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Ekrem Ozer
Chief Executive Officer at Burger King ChinaEkrem Özer joined TFI TAB Food Investments family in October 2013. He has been the CFO of the Group until December 2018 and is currently the CEO of BK China. As part of his role as CFO of TFI, Mr. Özer has successfully completed equity raise from Goldman Sachs, EBRD and Credit Suisse in 2016. He also led the preparation of TFI to IPO in 2017. Mr. Özer has previously served as a Director in KPMG’s Advisory Practice, where he advised clients on transactions, primarily in mergers and acquisitions. He also previously worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Istanbul and London, with a focus on retail and private equity clients. Mr. Özer holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Business from Indiana University, Bloomington.
Heidi Yao
R&D Director, Global Quality Program AMENA & ESSA of PepsiCoHeidi Yao graduated from Zhongzhou University in Henan China subject in Food Engineering, and MBA from South China University of Technology. Have 30 working experience in food manufacturing cross QC, Process control, Production, Technical Service, Product development, Quality and Food safety by design.
Heidi has worked at United biscuit, Nabisco foods, Danone biscuit, now is working in PepsiCo Asia R&D centre. Heidi is taking R&D director role for PepsiCo global quality program AMENA & ESSA drive global specification standard upgrade and digitalization.
Norman Gu
General Manager at HormelNorman Gu has been the General Manager of Hormel (China) Investment Co., Ltd since May 2016, responsible for Hormel’s overall China strategy, business development and daily operations.
Norman has been engaged in sales and marketing for his entire career and has rich experience in the food service business segment. Norman joined Hormel in 2003 as a Regional Sales Manager - East China. In 2006, he was relocated to Beijing Hormel and promoted as Sales Director, then back . He returned to Shanghai Hormel as Sales Director in 2008. He became Director of the Foodservice Business Unit in 2010. In 2014, he was named as VP of Sales & Marketing China and was responsible for the entire commercial operation of the company.
Norman holds an MBA degree from Renmin University of China. He is the co-chair of AmCham Shanghai's Food, Agriculture and Beverage Committee.
Scott Minoie
Founder, Vice Chairman of Element Fresh Inc.An American with over 25 years experience in the food & beverage industry, Mr. Minoie built his experience in the U.S. in a number of restaurants and with companies such as Whole Foods Market. He has successfully managed restaurant and catering businesses in the PR China since 2000. He founded Element Fresh in 2001, and since, has grown into a chain of 38 restaurants in 9 Chinese cities. Besides a role in the strategic development of the company, Mr. Minoie also oversees the company’s restaurant operations inclusive of quality assurance, supply chain and logistics, construction and design, training and development, and product and recipe innovation. Scott is the co-chair of AmCham Shanghai's Food, Agriculture, & Beverage committee.
Merry Fang
Manager, Food Safety at DisneyMerry Fang is a manager of food safety at Shanghai Disney Resort. Her responsibilities extend across Shanghai Disneyland and the resort’s two themed hotels and include the review of the restaurant layout and design process, the acquiring and renewal of licenses and permits, vendor selection, Cast Member training, and the establishment of the hazard analysis and critical control point system and the audit system. Merry also oversees all food & beverage locations in Disneytown.
Merry has been with Shanghai Disney Resort for over five years and has a combined total of 16 years of work experience in the retail industry as a national food safety and quality manager. Merry also holds a bachelor’s degree in Food Sciences from Shanghai Ocean University.
Tiffany Hu
Chief Operating Officer / Food & Beverage Sector Lead at Ketchum ChinaTiffany Hu’s extensive experience in communications and marketing comes from both agency-side and in-house sides with brands across Greater China and the United Kingdom. She led the Ketchum China team that was awarded the PRWeek Asia Awards Greater China Campaign of the Year for two years in a row.
Tiffany’s expertise spans strategy, corporate reputation, corporate social responsibility, integrated marketing campaign, and issue and crisis management. She has provided strategic communications and brand marketing counsel to multinational companies including Diageo, DuPont Nutrition & Health, General Mills, Hershey, Pizza Hut, Wonderful Pistachios, AIG, New Development Bank, Booking.com, FedEx, Henkel, Marks & Spencer, Rado, HP, Qualcomm, Motorola, and many more.
Prior to joining Ketchum, Ms. Hu worked at Eli Lilly and Abbott Laboratories to support new neurological medicine launches, market access and corporate citizenship and policy initiatives. Earlier she worked at Burson-Marsteller and Era Ogilvy.
