Born and raised in Hong Kong, John emigrated to the United States when he was a Form II student at La Salle College. He continued his education at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, and studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He went on to complete master degrees in Bilingual Education at Boston State College and in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He worked in the Boston Public Schools as a teacher and in curriculum development.

John returned to work as an Administrative Officer in the Hong Kong Government in 1982. He took up a number of posts relating to commerce and finance. After reunification, he was appointed as Commissioner of Customs and Excise, Secretary for Planning and Lands, Secretary for Commerce, Innovation and Technology, Director of the Chief Executive’s Office and in 2007, Financial Secretary where he served until 2017. He ran for the post of Chief Executive and lost.

John is currently engaged in a number of diverse activities. He is the Founder of Esperanza, a non-profit organisation, the Vice Chairman of Ion Pacific, a financial institution that specialises in technology investments, the Senior Advisor of Bowtie, a virtual insurance company, a board member of the Greater Bay Area Homeland Investments Ltd., the host of a weekly music program on Commercial Radio and the fencing coach of La Salle College.

John is married with two grown children and three grand-children.

Mr. KC Chan is the Chairman of WeLab Bank and Senior Advisor of 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 46 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 the WeLab 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.

Professor Chan was appointed as Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from July 2007 to June 2017. Prior to that, he was Dean of Business and Management in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He is currently Adjunct Professor at HKUST Business School.

Professor Chan received his bachelor's degree in economics from Wesleyan University and his M.B.A. and Ph.D. in finance from the University of Chicago. He specialised in assets pricing, evaluation of trading strategies and market efficiency and has published numerous articles on these topics.

Professor Chan is a member of Competition Commission and Non-Executive Director of The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited. In the past, he held a number of public service positions including Chairman of the Consumer Council, Director of the Hong Kong Futures Exchange, and Member of the Commission on Strategic Development, Commission on Poverty, the Exchange Fund Advisory Committee, the Hang Seng Index Advisory Committee, and the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation.

Lucy Liu is a Managing Director at The Executive Centre (TEC) and is responsible for leading the Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan businesses. She joined TEC after 12 years in luxury hotel management at both the Landmark Hotel and InterContinental Hotels Group. With 14 years of experience at TEC, she has built a passionate and successful career in the ‘premium flexible workspace’ industry.

Lucy gained extensive experience working in multiple leadership roles across several key markets for TEC - including Australia, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Contributing directly to the on-going success of the TEC business, her outstanding negotiation and leadership skills have had significant results, doubling the profitability of each market she has worked in.

In her current capacity as a region M.D., Lucy has led her Hong Kong team in achieving industry-wide recognition including at the prestigious PropertyGuru Asia Pacific Awards 2018 where TEC won ‘Best Office Development’ and ‘Best Office Interior Design’ awards. In addition, TEC won ‘Most Reputed Professional and Business Services Of The Year' at CorpHub’s Hong Kong Most Outstanding Service Awards in 2019.

When she is not ensuring that TEC Members are enjoying exceptional experiences, she is recharging her batteries by spending time in nature and admiring beautiful sceneries all around the world. And as a former Chinese Olympic Team swimmer, Lucy, of course, loves to do sports such as swimming, scuba diving and hiking.

Pamela leads the directs the Fung Academy’s research & development activities and applications which inform the Group’s strategic response to key disruptions in its business operating environment, including technological change, the rise of sustainability, trade/geopolitical uncertainty and the changing nature of consumption.

Prior to her current role, she ran the Academy’s programs that support sustainable, competitive advantage in the supply chains of Fung Group companies, including the use of mobile and IOT technologies, as well as direct supplier training. Until 2019, she served as the Fung Group Director of Sustainability and was instrumental in growing sustainability beyond compliance and into a competitive advantage for the Group. She was named one of 10 leaders on the Eco-business Sustainability A-List at the end of 2019. She continues to teach sustainability as an Honorary Visiting Lecturer in the MBA program of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

She was formerly based in Shenzhen as a Director in the Global Finance Center of TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings, and prior to that, in Geneva as the World Economic Forum’s Associate Director for Greater China, where she built the Forum’s key relations with the Chinese government and businesses.

Based in Hong Kong, Jason is a senior editor of thought leadership research for Asia. He covers the region from Australia to India but has a background of business in China and Hong Kong.

A Boston native, Jason has worked and travelled in Asia since the 1990s, settling permanently in Hong Kong since 2009. Before joining the Economist Group he was managing editor for Campaign Asia, covering all aspects of the marketing industry -from the implementation of technology to ad creative, to consumer research.

Prior to that, Jason's professional focus was in finance and technology, working in both investment and engineering firms. He also spent a decade of his career heading a manufacturing and import company, bringing goods from China’s factories to the US retail market. Some of his most formative work has been as a freelance writer and stay-at-home dad.

Jason received a BA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with study at the University of Sheffield in Yorkshire, UK.

Janet Pau is the Director of The Economist Corporate Network in Hong Kong. She brings her experience working with top executives throughout Asia, coupled with economic knowledge and industry insight to help organisational leaders and their teams gain a holistic, practical appreciation of the opportunities and challenges in Greater China and across Asia.

Before joining The Economist Corporate Network, Janet was Program Director for the Asia Business Council, developing and delivering content for private forums for an all-CEO membership in Asia for more than a decade. Prior to that, she was Manager at the Global Business Policy Council at consulting firm A.T. Kearney in Washington D.C., where she led consulting projects and intellectual capital publications for senior executive clients in both business and government.

Janet’s publications include Through the Eyes of Tiger Cubs: Views of Asia’s Next Generation (Wiley, 2012) and Building Energy Efficiency (Encyclopaedia of China Publishing House, Chinese edition, 2008). She was an op-ed contributor and columnist for the South China Morning Post from 2011 to 2019. She has also contributed opinion pieces and book chapters, and spoken at various local and regional business conferences.

She serves on the leadership team of Hong Kong-based charity Beyond Foundation, which advocates for children with special needs and their families. She was a member on the Hong Kong Government’s Antiquities Advisory Board, Museum Advisory Board, and Central Policy Unit.

Janet received a Bachelor of Arts degree in international studies and psychology with honours from Yale University and a Master in Public Policy specializing in economic policy and competitiveness from Harvard University.