leading author and journalist

Jasper Becker is one of the leading voices on China's development, setting his reputation as an author with a monumental work "Hungry Ghosts" on China's secret famines that changed the world's perception on China. He worked over twenty years as a foreign correspondent in China.

Director Institute of Comparative Culture, Sophia University, Tokyo

James Farrer associates playfully China's economic and sexual revolutions in an engaging, informal style. He adds academic robustness to a subject, well, that is fun anyway.

Associate professor Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism;
Former New York Times correspondent in Africa, Japan, China

Howard French has called Africa, the Americas, Japan and China as his home, and got the best out of it. As a professional photographer he had a very keen eye for those details that matter. As correspondent for the New York Times, he was not only an alert observer of the society he was in, but was able to compare and connect between those worlds, much to the benefit of his audience.

Founder of Access Asia, a leading research institute on retail; author of several books on China

Looking for a sharp debater? Then Paul French is your man. He does not shy away from many subjects and covers China's middle class, North-Korea, the way of doing (no) business in China or the latest on Western companies trying to crack this difficult market.

Professor at IMD and Lausanne University.
Director of IMD World Competitiveness Center

Professor Garelli brings in twenty years of experience in competitiveness, making him into one of the leading speakers on the global economy. His annual ranking of countries in the IMD World Competitiveness is watched by countries both with high expectations and fear.

Founder and compiler of the Hurun China Rich List

Now in its tenth straight year, the Rich List has been a benchmark for China's change and the position of its rich. By combining a thorough knowledge of China's society and British flair, Rupert Hoogewerf is a much wanted speaker. He is spearheading a wide number of related initiative and list, making him one of the few foreigners in China who has become a real celebrity.

Documentary maker and journalist

Name a controversial subject in China, and Sylvie Levey has done it: China's first transsexual, the redevelopment of Shanghai, China's prisons. Touching stories from the ground give Levey an excellent view on this fast changing society.

Asia-Pacific director IEDE business school, former diplomat

As a former diplomat in Latin America, Xu Ming is not only a fluent Spanish-speaker, but also has a profound knowledge of the intense relations between Chinese politics and international business. He is one of very few Chinese speakers who has been part of China's bureaucracy and can help the business world to deal with it.

Chang-Jiang Professor of Economics at Fudan University and Director of the China Center for Economic Studies

Who thinks that Chinese academics cannot be provocative, has not met Zhang Jun yet. A sharp analytic of China's economics and decision making process, he is a much asked speaker.

Writer, journalist, social commentator

Zhang Lijia became the Chinese equivalent of a self-made woman, escaped from the state-owned enterprise where she worked, to a UK-educated commentator on contemporary issues in China.