Simon Baptist is Editorial Director and Chief Economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit. Prior to his current role, he has held a number of other senior management and editorial positions in the business, including Managing Director for Asia, Regional Director of our Asia editorial team, Director of Global Forecasting, and Consulting Director in both Europe and Asia

Simon’s focus is on the global economy, national and international political developments, and public policy. He engages with business, government and international organisations, helping them to understand the operational and strategic implications of the EIU’s forecasts.

He has a doctorate in economics from and was a lecturer at Oxford University, along with degrees in economics and science from the University of Tasmania. His academic research investigated technology and the determinants of productivity in manufacturing firms.

Katharine Zhao is the Head of International Partner Ecosystem Strategy and Operations, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, the number one cloud platform in Asia. She is responsible for the international cloud business partnership development across multiple industries and technologies including IaaS, PaaS, Big Data, Security, and AI, and ecosystem buildup. Prior to her current role, she has held several senior positions in Alibaba Cloud both domestic and oversea.

Before joining Alibaba Cloud in 2017, Katharine worked with Symantec as the Head of Partner Program and Operations, APAC and Japan for over 4 years, responsible for the APJ partner strategy and program design, and Alliance and Channel manager in Oracle for over 6 years.

Katharine holds a Master of Electronics Engineer from Peking University.

Ms. Yvonne Zhou is a Managing Director and Senior Partner of Boston Consulting Group (BCG). She leads Public Sector Practice in Asia-Pacific region. She is also a core global leadership team member of industrial goods and infrastructure sectors, and a global topic leader of Urbanization & Real Estate. She is a Co-Chair of Global Future of City Center. Ms. Zhou is responsible for the strategic partnership with Beijing government and is a Senior Advisor to Shanghai and Tianjin government. She also leads BCG's Beijing office.

Since joining BCG in 2004, Yvonne has worked primarily in the areas of corporate strategy, zone and economic planning, go-to-market strategy, organization structure, and operational optimization in the technology, media, telecommunications, real estate, and city development sectors.

Yvonne leads BCG’s digital engagements in China, which includes partnering with clients across industries to design digital strategies, set up online portals, and create digital growth strategies. She has worked extensively in the telecom, software, and mobile financial-services sectors and has authored a number of publications on digital consumers in China.

Before joining BCG, Yvonne worked with ZS Associates. She has also worked with Y.D. Communication in Switzerland as a television producer and with Rhone-Poulenc (now Sanofi) in China as a sales and marketing assistant.

Mr. Jason YAO (Head of Greater China, Managing director) is heading the business in Greater China region on behalf of Ardian. He is responsible for sourcing opportunities of investment and fundraising on the ground while in charge of company operation. He has rich experience in alternative investment especially in
secondary.

He joined Ardian in Feb 2011 in Singapore and moved to Beijing in 2012 to set up the Beijing office. Before Ardian, Mr. Jason Yao worked for McKinsey as a business consultant.

Mr. Jason YAO holds an MBA from INSEAD and a bachelor’s degree of world economics from Fudan University.

Hairong Huang is Head of newly established China Centre of Swiss Re Institute (SRI), Swiss Re Group. She takes responsibility for the research and development activities that focus on China's macroeconomic, social, financial market and policy developments aiming for identification of new risks and trends to support Swiss Re's China strategies. She also leads the SRI China Centre to deliver thought leadership findings on re/insurance market, providing clear, innovative and tangible insights to empower Swiss Re and clients on innovation and solution development.

Before joining Swiss Re in October 2019, Hairong was the Deputy General Manager of the XIN Center, an innovation hub of Tsinghua University co-founded by Tsinghua and Tel Aviv University of Israel. During the two years in Xin Center, she actively devoted to the new tech transfer among institutes, industry market and capital ventures. She had broad experience crossing different areas, including 9 years in the property & casualty risk management and analytics at a top reinsurance corporation, several years of experience in Aids drug research at Harvard School Public Health, and Healthcare insurance policy research at United States Government Healthcare insurance organization.

Hairong holds M.S. in both Actuarial Science and Statistics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Alfredo is responsible for overseeing The Economist Corporate Network in Beijing. Based in China since 2013, he has focused on analysing the business implications of policy, economic and political developments for companies investing and operating in China, and in the broader Asian region. This with the aim of distilling complex issues and conveying clear takeaways on how to capture business opportunities and respond to emerging challenges.

Before joining The Economist Corporate Network, Alfredo was Associate Director for KPMG's Global China Practice, where he led and contributed to numerous thought leadership projects, including flagship reports, customised business briefings, and policy proposals for Chinese authorities. He also played a large role in events programming and outreach, including leading the design and coordination of high-profile events aimed at senior executives. Prior to that, Alfredo worked for J Capital Research, Eurasia Group and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Alfredo has a Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) from Georgetown University, and a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Mexico's Center of Research and Teaching in Economics (aka. CIDE).