The Boao Forum for Asia 2016: Pre-Conference Reflections

About the authors

Chief Editor

Xu Sitao
Chief Economist & Partner
Deloitte China

Xu Sitao is Chief Economist, Partner of Deloitte China. Formerly, he was at The Economist Group from 2004 to 2014 with positions of Chief Representative of China, Director of Advisory Services for Economist Corporate Network and Director of China Forecasting of EIU. Before joining the Economist Group, Mr. Xu worked for ICBC (Asia), as the Head of Economics from 2003 to 2004. Prior to ICBC (Asia), he was Societe Generale’s Chief Economist for Asia (ex-Japan) from 2000 to 2002. He was at Standard Chartered Bank as Regional Treasury Economist from 1996 to 2000. Previously, he was the Economist for Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand in Singapore, working for MMS International of Standard and Poor’s Group from 1995 to 1996. Mr. Xu has been a regular columnist for Asian and China’s leading business publications, such as South China Morning Post and Caijing. He has also written articles for leading regional and international publications, such as the Asian Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. He appears regularly on CNBC, Bloomberg, CCTV as a commentator. He routinely speaks on China at major companies’ board meetings and major conferences. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Peking University, an M.A. in Economics from the University of Connecticut, and an M.S. in Finance from Boston College.

Deputy Editor

Chen Lan
Director of Deloitte Research
Deloitte China

Chen Lan has more than 15 years of experience in industry research and mainly focused on consumer business industry. Working in Deloitte as the Director of Deloitte Research, she has run extensive coverage of economic development topics in China and has established close contacts with entrepreneurs and opinion leaders in different industries. She is the leader of most consumer business research projects conducted by Deloitte China, including “China Retail Power”, “China Shopping Center Development” and “Cross-border E-commerce Research” etc., most of which are successful collaborations with CCFA, the leading industry association of consumer business in China. Before joining Deloitte, Ms. Chen was Editor in Chief of Forbes China magazine. She is the project initiator and chief writer of “Chinese Wealth Management Market Research”, “Luxury China” and “Midas List”. Ms. Chen was awarded her Master Degree of Economics in Xiamen University in 2000.

Authors

Eddie Chiu
National Managing Partner
Enterprise Risk Services
Deloitte China

Eddie Chiu leads Deloitte China’s enterprise risk services client advisory practice — one of the fastest growing group of services for Deloitte China. He is a member of the Firm’s national executive team. Mr. Chiu is one of the professional services industry pioneers in helping China’s regulators and state-owned enterprises with these pre-requisites to transformation and globalization. Mr. Chiu has led projects for many of China’s largest companies across a spectrum of key industry sectors such as energy & resources, telecommunications, real estate and infrastructure. Mr. Chiu also frequently shares his experience and insights as a speaker on these topics at major conferences such as those hosted by China Enterprise Confederation, China Info 100 and leading accounting professional organizations. Mr. Chiu is a Certified Public Accountant in Hong Kong, Chartered Accountant and a fellow of ACCA in the UK.

Ira Kalish
Chief Global Economist
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu

Dr. Ira Kalish is a specialist in global economic issues as well as the effects of economic, demographic, and social trends on the global business environment. He has written about the regional economies and has also written extensively on global consumer markets. Among Dr. Kalish’s recent publications were the quarterly Global Economic Outlook of which he is the managing editor; the annual Global Powers of Retailing report; China and India: Comparing the World’s Hottest Consumer Markets etc. Dr. Kalish has been widely quoted in the news media; his remarks have been published by the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Financial Times, and he has appeared on CNN, CNBC, PBS and BBC World Service. Prior to his work at Deloitte, Dr. Kalish was chief economist at Retail Forward, a director at PwC, vice president at Bankers Trust, corporate economist at the Eastman Kodak Company, and researcher at the Institute for International Economics. Dr. Kalish holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Vassar College and a PhD in international economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Manu Bhaskaran
Founding Director and Chief Executive Officer
Centennial Asia Advisors

Manu Bhaskaran is an expert on economic and political risk assessment and forecasting. Before joining the Centennial Group, he was Chief Economist for Asia of a leading international investment bank and managed its Singapore-based economic advisory group. Mr. Bhaskaran is a well-regarded commentator on Asian financial and economic affairs, and has regular columns in business weeklies such as the Nikkei in Japan and the Edge in Singapore/Malaysia. He serves as Senior Adjunct Fellow, Institute of Policy Studies, Council Member of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and Vice President of the Economics Society of Singapore. Mr. Bhaskaran has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Cambridge University. He has also qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst. He is based in Singapore.

Lin Boqiang
Director
China Center for Energy Economic Research
Xiamen University

Lin Boqiang has published more than 180 academic papers on energy economics and energy policy (more than 130 SSCI/SCI papers,), several energy economics textbooks and other books on energy policy (27 in total, in Chinese), about 700 column papers in most influential Chinese newspapers and about 200 short papers in Chinese main stream non-academic magazines. He is currently also a member of the Energy Partnership Advisory Board and member of the Global Agenda Councils on Decarbonizing Energy of the World Economic Forum based in Davos Switzerland.

He was a 2008 “Chang Jiang Scholar” Professor, and currently a Vice Chairman of China Energy Society; Member of National Energy Consultation Committee under National Energy Commission; Member of National Energy Price Consultation Committee under National Development and Reform Commission. Lin Boqiang obtained his Ph.D in economics from University of California at Santa Barbara.