Asia Society Hong Kong Movers & Shakers Podcast

Today's podcast is with Michaela Browning Australian Consul General for Hong Kong and Macau. Ms Browning is a senior career public servant and was most recently Head of Investment, Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade). She has held a range of senior positions including Head of Established Markets and Special Adviser to the CEO on Strategy and China (Austrade) and Senior Adviser to the then Defence and Foreign Ministers. Ms Browning was also a Trade Negotiator at the Doha Development Round and for the free trade agreements Australia negotiated with the USA and Singapore. She has previously served overseas in Thailand and Singapore.

Ms Browning holds a Masters in Foreign Affairs & Trade and a Bachelor of Economics with Honours, both from Monash University.

Today's podcast is with Fritz Demopoulos who has been involved in a number of entrepreneurial and philanthropic activities within the Asian region over the past two decades. He is passionate about establishing businesses and creative disruption, exploring the big ideas behind science and science fiction, and supporting science education. Since 1997 Fritz has been involved in an array of digital ventures in mainland China. He co-founded Qunar, one of China’s largest online travel marketplaces, and Shawei, one of China’s largest digital sports media companies. Fritz currently coordinates his entrepreneurial business activities through Hong Kong-based Queen's Road Capital. Fritz and his wife Elaine co-founded The Queen’s Road Foundation, a non-profit foundation focused on supporting a range of programs in arts and science education. Additionally, Fritz is an avid supporter of The Asia Society and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees.

Today's Podcast is a masterclass on statecraft and diplomacy between Japan, China and the US with Professor Ezra F. Vogel the Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University. He has had a long association with Harvard, receiving his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1958 and then teaching at the university from 1967 to 2000. Prof. Vogel served as inaugural Director of the undergraduate concentration in East Asian Studies from 1972 to 1991. In 1973, he became the second Director of the East Asian Research Center, and served as Director of the U.S.-Japan Program, Director of the Fairbank Center and Founding Director of the Asia Center. From 1993 to 1995, Prof. Vogel took a two-year leave of absence from Harvard to serve as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia in Washington, D.C. In 1996, he chaired the American Assembly on China and edited the resulting volume Living with China. His book Japan as Number One in Japanese translation became a best seller in Japan, and his book Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China in Chinese translation a best seller in China. Prof. Vogel has received numerous honors over the years, including 11 honorary degrees.

Today's podcast is with General (Ret) David H. Petraeus (New York) Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which supports KKR’s investment committees, Prior to joining KKR, Gen. Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands, five of which were in combat, including command of coalition forces during the Surge in Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan. Following his service in the military, Gen. Petraeus served as the Director of the CIA during a period of significant achievements in the global war on terror. Since leaving government, he also served for 3-1/2 years as a Visiting Professor of Public Policy at CUNY's Macaulay Honors College and he was for 6 years a Judge Widney Professor at the University of Southern California and a Senior Fellow at Harvard University. Gen. Petraeus has received numerous U.S. military, State Department, NATO, and United Nations medals and awards, including four Defense Distinguished Service Medals, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, the Combat Action Badge, the Ranger tab, and master parachutist wings, and he has been decorated by 13 foreign countries. Over the past 15years, General Petraeus has also been named a runner-up for Time magazine’s Person of the Year, the Daily Telegraph man of the year, a Time 100 selectee, and one of Foreign Policy magazine’s top 100 public intellectuals.

Today's Podcast is with Jason Yip, community Director at MWYO a Think and do tank in Hong Kong. Previously he was Regional Head of Market at the government affairs and donor relations division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). During his time at the ICRC, Jason has worked at the Geneva headquarters to develop dialogue and mobilize resources with member states in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and has been stationed in Palestine, Afghanistan and Myanmar as an ICRC Delegate. Jason has been responsible for developing and implementing ICRC’s humanitarian initiatives in the battlefield and engaged in emergency relief. Born and raised in Hong Kong, he began his career as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, and speaks fluent English, Mandarin, French, Japanese and Cantonese. In 2018, Jason was awarded a Medal of Honour by the Hong Kong SAR Government and selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons by JCI HK.

