Talent Development Programme 2022

Damiao spent 11 years as the Lead Business Analyst in the Canadian telecommunication industry in Saskatchewan. He acted as the leading technical advisor to the Marketing Steering Committee to execute digital strategy with the launching of the Internet portal infrastructure and the first end-to-end customer self-provisioning portal in Western Canada. Damiao also advised an Ontario-based telecommunication company’s CIO and her direct reports in implementing Internet portal for new product launch and customer experience.

He spent five years as the adjunct IT Management and Entrepreneurship professor at HULT International Business School Shanghai campus. Later he became the Executive MBA Academic Program Director leading 80 executives from different countries and industries (automotive, marketing, pharmaceutical, retails) through their academic journeys providing guidance and support in their business and academic challenges.  For the last four years, Damiao has been part of the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School faculty as an experiential facilitator for an oil industry client in its leadership development program in South East Asia.

As a senior consultant, Damiao has designed and led talent development programs in a variety of organizational development in Oil & Gas, Technology, Retail, Pharmaceuticals, and banking industries.

As a professional facilitator and consultant with international expertise, Tony has over 20 years of experience, covers strategic planning, organizational effectiveness, business development, and extensive operational excellence in worldwide capacity.

Tony once was employed by a leading Investment Bank and a global consulting firm. His strength as a consultant comes from his varying experience in the fields of business development, investment research, project management and human resources consulting.

During his time at Impact, Tony worked in the UK HQ and Tokyo Office. Since beginning of 2009 he is heading up the Impact China operation where he has been developing Impact’s new business in China and Asia Pacific.

He has extensive experience in developing and delivering international executive development programs in Europe and Asia Pacific region. During his career, Tony has been extensively involved in the development and delivery of a wide variety of training touching all levels of the organizations for which he worked. He is also a professional program designer in change enablement, team effectiveness and talent development aspects. Tony has an engaging interpersonal style, possesses excellent facilitation skills and maintains a strategic focus whilst addressing the needs of the individual.

Martin is currently the President of Greater China for Sodexo, the international services company and has been based in Shanghai since January 2018. He has significant experience across multiple market segments given the nature of his business (food & facilities services) and the fact the company serves so many clients within China.

Martin has built a significant network within the international business community within Shanghai and this brings insight that can support the leadership of the Chamber to be a voice for British business and identifying opportunities to develop within the China market.

Professional experience

• Deal sourcing and execution of advisory and transaction support services to capital market and other corporate transactions in the Asia-Pacific region, including IPOs, introductions and reverse acquisitions, as well as private corporate transactions covering fundraisings (start-up to growth capital), acquisitions, disposals and related due diligence and financing
• Transactions cover China, Hong Kong, Europe, US and UK across a broad sector range
• Tim was trained with KPMG China and UK for nine years and was the Corporate Finance Associated Director of BDO UK before joining Mazars in 2011.

Skills

• In depth knowledge of cross-border M&A transactions, corporate restructuring and China outbound investments
• Business oriented approach enabling analysis of targets in a wide range of industries
• Ability to establish strong relationship with corporate functions of the client and other advisors involved (lawyers, consultants, etc.)
• Capability to manage large projects and teams with an international reach and across departments

Main clients include Haier, Fosun, Bel Group, ICICLE, Imerys, Sonepar, Bureau Veritas, Hisense, Alten, etc.

Professional experience

Cindy is responsible for deal sourcing and execution of advisory and transaction support services to private equities and other corporate transactions in the Asia Pacific region. This includes IPOs, Introductions and reverse takeovers, as well as private corporate transactions covering fundraisings (start-up to growth capital), acquisitions, disposals and related due diligence and financing.

Prior to joining Mazars, Cindy trained with PwC in both the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. She worked exclusively on deal related work, including core financial due diligence, deal support and structuring advice for both corporate and private equity investors.

Skills

Cindy has extensive experience on cross border transactions. Her areas of specialism includes industrial process automation, logistics and transportation, engineering and construction, manufacturing, real estates and automotive businesses.
Capability to manage large projects and teams with an international reach and across departments.

Recent projects that Cindy has involved

• Chemical company acquisition in similar business;
  Singaporean fund acquiring an energy drink company in China (due diligence, SPA drafting, closing financial statement preparation) (USD 30M+);
• German car related market researcher acquiring a car parts pricing information consulting company in China;
• Chinese fund acquiring a cold chain logistic company; Chinese fund acquiring a chemical company;

In addition, Cindy is also involved in the monitoring trustee work for the merger of Dow Chemical and Dupont (directly report to the European Commission and MOFCOM in China).

Yifei Zhang is the General Manager for Control Risks in East China. He works with clients to understand what specific risks their businesses face across different markets and assists them in designing mitigation solutions so that they can seize opportunities for growth.

Yifei has extensive experience providing multinational companies and investors with solutions across business strategy, understanding regulatory risks, market and business intelligence, and complex compliance reviews. Yifei also regularly supports companies in market entry projects and in evaluating new business partners, as well as working with them to prepare for complex security matters.

