China Finance Forum 2023

Gilles Roth was born on 1 March 1967 in Luxembourg.

After graduating from the Athénée de Luxembourg in 1986, Gilles Roth studied law at the Centre Universitaire de Luxembourg and the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, where he obtained a degree in law. He then completed his university studies in 1991 with a degree in business administration and management from the Institut d’Administration et de Gestion of UCL.

Following the legislative elections of 8 October 2023, Gilles Roth was appointed Minister of Finance on 17 November 2023 in the coalition government formed by the Christian Social Party (CSV) and the Democratic Party (DP).

Gilles Roth was elected municipal councillor in 1993 and became mayor of Mamer in 2000. Gilles Roth joined the Parliament in April 2007 and in 2013 he became Chairman of the CSV political group. Successively re-elected to Parliament, he co-chaired this political group from 2021 until he joined the Government. From 1991 to 1994, Gilles Roth practised as a lawyer, then as Avocat à la Cour at the Luxembourg Bar. In 1995, he became a government attaché at the Ministry of Finance, before being seconded to the Luxembourg Court of Auditors and the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union in Brussels. In 1998, he returned to the Ministry of Finance and became government advisor (Conseiller), then senior government advisor (Premier Conseiller de Gouvernement). He also held the position of Government Delegate to the Administrative Jurisdictions until 2007.

Jörg Wuttke was President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China from 2007 to 2010, 2014 to 2017 and again from 2019 to 2023. From 2001 to 2004 Mr. Wuttke was the Chairman of the German Chamber of Commerce in China. Since its establishment in 2013, Mr. Wuttke is member of the Advisory Board of Germany’s foremost Think Tank on China, Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), in Berlin. He lived in China for more than 30 years.

Dr Au is Executive Director of Financial Services Development Council (FSDC). Prior to joining the FSDC, he was President of Value Partners Group Limited. Dr Au also served as CEO of Eastspring Investments (Hong Kong) Limited and CEO of BOCHK Asset Management Limited. He also held various senior management positions at other financial institutions including Baring, GMO and HSBC Global Asset Management.

Dr Au was named CEO of the Year in Hong Kong by Asia Asset Management in 2012 and 2014. He was awarded the Medal of Honor by the HKSAR Government in 2008 for his valuable contributions to the securities and asset management industry. He was also the Chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Investment Institute (HKSI) from 2006 to 2008 and the Chairman of the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association in 2004/2005.

Dr Au is currently serving as a Council member of the Hong Kong Institute of Chartered Public Accountants, an Index Advisory Committee member of China Securities Index Co., Limited and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Hong Kong among other public services.

Dr Au is a CFA Charterholder and a Honorary Fellow of HKSI. He received his BA in Physics from the University of Oxford and PhD in Theoretical Particle Physics from the University of Durham.

Judith Bogner is a television presenter, event facilitator and commentator for international finance, business and geopolitics based between the UK and Germany. For more than ten years she was one of the main European anchors of the financial news channel Bloomberg Global Television in London. Since 2012 Judith runs her own business, offering event and business facilitation, client advisory boards and strategic consulting. She is also a UK accredited mediator.

Judith regularly leads public and private events for corporate and institutional clients in the financial sector and beyond. Her list of clients include the Federation of German Industries, the Euro Finance Week (Frankfurt), Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bank of New York Mellon, The Brewers of Europe, Luxembourg for Finance, the Dutch Development Bank FMO, Ergo Insurance, State Street, Scope Ratings, the Institute of Culinary Art, Allianz Global Assistance, Wacom and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Born in Germany, Judith has lived in Switzerland, China, Ukraine, France and Italy. She is bilingual in English-German and also speaks Italian, French and Mandarin Chinese. Judith holds a degree in International Business Management and Chinese from the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen.

Julie Becker has been at the helm of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) since April 2021. She joined LuxSE in 2013 and was appointed to its Executive Committee in 2015, before being named Deputy CEO in 2019, and CEO two years later.

Her career in the financial sector in Luxembourg spans over two decades and includes positions at the Central Bank of Luxembourg and Dexia. In 2016, Julie Becker founded the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX), the world’s leading platform for sustainable securities. A recognised expert in the field of sustainable finance, Julie Becker has represented LuxSE and LGX at numerous, international expert forums and conferences over the past years, including the EU High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance from 2017 to 2019 and the United Nations High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development in 2023.

