro Capital Partners, Michael Kelsen is a corporate transactional attorney and principal investor. Mr. Kelsen was previously Managing Director and General Counsel of technology-focused investment and advisory firm Katalyst, which he co-founded, and where he ran the London office. Prior to Katalyst, Mr. Kelsen was an attorney in the Business and Finance practice of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where he represented both public and private companies in mergers and acquisitions, venture and private equity financings, public securities offerings, joint ventures and corporate governance matters. Mr. Kelsen serves on the boards of S2S Communications, Sivox, BankersEdge and NW Sign Industries. He is also a Lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he co-teaches Legal and Transactional Aspects of Entrepreneurship in the MBA program. Mr. Kelsen is a graduate of Oxford University, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard College.

Energy: Quenching Asia's thirst for Energy in a Sustainable Manner

John Byrne

Director and Distinguished Professor of Energy and Climate Policy
Center for Energy & Environmental Policy, University of Delaware

John Byrne is Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEP) and Distinguished Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at the University of Delaware. He has contributed to Working Group III of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1992 and shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He is co-founder and co-executive director of the Joint Institute a Sustainable Energy and Environmental Future, an innovative research and policy advocacy organization headquartered in South Korea the mission of promoting sustainable policy options in East Asia. He is also a founding member of and served as the first research chair for the International Solar Cities Initiative - a pioneering program to assist cities around the world in building sustainable futures. He presently co-chairs the Sustainable Energy Utility Oversight Board, created by the Delaware General Assembly, and is the architect of this innovative concept for the promotion of energy efficiency, conservation, and distributed renewable energy generation. Dr. Byrne has served on the National Council for Science and the Environment (U.S.) and advised the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice, coordinated by the U.S. EPA. He received a Fulbright Lecturer/ Researcher Award to teach environmental policy at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University and to conduct research on a National Greenhouse Gas Abatement Strategy for the Korea Energy Economics Institute. He created the first graduate degrees in the United States in the combined area of energy and environmental policy and a recent external review conducted by a committee of internationally respected scholars rated the CEEP graduate program to be among the three best in the field. Dr. Byrne has been recognized by the Chinese government for his expertise in environmental and energy policy and his name appears on China's foreign expert registry. He was appointed and continues to serve as Policy Advisor to the Environmental Forum of the Korea National Assembly (the only non-Korean to serve in this capacity) and he has held advisory appointments with China's State Environmental Protection Agency, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI in India) and the Korea Energy Economics Institute, among others. His work has been funded by the World Bank, UNDP, UNEP, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Asia Foundation, the BP Foundation, the Blue Moon Fund, the National Science Foundation (U.S.), U.S. Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, among others. Dr. Byrne is editor of the annual book series Energy and Environmental Policy, published by Transaction Books. His recent books for the series include: Energy and Environment: The Policy Challenge, which addresses the global warming debate; Environmental Justice, which examines international linkages between social and environmental inequality; and Transforming Power, which explores the prospects for, and social and environmental (especially carbon) implications of, significant changes in the world energy system. He has published 17 books and over 150 research articles.

Ben Cahill

Manager in Markets and Country Strategies Group
PFC Energy

Ben Cahill manages the Petroleum Risk Manager (PRM) service in PFC Energy's Markets and Country Strategies Group. PRM is an index that covers political, economic, and industry-specific risk in 59 states around the globe, including oil sector entry terms and operational risks. Ben focuses on the political economy of oil, and advises clients on country risk and national oil company (NOC) strategies. He has done extensive research on politics and oil sector developments in North Africa, the Gulf States and Asia for a range of clients in the energy and financial sectors.

Ben previously coordinated an advisory project on oil revenue management for the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and has also worked at Harvard University and the National Bureau of Economic Research. He holds an MA in International Affairs and Economics from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, and a BA in International Relations from Boston University.

Peter Fontaine

Co-Chair of Energy, Environmental and Climate Change Practice
Cozen O'Connor

Peter Fontaine, is a partner at the international law firm Cozen O'Connor, where he co-chairs the firm's Energy, Environmental and Climate Change Practice. He co-founded and is a principal of Granite Wind Energy LLC, a wind energy developer. He formerly served as an enforcement lawyer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. where he helped write EPA's air pollution regulations. Peter's law practice focuses on helping sustainable technology companies in the highly dynamic world of environmental and energy law. In 2008, he helped form a new national coalition of electric vehicle companies, the Battery Electric Vehicle Coalition, which is promoting changes in federal law to enable electric vehicles. Recently, the Coalition proposed a program for the federal government to provide consumer warranty support for electric vehicles. The Coaliton also is proposing that electric vehicles receive a bonus allocation of allowances under cap and trade which would monetize the lifetime CO2 reduction benefits of electric vehicles.

Xiaomin Mou

Investment Officer
IFC

Xiaomin Mou is an Investment Officer at the International Finance Corporation's Global Information and Communication Technology Group with a focus on venture capital investments in mid-stage technology companies in China, including cleantech. She manages a portfolio of technology companies in China ranging from software development, business continuity/disaster recovery, to Photonic Integrated Circuit design. Prior to joining the IFC, Xiaomin was a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group's Technology Practice Group in the Munich. Xiaomin holds a Ph.D., M.Eng, and B.S. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Robert A. Stine

Professor of Statistics
The Wharton School

Robert Stine is Professor of Statistics in the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research spans a variety of areas having practical applications. His recent research considers methods for selecting factors for predictive models from large databases, with particular relevance to the selection of factors that producing cost-effective decisions. These methods are particularly important in the development of predictive models for numerous types of systems, ranging from energy production to credit default. His research in energy modeling includes modeling production patterns of oil fields, factors influencing energy conservation, and price sensitivities of energy consumption. His research has appeared in numerous academic journals, including the Journal of the American Statistical Association and the Annals of Statistics.

 

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