Home

AmCham Shanghai would like to invite you to August's Member Briefing featuring the Future Leaders of the Year Awards on Tuesday, August 3rd from 5:30-7:30 pm atthe PwC Innovation Centre.


Young professionals under the age of 39 have made significant strides in our community as corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and community leaders. Join AmCham Shanghai for the Future Leaders of the Year Awards program featuring presentations by finalists. The winners will be chosen by the audience followed by a cocktail reception that will celebrate these future leaders' contributions and demonstrate why more companies are recognizing the value of investing in young talent.


Since nominations opened in May, we have received numerous applications. From them, a panel of judges has selected finalists for each of two award categories (listed alphabetically):


Future Leader of the Year Award

  • Ivy Wong, Diversity and Inclusion Consulting
  • Matthew Jimenez, Beast of The East
  • Melody Li, SPORTFIVE
  • Sara Tanhaee, Honey-Can-Do
  • Tao Liu, Honeywell


Entrepreneurship Award

  • Matt Spriegel, Atiom
  • Maximilien Perez, XSuit
  • Nadya Liu, Linke Consulting Co., Ltd.


At the ceremony, finalists will be given two minutes to showcase their achievements in the form of a speech, the winner of each category will then be chosen through a live vote by the audience.


Agenda:

17:30-18:00: Check-in & Networking

18:00-18:05: Opening Remarks

18:05-18:20: Introduction of Future Leaders Awards, Judges, and Finalists

18:20-18:50: Finalists Pitching

18:50-19:00: Announcement of the Winners


*For more details about the 2021 Future Leaders Awards, please click HERE. If you have any questions, please contact: jenny.wang@amcham-shanghai.org


**Finalists' profiles are in the Speakers section below.

Speakers

  • Ivy Wong (Co-founder of Diversity and Inclusion Consulting)

    Ivy Wong

    Co-founder of Diversity and Inclusion Consulting

    Born and bred in Hong Kong, Ivy relocated to Shanghai in late 2017. She has been a strong straight ally and major force in driving LGBT+ workplace inclusion in Hong Kong, mainland China and Asia for the last 6 years. From 2015 - 2017, she led the pioneering Hong Kong LGBT+ inclusion Index, which is a benchmarking tool to support LGBT+ inclusion efforts of companies in Hong Kong. Since 2018, she has been leading various LGBT+ workplace inclusion conference and job fair for companies to learn, share and exchange information on how to create an inclusive environment for LGBT+ employees and allies in China. She worked not only with companies, but also grassroot community groups, Chamber of Commerce as well as foreign Consulates and United Nations to promote LGBT+ workplace inclusion in China.

    view more
  • Matt Spriegel (Founder & CEO of Atiom)

    Matt Spriegel

    Founder & CEO of Atiom

    Matt is an entrepreneur, mentor and active member of the community. He moved to China over 10 years ago to teach himself Mandarin. While he was only supposed to stay for a year, he fell in love with China and the endless opportunities to grow. Since arriving, he has worked in start-ups and corporates that have taken him around the world. He has always had a passion for learning and while working in a big corporate he saw an opportunity to apply his Mandarin learning techniques to company training, engagement and communications. It was a difficult decision, but he left to start Atiom.

    Atiom is a gamified SaaS platform that empowers all people in an organization to learn and grow every day. Through many projects with companies like Compass Group, Porsche, CHANEL, Mandarin Oriental and K11, he determined that the focus of their solution should be on the "forgotten workforce" frontline teams. Although the past year has been difficult, they have been working very closely with their partners to help combat the challenges of the newly distributed workforce through daily mobile engagement. To date, they are a B2B business servicing large corporations inside and outside China to drive compliance, safety and standards to frontline teams. Their proven gamification system, spaced repetition and bite-sized content delivery helps turn training, engagement and communication into a daily practice. The employees that use Atiom complete activities almost every working day on their platform improving service level, decreasing employee turnover and increasing cost savings to the companies they serve. Employees have fun competing on leaderboards, completing daily quests and going head to head with their colleagues. Atiom has also incorporated a virtual forrest - as teams complete trainings, they build a virtual forrest together and have a chance to plant real trees with the Million Tree Project and other tree planting initiatives globally.

    While they do not consider themselves a traditional learning management system, the platform has an easy way to schedule and deliver micro-content in any language (video, picture, text) to frontline teams. Atiom also supports HR teams in doing employee engagement checks, not once a year, but every day through micro-style pulse surveys. This helps HR teams uncover issues on the frontline in real-time. They have also recently developed community forums to provide a space for frontline teams to give peer-to-peer support and plan to launch a company newsfeed next month (i.e. WeChat moments or Facebook for companies).

