Anke Schrader is the China director of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network. Utilizing over two decades of living and working in China, Anke works closely with network members to help inform their business strategies through political, economic, and operational insight and to connect them with their senior leadership peers.

Anke is also a recognized sustainability expert. She is the author of numerous publications on ESG, citizenship, and sustainable development issues in China and served six years as Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China’s Business Sustainability Committee.

Before joining The Economist Group, Anke was the Asia Research Director at The Conference Board, where she led strategic planning and execution of thought leadership research for China and the Asia region, leading a team of economists and researchers covering macroeconomics, human capital, and sustainability research. She also previously worked as a strategy consultant at PwC in Beijing advising multinational clients on macroeconomic, policy, market entry strategy, and operational issues.
Anke has led multi-year China research partnerships with Cornell University and Indiana University (funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Ford Foundation), was a guest lecturer at Cornell’s Employment and Disability Institute, and a mentor for the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University.

Anke received scholarships for Chinese language studies at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing and Shanghai Jiaotong University’s international MBA program. She holds an M.A. in politics and management from University of Konstanz.

Nazir Razak is currently the Chairman and Founding Partner of Ikhlas Capital and was more recently appointed as the Chairman of PLS Plantation in February 2021. He retired as Chairman of CIMB Group in October 2018 after a 29-year career with the ASEAN banking group. He served on the Investment Panel for the Employees Provident Fund (2002-2017) and the Board of Khazanah Nasional (2014-2018).

Nazir was recognised as Malaysia’s top executive/CEO several times and was the youngest recipient of Finance Asia’s ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ in 2009. He was awarded Euromoney’s ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ in 2012 and was the winner of the prestigious ‘Asia House Asian Business Leaders Award’ in 2015.

An advocate of ASEAN economic integration, Nazir currently chairs the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC) for Malaysia, which, in 2025, will take on the chairmanship for ASEAN.

Nazir graduated from the University of Bristol in 1988 and obtained an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge in 1989. In 2009, he was the Chevening Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and in 2019, he was the Transformational Leadership Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government (BSG), Oxford University. He is also currently a member of the BSG’s International Advisory Board.

Frederick Kliem is the Southeast Asia Director of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network (EICN) based in Singapore. Frederick works closely with network members to help inform their business strategies through political, economic and operational insights and to connect them with their senior leadership peers.

Frederick is a seasoned consultant and well-published thought-leader in politics, the economy and sustainability of Asia. He has more than 20 years of experience working on and in South- and Southeast Asia, and he has worked closely with business, political and civil society stakeholders to help inform their strategies and build networks.

Before joining The Economist Group, Frederick was the Director Climate Change and Energy Security for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation – a development organisation of the German government, dedicated to the promotion of a social market economy - in Singapore and Hong Kong. Prior to that, Frederick lectured and taught post-graduate students (MA and PhD) at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.

Frederick holds a PhD in International Relations and Multilateralism in Asia and is passionate about politics and economics as well as climate and sustainability issues. On these and more, he is a well-published published author, with several books, peer-reviewed-journal articles and numerous media appearances and op-eds to his name.

Expertise:
South- and Southeast Asia, ASEAN, and Europe

Specialist subjects:
Geopolitics, Development, Energy Security and Transition, Politics and Economics ASEAN and the EU,

Languages:
English, German, and ever-improving Malay