Hideaki Takahashi has been teaching Internet Business Design and Global Business Management at Keio University Graduate School since 2006. Prior to his teaching career, he served in multiple executive positions including Deputy President of Fuji Xerox, Chairman of FX Palo Alto Laboratory, Corporate Officer of AT&T and Senior Vice President of NCR Corporation.

On the business front, he currently serves on the board of NEC Corporation and Fukuoka Financial Group, Inc. in Japan. He also serves on a number of advisory boards of Japanese and Western companies.

Hideh-san serves in multiple non-executive, non-profit capacities including for the National Science Museum of Japan, the Value Creation Forum of the 21st Century and the Nikkei Global Social Responsibility Project. His current passion is centred on supporting and advising young people starting IT ventures and social businesses.

As Head of Organisation Development and Learning at Cathay Pacific, Graham is dedicated to aligning the company's organisation development strategy and its implementation with the business strategy and needs.

He is currently responsible for scaling business needs-driven approaches to leadership and management development into a systematic talent management process, and building innovation capacity and capabilities in a highly operational culture. He delivers this by creating a culture of questioning to stimulate a new way of thinking to deal with intractable challenges. Part of this requires Graham to develop management level capacity to deal with adaptive challenges, wrought by an increasingly challenging and uncertain competitive environment.

Graham completed a Masters in Clinical Organisational Psychology at INSEAD, where he graduated cum laude. He is presently exploring doctoral studies in the application of cognitive neuroscience to strategy and innovation. He is based with his family in Hong Kong, where he has lived for 20 years.

Sim is currently an Alternate Member for DBS to the Association of Banks in Singapore; Vice Chairman, ASEAN Business Group, Singapore Business Federation and an Executive Board Member, China-ASEAN Inter-bank Association. He also seats on the Board of Singapore Land Authority in Singapore, Avantage Ventures in Hong Kong and Nikko Asset Management Co., Ltd in Japan.

In his 28 years of banking experience, Sim spent his career in Asia, North America and the Middle East. Prior to joining DBS, Sim was the President and CEO of Nikko Citigroup Limited from June 2008 to December 2009. During this time, Sim was also a board member of Nikko Citi Holdings, Inc. He was responsible for all corporate & investment banking, institutional brokerage and fixed income & equity trading for Citigroup in Japan.

From March 2007 to June 2008, he was Citigroup Country Officer, Hong Kong and also Chairman of Citibank Hong Kong. During his tenure, he managed the Citigroup Hong Kong country franchise, including developing the strategy for Hong Kong‘s markets and banking franchise, and providing support to the consumer and wealth management businesses. Between October 2003 and March 2007, Sim was regional head of emerging markets sales and trading for the Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore. During this period, he was also the non- executive Chairman of Citibank Berhad Malaysia. Sim was a Japanese government Monbusho scholar and graduated from Yokohama National University in Japan in 1983.

Minh Chau Nguyen became the Country Director for East Meets West in March 2009. Her previous positions at EMW include serving on the EMW board and on staff as EMW's Chief Strategy Officer.

Minh Chau spent 25 years working with the World Bank Group in Washington DC. As an economist at the World Bank, Minh Chau was responsible for policy dialogues, project evaluations, and loan negotiations for projects in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She also served as the head of the Gender and Development Division at the World Bank. In this position, she led the World Bank delegation to the Women's World Conference in Beijing in 1995. Shortly thereafter, Minh Chau joined the International Finance Corporation, a private sector arm of the World Bank, to help direct IFC's operations in riskier markets.

Prior to the World Bank, Minh Chau was a lecturer in economics at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. She is a co-founder of the ISIS Management Group, which promotes women entrepreneurs' access to venture financing. She has also worked with Small Enterprise Assistance Funds to help increase equity financing for small and medium enterprises in emerging markets.

Minh Chau received her B.S. from Macalester College, an M.S. in economics from the University of Washington, and Advanced Management Training at Harvard Business School.

Since 2000, Mr. van Huijstee has worked for Sonepar. Sonepar, a distributor of technical equipment and solutions for electricity professionals worldwide, is represented by over 100 companies and operates in 29 countries on 4 continents.

In 2005, Mr. van Huijstee set up the first Sonepar office in China in Shanghai, which has experienced growth as a result of a number of acquisitions, joint ventures and development. This resulted in a fast growing and profitable operation of 27 companies in 9 countries across Asia-Pacific.

Prior to his position at Sonepar, Mr. van Huijstee was working for DHL where he was a member of the Executive Committee in the role of Change Director.

Ada Wong has been a staunch advocate of creative education and cultural development. She founded the non-profit Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture over 10 years ago, established and now supervises HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity (the only "art high school" in Hong Kong). Ada has been heavily engaged in public service and community activities. She was an elected Urban Councillor, District Councillor and Chairperson of Wan Chai District.

Council. She is currently a member of the Consultation Panel of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, the Art Museum Advisory Panel, and a board member of Hong Kong Shue Yan University and Hong Kong Design Centre. She was also a columnist for Oriental Daily and Ming Pao Daily for over 10 years. She is also a co-host of two current affair programmes at Radio Television Hong Kong.

