Aaron Chang’s career began in advertising in New York with McCann Erickson’s direct marketing arm before he found his true calling in the web during the dot com boom in Seattle. Aaron moved to Shanghai in 2006, where he founded a web development agency. In 2013 he launched JINGdigital to focus on the unique challenges of marketing in China and built JINGsocial, a leading WeChat marketing automation and analytics platform used by over 70 leading brands.

Before founding Shanghai corporate finance house Capital Eight in 2006, Joanne Wood was an investment banker with UBS, Jardine Fleming and GE Capital split between NYC, London, Zurich and Greater China. Wood spent her childhood in Singapore and speaks Mandarin. Her clients are both Chinese and foreign companies in over 20 different industry sectors.

In 1990, New Zealander Rob Young was selling sphagnum moss to orchid growers in central Taiwan. In 1993, he opened Shanghai’s first western pub, Shanghai Sally’s. His landlord was the Civil Defense Agency. Today, having sold his first businesses and dabbled in the property market, the serial entrepreneur owns and manages the only foreign-owned electric scooter factory in Shanghai.