Julie Becker is a member of the board of directors of several Luxembourg-based financial industry associations and the Chairwoman of LuxCMA, a capital markets industry association established in 2019. She was awarded The inventor” by Global Landscape as part of their campaign “16 Women Restoring the Earth” in 2019 and was named the “Most Influential Economic Decision Maker in Luxembourg” in the 2022 edition of the Paperjam Top 100.

Julie Becker played a crucial role in the founding of the Luxembourg Women in Finance Charter. She is a member of the Luxembourg Gender Finance Task Force, launched in 2023, and the EIB’s Women Climate Leaders Network, launched in 2024. She was appointed as a member of the University of Luxembourg’s Board of Governors in 2023.

Julie Becker specialises in regulatory and legal matters linked to capital markets. She holds a Master’s Degree in European & Comparative Law and a Master’s Degree (DEA) in Private Law from the University of Nancy II, France. She is also an alumna of the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Leiming has been Ant Group’s Senior Vice President since March 2016, responsible for International Public Policy and Government Affairs. He also leads the ESG initiatives and the implementation of the sustainable development strategy of Ant Group’s international businesses.

Leiming joined Ant Group in March 2016 and served as General Counsel from March 2016 to May 2020.  In his day-to-day responsibilities, he undertakes a broad range of regulatory engagement in connection with Ant Group’s international business activities. Prior to joining Ant Group, Leiming was a partner and head of China practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, a New York-based international law firm, where he worked on a variety of equity and debt offerings and mergers and acquisitions involving primarily PRC companies, including his lead role in advising Alibaba in its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014. Leiming has extensive experience in corporate governance and regulatory matters.

He is qualified to practice law in the State of New York and is a solicitor of the High Court of Hong Kong. Leiming obtained a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University in Toronto, Canada.

Mr. Fan is Head of International Index Strategies and Senior Portfolio Manager at E Fund Management. He sits on E Fund Index Investment Committee. Besides managing portfolios for index mutual funds and segregated accounts, he is also responsible for research and development across passive, smart beta and ESG strategies.

Mr. Fan holds a Master’s degree in Finance from University of Sydney and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Beijing University of Technology.

Zennon Kapron is the Founder and Director of Kapronasia, a leading financial industry research and advisory firm with offices across Asia. Zennon has been involved in the financial industry for over 20 years and is a recognised expert on the development of fintech in China and its impact on the financial industry.

Before Kapronasia, Zennon was the Global Banking Industry Director for Intel and before Intel, the CIO for Citigroup Portugal. Zennon is also the co-founder of China Fintech and the author of Chomping at the Bitcoin: The Past, Present and Future of Bitcoin in China. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Syracuse University and an MBA from INSEAD.

Ning Lin is Managing Director of CICC Hong Kong Asset Management Limited. He started his career at Lehman Brothers in Tokyo in 1999, and worked also at Nomura International after the merger in 2008, as the main trader of exotic rates, FX and hybrids portfolio across major G10 and EM currencies. From 2010 to 2016, he worked at UBS as a Managing Director and APAC fixed income trading head. He was a firm-wide “key risk taker” (KRT). Lin also served as Executive Officer (EO) representing UBS AG under HKMA. Lin was Partner and CEO of 9M Stone Capital Limited before joining CICC in 2017.

Lin holds a Master’s degree in Business from Sophia University in Japan. A CFA® charter-holder, he currently serves as Non-executive Director with the CFA Society of Hong Kong.

Lin was named “CEO of the Year, Hong Kong” by Asia Asset Management in 2022.

Dr. Ma is the Founder and President of Institute of Finance and Sustainability (based in Beijing). He is also the Chairman of Green Finance Committee of China Society for Finance and Banking, and Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of the Green Investment Principles for the Belt & Road.

He has worked as the Co-Chair of G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group during 2020-2022. Between 2017 and 2020, Dr Ma was the Director of Center for Finance and Development at Tsinghua University. Between 2014 and 2017, he served as the Chief Economist at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)’s Research Bureau and a member of the central bank’s Macro-Prudential Committee. Before joining the PBOC, he worked for 13 years at Deutsche Bank, where he was Managing Director/Chief Economist/Investment Strategist for Greater China. During 1992-2000, he worked as a senior economist and economist at the World Bank and the IMF. From 1988-1990, he was a research fellow at the Development Research Center of China’s State Council.