Tiffany holds an M.B.A. from the University of Cambridge.
William Watts
Deputy Director, Food Safety Collaboration Center of WalmartWilliam Watts, Deputy Director of the Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center (WFSCC), is an experienced professional in government relations, international business, and business technology. Watts is currently responsible for government engagement and building strategic partnerships with others in industry, academia, and research for the WFSCC. Watts focuses on strategic food safety programs and, in particular, concentrates on innovation and technology in food quality and agriculture. Before joining Walmart, Mr. Watts served as an Economic Officer in the U.S. Department of State and was a business technology consultant with Fortune 500 firm Accenture. Watts studied at three different Chinese universities during his college years- Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu, East Normal China University in Shanghai, and Heilongjiang University in Harbin. Watts holds a degree in Economics with a minor in Asian Studies from the University of Arkansas where he graduated summa cum laude. Mr. Watts is conversant in Mandarin and has varying fluency in Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Italian.
Ashley Wu
Director of Food and Beverage Industry, Advertising and Marketing Solutions at TencentAshley has 13+ years of experience in Digital Media and Retail Industry in China. She has provided consultancy to client marketing, media and retail units to formulate business strategy and improve marketing efficiency. Currently the Director of Food & Beverage industry in Tencent Advertising and Marketing solutions, she leverages the Tencent eco-system to support manufacturers’ business growth through holistic digital marketing, content co-creation, and smart retail. Her work enables manufacturers to close the loop from doing advertisements to driving sales conversion from online and offline. Prior to Tencent, Ashley worked in The Nielsen Company (China and USA) for 11 years, commercial head of Digital Ad Ratings and retail measurement.
Kyle Artz
Senior Director, Strategic Planning, Mainland China of Coca-ColaKyle Artz leads Strategic Planning for Coca-Cola Mainland China. Starting with the external environment – macroeconomic trends, competitive intelligence, and consumer insights – he is then responsible for identifying opportunities and developing growth strategies across the beverage landscape in China. He also stewards the portfolio innovation process. Kyle previously spent several years in Investor Relations at company headquarters in Atlanta, directly engaging with the investment community and creating the company’s quarterly earnings release. Prior to that, Kyle held roles in Coca-Cola’s Finance organization which allowed him to work in 11 of the company’s global business units (heavily concentrated in Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa markets). Kyle began his career as an external auditor with PwC in the United States. He holds a B.S. in Accounting, a B.S. in Business Finance, and a M.S. in Accounting, all from Florida State University. He is an active Certified Public Accountant in the US states of Georgia and Florida. English is his native language, his Spanish is marginal, and he’s currently making all efforts to learn Mandarin and Russian.
Xulin Guo
Chief of Staff at Hema by AlibabaMr. Xulin Guo is the Chief of Staff and Business Assistant to the CEO of Freshippo (a.k.a. Hema in pinyin) , an Alibaba wholly-owned company, which operates a new type of retail business that provides seamless online and offline shopping experiences to consumers. Freshippo currently has more than 100 stores in over 20 cities in China.
Before joining Freshippo and Alibaba, Xulin founded two companies in China, one was an e-commerce platform for professional services and another was a boutique financial advisory firm. Before that, he was with Goldman Sachs, IDG Capital, and JPMorgan, where he was responsible for deals in IPO, M&A, venture capital investment and securities trading.
Jonathan Dong
Partner at BrunswickJonathan joins Brunswick after more than 30 years working in the public affairs, corporate communications and media space.
He was most recently Head of Corporate Affairs in the Greater China Region for Nestlé, the world’s largest food company. In that role, he led a team across Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China, where he was responsible for the company’s stakeholder engagement, public and media relations, government affairs, public affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, internal communications, and corporate security.
Prior to Nestlé, China, Jonathan worked for Walmart, Boeing, Siemens and Airbus with similar roles overseeing their corporate affairs and communication functions. Jonathan also spent several years working at communication consulting firms and prior to that, was a reporter and editor for the Beijing Review. He started his career as an English teacher at Universities and High Schools.
David Ettinger
Managing Partner at Keller and Heckman LLPDavid Ettinger is the Chief Representative in Keller and Heckman’s Shanghai office. He counsels multinational companies on the import and export of food and food-related products to ensure compliance with regulations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Since 1999, Mr. Ettinger worked in the firm’s Washington, DC and Brussels offices, and is uniquely positioned to counsel foreign companies who need to navigate the regulatory landscape in Asia. He is a frequent lecturer and author on international food safety matters. Mr. Ettinger is a recognized practitioner by Chambers and Partners in the area of Life Sciences (International Firms) – China and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America® 2016, 2017 and 2018 (FDA Law).