Yifei has worked closely with clients in the ICT, financial services, automotive and healthcare sectors.

Recent tasks that Yifei has worked on include:

• Reviews into compliance breaches, including whistleblower management, for multiple companies in the healthcare sector facing FCPA and mainland China regulatory difficulties.
• Crisis and security solutions in restructuring and business disputes gone bad.
• Market and competitor intelligence, strategy setting and distribution chain analysis for a leading special materials manufacturer expanding in the China market.
• Assessments and checks into overseas partners, to understand their integrity, assets and reliability, for Chinese investment funds focused on Belt and Road Initiative projects.
• Assessments and forward-looking analysis for Chinese technology companies entering politically uncertain new markets, to align decision making with regulatory risks.
• Helped Chinese companies review investment decisions into high-risk overseas regions, evaluating their crisis and security management structures, training programmes and market entry approaches.

Yifei graduated from Georgetown University with a master’s degree in security studies and from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He is a native speaker of Mandarin and English.

Carmen Liu is a Director in Control Risks’ Compliance, Forensics and Intelligence practice. Based in Shanghai, she specialises in pre-transaction due diligence in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Japan and Korea, and has also taken key roles in several business intelligence and fraud investigation projects. Her project experience has included a variety of sectors such as real estate, healthcare and pharmaceutical, finance and banking, automotive, retail and aviation sectors.

Recent tasks that Carmen has worked on include:

• Pre-M&A commercial due diligence for a Fortune 500 US construction materials manufacturing company. Carmen supported its acquisition of a top-tier Chinese competitor by understanding the target company’s distribution chain, pricing dynamics, end users and market potential, as well as gathering competitor intelligence.
• Conducting multi-jurisdictional asset trace for a Singaporean client who sought to pursue debts owed by a business partner. The exercise was conducted through extensive public domain research and discreet enquiries in those jurisdictions involved, as well as targeted analysis of the partner’s financial status.
• Investigation of alleged conflicts of interest involving a senior manager of a US paper manufacturer’s subsidiary in China. This involved mapping out the manager and his known relatives’ corporate interests, as well as making targeted enquiries to understand the manager’s key local government and business relationships.
• Investigating potential intellectual property rights infringement involving several Chinese competitors of a Japanese company, through an analysis of the companies’ technical development history and the origin of the companies’ technology.

Before joining Control Risks, Carmen worked for KPMG Shanghai as an auditor. Significant projects included an audit for a Hong Kong pre-IPO project.

Carmen holds a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from Fudan University. She is a native Mandarin speaker and is fluent in English.

Mattie Bekink is responsible for the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network’s China strategy, including programme development and client engagement across China.

Ms Bekink has extensive experience in the public, private and policy sectors. Prior to joining The Economist Group, she was the Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission in the Netherlands. She also ran an eponymous consulting business, advising businesses, universities and non-profit organisations on China policy, strategy, public affairs, and CSR. Ms Bekink practiced law at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, has worked with the US-Asia Law Initiative at NYU Law School and the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative China Program, and served in the legal department at General Motors China.

Ms Bekink has a BA in International Relations from Stanford University and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Vivien serves as a strong bridge between our clients and the evolving digital marketing landscape:  To understand the purpose of the brand and insights of its consumers; Identify trending opportunities and partnerships in the digital eco-system, and; Effectively raise brand awareness and credibility through worthy O2O experiences.

Key consulting for WE Red Bridge clients also include: Social eCommerce marketing, Social eCRM, Weibo and Wechat marketing solutions, KOL/influencer and Livestream strategies, digital customer journey tracking and comms targeting.

For 4.5 years, Vivien was Vice President, Digital Strategy and Creative, at Ketchum Greater China.  Based in Beijing, she built the digital practice from ground up, led clients and team on the ideation to implementation of national and regional campaigns across digital and mobile platforms.  Vivien was also lead consultant for issues and crisis management (social-driven, digital platforms) for Emirates and Kempinski Hotels in China.  Digital and social media awards include: SABRE Awards 2014 & 2015 APAC, HK PR Awards 2015, PR Week Asia Pacific Awards 2015.

Prior to China, Vivien worked for more than 13 years in the United States and Singapore, where she ran her own PR and digital engagement agencies, VROOM Media Group and CROWD Pte Ltd.

Categories and clients include:

• Premium Lifestyle: Fenty Beauty, Dyson, Laneige, Sulwhasoo, Pandora, Fischler Diamonds, Palladium Alliance International, TAG Heuer, Timberland.
• FMCG –  F&B:  The Coca-Cola Company, P&G Procter & Gamble, Bacardi Group, Nespresso, Tiger Beer, and Heineken
• Travel & Hospitality:  Emirates Airline, Aeroflot, Air France/KLM Group, Etihad Airways, Scoot, Kempinski Hotels, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Doubletree Hotels, Conrad Koh Samui
• Sports & Athleisure:  Olympics PYC 2018 , FIFA World Cup 1998/2018, Nike, New Balance, Li Ning, FILA, Football Association of Singapore, Singapore Football League, Heineken ATP Tours