    Beyond Atiom, Matt dreams of building education centers in the most remote regions of the world. Outside of work, Matt lives in Shanghai with his girlfriend Kelly and his dog Pippen. He loves to travel, compete in triathlons and play tennis. He is also an active member of AmCham and serves as Co-Chair of the Entrepreneurship Committee. He also serves on the Board of Roots and Shoots, and the HR Committee of AustCham, and is the Learning Chair for EO Accelerator.

    view more
  • Maximilien Perez (CEO of XSuit)

    Maximilien Perez

    CEO of XSuit

    Maximilien Perez is an entrepreneur based in China for more than 10 years, including study at Fudan University. In 2017, he crowdfunded xSuit on Kickstarter, raising over $600,000 as the most funded suit in history. It has grown extensively in sales and reach, highlighted in Forbes magazine, Buzzfeed, Discovery Channel, and more.

    Max is dedicated to being a leader in blending fashion with technology and taking the industry to new levels.

    xSuit is based in Shanghai, with operations in the US.

    view more
  • Sara Tanhaee (Vice President at Honey-Can-Do)

    Sara Tanhaee

    Vice President at Honey-Can-Do

    Sara Tanhaee learned early in her career that while she alone could deliver results, exponentially more impactful and rewarding was her ability to lead and influence other people to achieve results across the organization. Sara's focus on results keeps her in the corporate world to this day - she thrives on broad and positive organizational impact. Graced with an innovative leadership style, Sara consistently challenges, empowers, and inspires her team toward higher performance and the goal of having a positive global impact.

    An Iranian-American, Sara received her International MBA before completing a multi-year work assignment in Mexico and later a global role in China. Fueled by cultural diversity, Sara's high self-awareness and ability to see beauty in different cultures help her find bridges between cultures that serve to better both the workplace and the world. Consequently, fostering cultural understanding and harmony has become a mission of sorts in her personal and professional life.

    In 2018, AutoZone, a Fortune 300 Company, assigned Sara as its Director of Operations. Over a short two years, Sara set up AutoZone's Shanghai sourcing operation and led her young team to record new levels, exceeding the company's 5-year plan by doubling manufacturer-direct sourcing from $400 million to over $800 million. Achieving such growth required that Sara restructure the entire sourcing process, including people, processes, and systems, to ensure high efficiency and company-wide alignment; during this time, she grew her team from 15 to 30 strong. Sara even established a new product development department to help expand AutoZone's product line and, most importantly, top-line revenues.

    In other roles, such as General Manager, China, for Swedish retailer Clas Ohlson, and VP of Global Sourcing for Chicago-based Honey-Can-Do, Sara consistently demonstrated her capability as a thoughtful leader. Time and again, she single-handed energized, enlightened, and empowered staff to not only meet but exceed company goals.

    view more
  • Melody Li (Senior Director, Sales & Marketing at SPORTFIVE of Sportfive Asia (Shanghai) LTD)

    Melody Li

    Senior Director, Sales & Marketing at SPORTFIVE of Sportfive Asia (Shanghai) LTD

    Melody Li is Senior Director, Sales & Marketing at SPORTFIVE (previously named Lagardère Sports) and assists Echo Li (Managing Director, Greater China & Senior Vice President at SPORTFIVE) in spearheads SPORTFIVE’s business in the region.

    Reporting to SPORTFVE China Managing Director-Echo Li, Melody is responsible for Marketing, PR communication, Digital, Media, and business development, as well as assisting Echo in establishing and implementing a Greater China market-oriented marketing and business plan to create values for SPORTFIVE global partners, setting up and implementing the commercialization and fan growth strategy for global leading sports rights holders.

    Including FIFA World Cup, UEFA Champions League, AFC, Formula 1, EPL, Bundesliga, Ligue 1; leading Atletico de Madrid, Belgium National Team, Spanish National Team, and Paris Saint German’s continued digital innovation and fan engagement; supporting Chinese brands’ global journey via sports sponsorships and comprehensive creative activations, including Tsingtao Beer, Skyworth, Honor, OPPO, Hisense, TCL, Sailun Tyre, Saic Group, and Tiktok while helping international brands’ continued market penetration via the power of sports including BMW, Alliance, Bridgestone, Redbull, Nike, Samsung, and VW; providing consulting service to premium sporting organizations in the market, including Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee and Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee.

    Some of the industry-renowned projects led by Melody’s team include OPPO’s global ambassador partnership with Neymar Jr, OPPO’s collaboration with Boston Marathon, TCL’s creative activation revolving sponsorship with China Basketball Association, Copa America, and LPL; C’estbon and Toyota’s partnerships with AFC; supporting Shenzhen government to bid and stage the premium football event of Trophée des Champions in 2018 and 2019, operating Atletico de Madrid, Belgium Football National Team and Spanish Football National Team’s social channels.

    Under Echo's leadership, SPORTFIVE China has established the esports unit (it also belongs to the marketing team led by Melody) prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Thanks to her keeping pace with the times' spirit, Melody's team contributed to more than 20 esports sponsorship and marketing activation deals, including global premium esports club T1's partnership with Kuaishou, Hisense's partnership with Fnatic to enhance European market positioning, TCL's comprehensive creative activation on LPL sponsorship, etc.