Dr. Ma published numerous books and articles on monetary policy, financial market, and green/sustainable finance. He led the drafting of China’s green finance guidelines in 2015-16 and facilitated the global consensus on scaling up green finance under the G20 framework during 2016-18. Over the past decade, he provided advices to policy makers in many areas, including monetary and macro prudential policies, RMB internationalization, green finance, and the Belt & Road initiative.

Dr. Ma received his Ph.D. in Economics from Georgetown University in 1994, and his master’s degree in Management Science from Fudan University in 1988. He received numerous awards for his research and policy advocacy and was ranked # 1 Asia Economist by Institutional Investors for four years in a row from 2009-2012.

Nicolas Mackel is CEO of Luxembourg for Finance, the Agency for the Development of the Financial Centre, since July 2013.

Nicolas is a career diplomat. He has graduated with a law degree from the University of Aix-en-Provence, and holds two post-graduate diplomas in European law from the Sorbonne University, respectively the College of Europe in Bruges where he then also served as a teaching assistant in the Law Department. He worked as a legal clerk at the European Court of Justice before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1999. His assignments focused on the successive EU Treaty negotiations (Amsterdam, Nice, Constitution, Lisbon).

Nicolas was consecutively posted at Luxembourg’s Permanent Representation to the EU (2002-07), as Deputy Chief of Mission at Luxembourg’s Embassy in Washington DC (2007-11) and as Consul General in Shanghai (2011-13) where he was in charge of promoting Luxembourg’s economic interests throughout China as the Executive Director of the Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office.

Frederic Neumann, PhD, is Managing Director, Chief Asia Economist, and Co-Head Global Research Asia, based in Hong Kong.

Before joining HSBC in 2006, Frederic was an adjunct professor at a number of US universities, including Johns Hopkins University, teaching graduate courses on Asian sovereign risk analysis, financial markets, monetary policy, and Southeast Asian political culture. He also served as a consultant to international organizations and governments, and as a research associate of the Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC.

A former Fulbright scholar, Frederic holds a PhD in International economics and Asian Studies.

Shengzu Wang, PhD, CFA, is the Managing Director, Global Head of Asset Management of Haitong International Securities Group Limited (“HTISG”), and serves as a responsible officer of Haitong International Asset Management (HK) Limited and Haitong International Investment Managers Limited.

Dr. Wang has more than ten years of experience in the financial industry and public services. Before joining HTISG, he served as the Co-head of Investment Strategy Group Asia at Goldman Sachs, where he was responsible for China and EM Asia macro strategies and tactical asset allocation. Prior to that, he was a Senior Economist at Barclays covering mainland China and Hong Kong. Dr. Wang started his economist career at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where he worked on a number of IMF surveillance and lending programs covering advanced and EM economies in Asia Pacific, Africa, and Europe.

Dr. Wang received his Ph.D. in Economics from McGill University, and an M.A. in Economics from the University of British Columbia. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen).

Catherine Yeung is an Investment Director for Fidelity International. Based in Hong Kong, she works within the investment team and with Fidelity’s Equity Portfolio Managers. She is responsible for product management and communication of the firm’s Asia Pacific ex-Japan equity investment capabilities across all client channels and geographies. Ms Yeung is a regular market commentator and appears on various international broadcasters such as Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC, Sky News, BNN Canada, Channel News Asia, TV Monde, Deutsche Welle and Sweden’s DiTV.

Ms. Yeung joined Fidelity in 2006 and has accumulated over 27 years of experience working in the investment industry. Prior to joining Fidelity, Ms Yeung spent five years at BT Financial Group in Sydney, Australia, where she was the Assistant Portfolio Manager for three years, managing BT’s Diversified Funds.

During 1995 to 1999, Ms. Yeung was a Futures Broker at Bankers Trust Australia and United Capital Securities in Sydney, Australia, where she was responsible for broking 3 and 10-year bond futures. She also spent two years working in the media industry, which included some world-class companies, such as Reuters.

Ms. Yeung holds a Master of Commerce degree and Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Sydney, Australia and also holds an Investment Management Certificate.