Ker Gibbs
President at AmCham ShanghaiKer Gibbs first came to China in 1985 and has worked in various roles giving him broad exposure to US-China relations and business issues facing American companies operating in Asia.
In the 1990s Mr. Gibbs worked for the Boston Consulting Group in Shanghai. Since then he has split his time between Asia and Silicon Valley, serving in executive positions with Apple, Disney, and high-growth Internet businesses. He moved to Shanghai in 2002 as head of Asia Pacific for a Nasdaq-listed network security company that was acquired by McAfee. His career in high tech led him to banking; he became head of technology and media in greater China for HSBC. As an investment banker he worked with Alibaba, Baidu, and other firms advising on mergers and cross-border transactions.
From banking Mr. Gibbs moved to direct investments. He was a founding investor in the Crystal Orange hotel group, helping grow the company to 130 properties and 1,500 employees in China. He also led successful investments in real estate, e-commerce, and medical technology companies.
Before his appointment as president, Mr. Gibbs was elected three times to the Board of Governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and served as chairman for 2016 and 2017. He also sits on the board of the United Way in China and volunteers with Renewal, a local homeless shelter. He is an op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post, and other publications.
Ker Gibbs holds a BA in economics from UCLA and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
Ben Hassing
Walmart at Senior Vice President, Global Cross Border TradeBen Hassing is Senior Vice President of Walmart’s Global Cross Border Trade based in San Francisco, California. He also chairs the Walmart International Ecommerce Leadership Summit.
Prior to his current role, Ben lived in China for four years and led E-Commerce and Technology (IT) for Walmart and Sam’s Club where he and his team built an omni-channel business in partnership with Tencent, JD, Dada and others. He also led an enterprise digital transformation that included the launch of Omega8, an innovation platform connecting Walmart to local Chinese startups.
In his 16 years with Walmart he has held leadership roles in Merchandising, Finance, Operations, Strategic Planning, E-Commerce and Technology.
He holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and a Bachelor’s of Arts and Sciences degree in History from Temple University.
Kenny Lifeng He
Cofounder & COO of Shenzhen HANSC Cooking RobotsKenny gained rich experience in sales management for the food machinery division at Buhler Group. He also has done marketing work for a domestic large food machinery group. Kenny received his Master of Food Science from Jiangnan University. He is currently the Cofounder and COO of Shenzhen HANSC - a cooking robot innovation company.
Evelyn Hussain
Head of Innovation at The Silk InitiativeEvelyn has 15 years of experience in design and branding in China. Having worked on revitalising a coconut water, and a cereal brand for launches in China, she is able to share insights on the Chinese consumers. She’s excited to share TSI Navigator – a sentiment tracker that visualised changes in consumer purchase criteria across multiple F&B categories, and show how clients could use the Navigator tool to make agile, data-driven, and culturally nuanced business decisions around their brand, product, pack, and messaging strategies. Her ability to straddle the creative and commercial divide means perusing design to solve business problems by way of rapid-prototyping and workshops, ensuring creative outputs are China-led. With fingers on the pulse, she’s always up to date with emergent trends in the F&B space in China.
Sarah Köchling
Managing Principal at Blossom InnovationSarah Köchling is the Managing Principal of Blossom, a strategic insights, innovation and design consultancy that supports clients to get to breakthrough consumer, market and industry insights and collaboratively transform them into impact at all levels of their organizations. With over 25 years of experience in China and Asia, including brand management roles at Procter & Gamble China and J&J International, leading innovation practices at agencies What If and Dragon Rouge and advising several China startups, Sarah is an experienced consultant who offers her clients an optimal balance of best-practice experience and entrepreneurial savvy. Over the years she and her team have applied their considerable skills across a broad range of consumer and business to business categories for both Fortune 100 firms and local companies. She is an active member of AmCham Shanghai where she serves on the Board of Governors and is the co-chair of Women’s Executive Network (WEN).
Bruno Lannes
Partner at Bain & CompanyBruno Lannes is a partner based in the Shanghai office.
In over 20 years of strategy consulting experience, especially in Consumer Goods and Retail industries, he led numerous projects across FMCG in food, personal care and beverage sectors, as well as in food and non food retailing, on various topics such as growth strategy, M&A and post-merger integration, sales & distribution optimization and brand strategy. He initiated and is leading Bain’s annual China Shopper Report and China Luxury Market Study which is a reference in the industry.