Like many youngsters in Hong Kong, Jason Yip grew up in public housing estates more interested in hanging out with friends than studying. With a late burst of effort from Form Six onwards, he was accepted by HKU, and upon graduation landed a job with an investment bank in New York providing financial security and achieving the “Hong Kong dream” of property ownership. However, four years later he made a life-changing decision that parents and friends thought insane. He changed career, moving into humanitarian aid. Jason Yip is the one of the very first Hong Kongers at the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross to be hired as an on-the-ground delegate and has been dispatched to conflict zones including Palestine, Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria and Myanmar. There he upholds the ICRC mission - protecting civilians during fighting, helping locate those separated from families, and assisting in rebuilding a post-war infrastructure. Jason has been involved in numerous life-threatening scenarios including negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan for the release of 33 kidnapped schoolchildren and their teachers and delivering letters from prisoners in the mountains of Myanmar to their families. Join Jason Yip on how he went from being a lackadaisical, fun-loving kid to an adult filled with unswerving belief in the value of humanitarian work in a world full of tension, and why Hong Kongers should get more involved in international organizations.

Today’s Podcast is with Dee Poon Managing Director of Brands and Distribution at Esquel Group, a leading global textile and apparel manufacturer with operations worldwide. Dee is a Member of the Asia Advisory Board of Christie’s, the International Advisory Committee of Harvard University’s Asia Center, She is also on the Board of Directors of the Esquel – Y.L. Yang Education Foundation. In 2014, she was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and was designated a Fellow of the Aspen Institute’s China Fellowship Program. Actively engaged in the arts, Dee sits on the International Council for London’s Tate and the International Council of New York’s Moma.

She serves on the Board of Directors of the China Arts Foundation and the Collectors Circle Committee of Asia Art Archive. She has also been a Member of the Performance Committee at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), and a Member of the Lincoln Center China Advisory Council (New York), and was a Co-founder of the Ambassadors of Design (Hong Kong).

Dee sat down with Asia Society’s Amanda Tung to conduct the following interview.

Esther Wong is Managing Director of SenseTime and Founding Partner of SenseTime’s AI Fund. SenseTime is among the world’s most valuable AI unicorns, focusing on computer vision and deep learning. She previously ran Equity Capital Markets at Bocom International. Ms. Wong began her career as an analyst on Wall Street with ABN Amro. Her last role in New York was Head of Sales and Trading for Cazenove Asia (acquired by JPMorgan), the first Chinese and first woman appointed that position.

Today’s Podcast is with Peter Diamandis the Founder & Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions. He is also the Executive Founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world's leaders on exponentially growing technologies.

As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is also co-Founder BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies.

Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of two books: Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World.

Fortune Magazine recently named Peter Diamandis as one of the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders."

He earned degrees in Molecular Genetics and Aerospace Engineering from the MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Peter’s favorite saying is “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.” Peter sat down with Asia Society Hong Kong to conduct the following interview.

In episode three of the Movers & shakers Podcast, Dr. Parag Khanna stops by Asia Society Hong Kong to discuss the bold new ideas in his newest book, The Future is Asian. Parag also shared some invaluable lessons learned from his past travels and how he thinks the youth of today can best prepare themselves for a global future lead by Asian countries.

Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author. He is Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. Parag's newest book is The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019). His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. In 2008, Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.”

In episode 2 of the Movers & Shakers podcast we sit down with Oscar-winner Ruby Yang who started her directorial career with films like Citizen Hong Kong (1999) and China 21 (2001). Her most acclaimed work, The Blood of Yingzhou District (2006), won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.

Ruby uses the camera to tell us stories about identity, place, and voiceless people. Her documentaries empowered disenfranchised groups to speak out and brought their stories to the sight of the world. But what is Ruby's personal story? What was her journey to becoming a filmmaker? How did she shape her career in America as a minority? What did she experience from making the documentaries in different countries? ASHK Executive Director Alice Mong sits down with Ruby Yang to talk about her journey as a filmmaker, her thoughts on winning an Oscar, and other interesting life lessons from her creative life.