    Even if the UEFA European Championship marketing competition is so fierce, Melody also facilitated the partnership between Roca, the world's leading premium bathroom brand, and the Spanish National Men's Football Team in Greater China region. The cooperation with the Spanish Men's Football Team is to enhance brand awareness and Roca's consumer engagement activities along the journey of the Spanish Men's Football Team's trip competing in UEFA European Championship and FIFA World Cup.

    Melody began her career as a broadcast liaison officer for 2008 Beijing Olympic Tennis and Paralympic Track & Field. Before she joined SPORTFIVE in 2016, She was highly involved in the commercialization and partnership activation of multiple regional and international sporting events and complex including the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, China International Tennis Hall of Fame, The Volvo Ocean Race, Ultimate Fighting Championship, Trophée des Champions, Harlem Globetrotters, etc.

    view more
  • Tao Liu (R&D Manager, Florine Product at Honeywell)

    Tao Liu

    R&D Manager, Florine Product at Honeywell

    Tao is an innovative leader in fluorine product and heat transfer related technology with strong R&D capabilities and rich technical marketing background. Together with the business counterparts, he and his team delivered strong results in complex environments. He is now working for Advanced Materials of Honeywell, focusing on developing environmentally friendly refrigerants to satisfy increasing stricter global environmental regulations, meanwhile, to help multiple industries to save energy cost and reduce CO2 emission through efficiency improvement. Till now, Honeywell Solstice platform helped the society reducing carbon emissions by 210 million tons, equivalent to move 44 million cars out of the road. Tao as a technical leader, was one of proud Honeywell employees to make it happen.

    Beside of traditional air conditioning and refrigeration technology development, he and his team have also expanded the boundary of the product and technology which can further bring energy consumption to industries, such as using Organic Rankine Cycle to recover the industrial waste heat and geothermal energy, and high efficiency heat pump to replace high pollution coal fired boilers. Moreover, He is leading a team to initiate new product development platform for electronics cooling to address increasing heat dissipation needs aligned with high power chip evolution in effective and energy-saving ways. This platform became one of Honeywell’s Advanced Material's top breakthrough initiatives by opening a billion dollar potential market for the company. The new technology has already been used by Huawei, Samsung etc. on their 5G base stations' electronics cooling.

    Prior to Honeywell, Tao started his career in a global HVAC leading companies, Trane and UTRC later with an accumulated experience of 15 years. He has been dedicated in driving R&D excellence by incorporating thermodynamic modeling to guide cooling solution design, to achieve better energy efficiency and reducing the R&D cost. His technical leadership has always been appreciated by his team members. Extra effort has been invested in developing IP to accelerate state-of-art technology commercialization and enhance the competitive advantages of employers. Till now, 17 invention disclosures were developed, and 6 out of 17 were converted to invention patents and 2 was selected as trade secrets by the company.

    Tao holds a Bachelor degree in Thermal Energy and Power Engineering from Tianjin University, a Master degree in Refrigeration and Cryogenics Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and an MBA from École des ponts Paris Tech.

    view more
  • Matthew Jimenez (Chief Brewer at Beast of The East)

    Matthew Jimenez

    Chief Brewer at Beast of The East

    First coming to China, he wasn't quite sure what to make of Shanghai. When a hobby for brewing became a passion, it lead to a career start like no one could have imagined. Ten years later, he and his teams still craft award winning beers. Giant multi-nationals or the local craft scene, Matt has accomplished what many could only dream of and all along the way, developing his teams to provide only the best for their customers. With an acute sense of taste, he also shows the same sense for business

    view more
  • Nadya Liu (Founder and CEO of Linke Consulting Co., Ltd.)

    Nadya Liu

    Founder and CEO of Linke Consulting Co., Ltd.

    Graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with Master's in Industrial Engineering, Nadya has been deeply engaged in the field of Operations Excellence and proficient in Lean Six Sigma and quality improvement tools. She is currently the youngest of the 15 ASQ certified Master Black Belts in China and also holds Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification by TÜV.

    Nadya has worked in a multinational group, responsible for promoting Lean Six Sigma in Asia Pacific region. Her main tasks include six sigma organization setup, continuous improvement project delivery, training development and delivery, project coaching, etc. After that, she worked as a management consultant in a world-leading strategic consulting company helping multiple Fortune 500 clients solve problems though projects. Currently, Nadya is the founder and chief trainer of Linke consulting, focusing on providing theoretical training and practical coaching on Operations Excellence for corporate clients and individual students.

    So far, Nadya has delivered 100+ training sessions on Operations Excellence and project management soft skills, trained 2000+ students from over 20 countries, including entry level staff and mid to top management, and coached 500+ continuous improvement projects. She is spoken highly of by both corporate clients and individual students due to her solid knowledge and experience as well as the engaging training style.

    view more

Tickets

Member Ticket
Member Price Complimentary
Member Company Employee Ticket
Standard Price RMB 180
Non-Member Ticket
Standard Price RMB 280