She received her BA (Hons) from Pomona College, California, USA and M Ed from the University of Hong Kong. She is also an Honorary Fellow of Lingnan University and Hong Kong Institute of Education.

Mr. Chidambaram previously worked at Goldman Sachs, where he helped build entry for the firm in various key markets such as Germany and India, and worked on several landmark deals including the world‘s sixth largest privatisation at the time, that of Deutsche Telekom; He was also the Managing Director and Head of Telecoms, Technology and Media at Deutsche Bank, where he started and ran their first ever dedicated Asian telco group, and was a pioneer in developing project solutions for start-up mobile licensees.

Ravi was also the Managing Director and Head of the Technology investment banking group at Bear Stearns, where he built and ran the European tech group. Mr. Chidambaram has over twenty-four years of investment banking experience divided equally between US, Europe and Asia.

Yvonne Li is the founder and CEO of Avantage Ventures. She founded Avantage Ventures to bridge the information and funding gaps between social entrepreneurs and investors in Asia. 

She is a former Hong Kong finance executive who has worked in investment banking, hedge funds, and commercial banking. Her experience includes working at Lehman Brothers’ capital markets division in equity structured derivatives and Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corporation in commercial banking. She began her career as a macro-economic analyst and options trader at Asia Financial Asset Management.

Yvonne was a leading member of Lehman Brothers’ philanthropy committee, where she successfully engineered the re-development of a rural primary school in China. She has also managed and provided strategic consulting to a number of fundraising projects for China Literacy Foundation and Aids Concern. Yvonne holds a Masters in Finance from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Bachelors in Business & Marketing from Monash University, Melbourne.

She believes that "there are many models of social finance in the developed world that are relevant and can make a big impact in Asia".

Thomas Abraham is a former editor of the South China Morning Post (SCMP). Prior to joining the SCMP, he spent 13 years as a foreign correspondent based in Sri Lanka, the United Nations Office in Geneva, and London for one of India‟s leading newspapers, The Hindu.

Thomas has reported on conflicts in Sri Lanka, the former Yugoslavia, and Northern Ireland, as well as major global issues such as world trade negotiations, human rights, arms control and disarmament. He has worked for the United Nations in Geneva and been a regular commentator on South Asian issues for BBC World Service Television.

He has a Masters degree in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and a BA in Economics from Madras University.

Thomas is the author of Twenty-first Century Plague: The Story of SARS.

As DHL International (HK) Ltd’s Chairman, Po Chung works with the company’s development teams to turn great ideas into innovative software and services. In 1972 he co- founded DHL International Limited the Hong Kong base company that together with DHL Airways Inc. of California, which owns and operates the DHL Worldwide Network.

Po Chung is also the chairman of the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation and sits on the board for the Lane Crawford Ltd., Hong Kong Tourist Board and the Ocean Park Corporation. Po Chung's community service activities are focused in five key areas: Promoting Hong Kong and International Relations; Arts and Culture; Management and General Education; Creativity and Innovation; and Social Entrepreneurship.

Po Chung has been the feature speaker on corporate culture at various symposium organised by Pacific Rim Forum, Business International, Business Week International, Young Presidents Organisation, Hong Kong Management Association, China Management Association in Taiwan, various graduate school of business. He was the Annual Keynote Speaker of the Singapore National Productivity Board in 1986. He is a Chinese calligrapher, a painter, an avid reader, a classical music enthusiast, wine collector and photographer.

Peter Messervy is relatively new to the corporate world having left the UK Army in 2008 in order to pursue opportunities in Asia. Commissioned as an infantry officer, his military career spanned 27 years and included service in many areas of the globe including pre- unification Berlin, Sub-Saharan Africa and Hong Kong. He has served in a variety of conflict zones from Northern Ireland, the Balkans, West Africa and Iraq.

In his current role at Swire Properties he is responsible for the delivery of frontline training for staff based in its Hong Kong and Mainland China offices.

Keith Kerr worked for 2.5 years in London with Healey and Baker (now Cushman and Wakefield) before joining Swire Properties Ltd. in Hong Kong in 1975. He became Managing Director in 1989 and was appointed Chairman in 2005. He was an Executive Director of parent company, Swire Pacific Ltd. from 1991 until May 2009 when he retired from The Swire Group, relinquishing the role as Chairman of Swire Properties Ltd. at the same time.

He has incorporated a new company, The Development Studio Ltd., to continue in the real estate development field.

Commercial projects undertaken during his tenure at Swire include Pacific Place, Taikoo Place (comprising 11 office buildings including the1.5m sq ft. One Island Estate), Festival Walk and CityGate Outlets in Hong Kong; Taikoo Hui (under construction) in Guangzhou; The Opposite House in The Village at San Li Lun in Beijing; The Miami Mandarin Oriental in Miami etc. In addition, he undertook a large range of residential projects mainly in Hong Kong but also in Tokyo as well as having overall responsibility for an active condominium programme in Miami, Florida.

He is currently a Vice-President of The Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong and Chairman of the Executive Committee as well as Member of the Council of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He was formerly Chairman of the Construction Industry Council and a former Member of the Listing Committee of the Stock Exchange as well as various Government advisory bodies, including the Land and Building Advisory Committee and the Provisional Science Park Advisory Board. He is also a Justice of the Peace.