Mr. Lannes is the author of a book on management excellence, which describes the key success factors of 10 large French corporations. He has published numerous articles on China consumer product, retail and luxury topics in key business media such as Harvard Business Review China, Wall Street Journal Asia, BusinessWeek, Forbes China, South China Morning Post. He is a frequent speaker at high-level business summits.
Mr. Lannes is a recipient of Shanghai Magnolia Silver Award which is presented annually, by the Shanghai Municipal Government, to expatriates who have significantly contributed to Shanghai's economic and social development.
Mr. Lannes earned an MBA with Distinction from the Wharton School, and is a graduate of Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris.
Xin Li
President at SustentureLi Xin is President of Sustenture – an investment, M&A and strategy consulting firm with MNC and SME clients in F&B, tech, retail and manufacturing sectors. Previously, Li was China President for Sealed Air Corp, a US Fortune 500 Company with businesses in food packaging and product protection. Li held sales, marketing and management responsibilities in US and Canada for 13 years prior to his China assignment. Li serves on the boards of several food and industrial companies in the US and China, and is also a board member of Enactus China – a non-profit organization. Li has been an active member of AmCham Shanghai for the past 13 years, and serves as a core member of the Food, Agriculture & Beverage Committee.
Sara Ma
Marketing GM at TmallSara Ma, Tmall Foods Marketing General Manager, focuses on FMCG marketing, China market, and Chinese consumers, especially in the foods & beverage industries.
Since joined Alibaba group in 2016, Sara has enabled and supported food manufactures to build and upgrade brands on Tmall platform, and has fasten the digitalization trends for top foods brands on Tmall.com.
Benoit Rossignol
CEO of Shiyao Investment Advisory (Shanghai), Ltd.Dr. Benoit Rossignol is CEO of Shiyao Investment Ltd. and has been based in China for the last twenty years. Before founding Shiyao Investment Ltd, Dr. Rossignol was Investment Officer at the World Bank Group, in charge of investment in the food & retail sector for China. Both at the World Bank Group and as CEO of Shiyao Investment Ltd, Dr. Rossignol and his team have been instrumental in structuring and advising numerous transactions both in the agribusiness, food manufacturing and the life sciences sector in China and Japan. Previous to joining the World Bank Group, Dr. Rossignol was the head of the Agri-food unit of a think thank based in Tokyo, Nichifutsu Kaikan, in charge of identifying and structuring strategic cooperation with Japanese Food & Retail groups.
Dr. Rossignol is a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management (MBA, Northwestern University, Chicago), the University of Tokyo, School of Agricultural Economics (MS) and the Veterinary School of Lyon (DVM). He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, English and French.
Ryan Scott
Director of Agricultural Trade Office (ATO) ShanghaiRyan R. Scott is the current Director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Trade Office (ATO) at U.S. Consulate Shanghai, China. Mr. Scott has worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for over 17 years and has represented U.S. agriculture in several emerging markets throughout Asia (including Beijing, China from 2010-2014) and Africa.
Edison Tang
COO at Food Coordinate ConsultingEdison Tang- COO Food Coordinate Consulting in China
Edison Tang is the Chief Operating Officer (“COO”) of a top food law consulting firm Food Coordinate Consulting in China. An experienced corporate lawyer, Edison is now a senior food law attorney advocating for various multinational food companies and organizations. Additionally, he is the legal advisor for Shanghai Inspection and Quarantine Association and a food safety expert for the World Bank.
He loves both legal practice and academia. He was a China law advisor for UCLA law school and is teaching a distant course at Michigan State University. He is a committee member of Shanghai Food and Drug Safety Institute and has worked with Renmin University and East China University of Science & Technology on several academic projects.
Chaochun Ye
Founder and CEO of Xiangyao IOM IntelligentWith an EMBA from Shanghai Jiaotong University, Mr. Ye has rich experience in the application of big data of Internet of Things. Xiangyao IOM Intelligent is a medical/pharma supply company that makes liquid nutrition and juices.
Polly Zhang
Co-founder of JOVA HealthPolly Zhang is the co-founder of JOVA Health, a lifestyle brand that is rooted in Eastern wellness. Previously, Polly has worked with Novartis Pharmaceuticals at its corporate development division. Prior to joining Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Polly was also with Merrill Lynch's Healthcare investment banking division.
Polly holds both a business administration and a molecular cell biology degree from UC Berkeley.