John is a Founder and the Chief Cultural Officer of Sino Associates with more than 22 years of training, coaching, and facilitation experience in Asia, including 20 years of leadership development experience in China. John has developed tens of thousands of professionals in leadership practices across Asia and North America with a focus on Global Leadership and coaching leaders transitioning to new roles.
His Global Leadership courses prepare leaders to create impact and drive results on international teams and leverage proprietary tools such Sino’s VAE and 3A. He has worked with supervisor to executive level leaders from every corner of the world to be more effective and strategic in multinational organizations.
John brings a wealth of knowledge to his clients through his rich international background having lived and worked in nine countries. Beyond to providing services to corporate clients, John has served as an APEC speaker on global balance in business and as an adjunct professor on the topics of leadership and coaching.
John is certified in 12 standard cross-cultural tools including assessments and training courses covering all major academic and business settings. His signature workshop on Diversity and Inclusion has been highly praised by fortune 100 companies, embassies and consulates across Asia.

After finishing his MBA in 2003 Erik Barnes found his passion in all aspects of people development. As a consultant he worked with assessment, coaching and training clients in a variety of Fortune 500 clients. Starting in 2006 Erik joined Microsoft’s Sales Readiness team where for eight years helped develop and deliver training for sales and marketing staff in the Greater China Region. During this time, he delivered a variety of in-class and virtual trainings for teams in the region and around the world.
Following this Erik was once again involved in the people development consulting during which he designed and delivered courses for clients in industries as diverse as FMCG, automotive, IT and financial services. Erik has taught workshops in Europe, the US as well as around Asia.
Erik’s most recent return to the corporate world was a senior manager at a Big Four firm. For three years Erik helped to design and deliver content as a faculty for the PwC You Plus program. He did this for both B2C and B2B corporate clients. As he was there from the beginning, Erik was involved in many aspects of the marketing and content development as it transformed into a trend setting program.
Erik delivers in English, Chinese or bilingual as to client’s needs. His training delivery style is active, engaging and professional.