Veteran Chinese diplomat Sun Guoxiang is the new Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in New York City. On October 11, Committee of 100 members and staff held a welcome dinner at the Harvard Club for Consul General Sun, his wife Wang Min, and Consul Wang Yongjun, attended by C-100 members Anla Cheng, Clarence Kwan, Howard Li, Henry Tang, and Charles P. Wang, Executive Director Angie O. Tang and Public Affairs Director An Ping.
Wan Ling Martello, currently executive vice president of global e- commerce and emerging markets for Wal-Mart, will join Nestle SA, America as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, becoming the first woman to join the board of the world’s largest food company and one of the few executive board members promoted from outside the company.
Hurricane Irene forced sudden changes in the agenda of the Global Business Strategy China Forum on August 31 in New York City, which was to have brought together about 120 American and Chinese C-suite executives who were participating in an innovative joint program of the Columbia University Business School in New York City and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. None of the 60 Chinese CEOs could attend because of the hurricane flight cancellations. An original highlight of the China Forum was the half day of networking between the Chinese and American CEOs, and an elaborate dinner gala was planned on the rooftop of the St. Regis Hotel. But in the end, the American participants, who also attended three days of intensive academic lectures on China business strategy, deemed the program an unmistakable success.
One hundred years of revolution, bookended by the 1911 Republican revolution that overthrew China’s imperial system and the 2011 Jasmine Revolution rocking the Middle East, provided the backdrop to this panel’s discussion of the remarkable social transformation in today’s China and the prospects for future political and economic reform.
Following in the footsteps of his late mentor, University of California Chancellor Chang-lin Tien, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) President Timothy Tong has been a prize-winning teacher, a pioneer in thermal engineering research and applications, and a leading academic administrator. Tong was born in Hong Kong and came to the U.S. to study mechanical engineering, earning a B.S. from Oregon State University and a M.S. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where he studied under Professor Tien. Tien “encouraged his students to study beyond classroom settings and explore new ways of doing things. Having benefited a lot from this approach, I feel obliged to be as innovative as him,” said Tong.
On September 11, as the families of the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks filed into the memorial at Ground Zero for the first time and soon after Presidents Obama and Bush gave their tributes, Committee of 100 Governor Yo-Yo Ma played Sarabande from Bach's First Suite for Cello Solo. Ma also performed for the first anniversary memorial of 9/11 in 2002.
Stewart Kwoh and the organization that he founded and now leads, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), received the Champion for Change award from the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF) on September 30. The award honored Kwoh and APALC for advancing CPAF’s mission to end family violence and violence against women in Asian Pacific communities. Both APALC and CPAF serve Los Angeles area Asian Pacific American families and immigrants and work together to help victims of domestic violence: “APALC provides free legal services to many of our survivors and advocates for the rights of immigrants and Asian Pacific Islanders locally and nationally.”
Committee of 100 Chief Financial Officer Savio Tung has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, North America, of Investcorp, the firm he helped found in 1984. Investcorp is based in Bahrain and manages assets for Arabian Gulf investors through corporate investment, real estate investment and hedge funds. Between 1995 and 2009, Tung served successively as Head of Corporate Investment, North America, and Head of Technology Investment. Tung was a founding partner of Investcorp, following eleven years as a senior banker with Chase Manhattan Bank and helped Chase establish representation in the Gulf. Tung returned to Investcorp after two years as an Investcorp advisor and chair of its Technology Investment Committee. Making the news among Investcorp’s recent acquisitions is Sur La Table, an 86-store kitchenware retailer.
