Managing Partner, C3U Venture Capital; stars Alumna, Shenzhen, China

Esther BIAN is the Managing Partner of C3U Ventures. C3U is a family-oriented fund, focusing on early-stage fund-cooperation and technology investments, registered in Singapore. Esther is also the founder of Unitime Consulting. Unitime is an innovative investment consulting firm specialized in providing outsourced investment services in China and Southeast Asia, including industry research & advice, investments sourcing, due diligence, portfolio managements and M&A supports. Esther holds a MPA degree from London School of Economics and Bachelor degree from University College London.

Head, Corporate Finance China, PwC, Shanghai, China

Linda Cai is the head of PwC Corporate Finance China with approximately 20 years of experience in lead M&A advisory. She serves both multinational and domestic clients in consumer products, industrial products, agriculture, healthcare, infrastructure and energy. She holds a Master of Commerce degree in Finance from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is also a charterholder of CFA®.

Professor of International Relations, Associate Dean, Institute for 21st Century Silk Road Studies, Jinan University, Guangzhou

Chen Dingding is a Professor at the School of International Studies at Jinan University, a doctoral supervisor, and the Associate Dean of the Institute for Belt and Road Initiative and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Studies, and the Institute for 21st Century Silk Road Studies at Jinan University. He is also the Founding Director of the Intellisia Institute, a newly established independent think tank focusing on international affairs in China. He served as the Vice-President of the International Studies Association for the Asia Pacific region from 2014 to 2018. Currently, he is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin, Germany, and at the SAIS of Johns Hopkins University. He is also a Fellow at the Tsinghua Center for Global Studies. His research interests include international relations theory, China-US relations, Chinese diplomacy, and international public opinion. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2007. Before joining the University of Macau as an Assistant Professor from 2009 to 2016, he was a China and the World Program Fellow at Harvard University (2006-2007) and a Visiting Instructor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College (2007-2009).

Chen Dingding’s main academic works include the book “Help the World Understand CHINA,” the edited volume “International Relations Forecast: Theory and Practice,” and translated works such as “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?” and “Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War”, among others.

He has published numerous academic articles and political commentaries in various national and international journals, including International Security, The Washington Quarterly, and International Studies Quarterly.

Additionally, he is a columnist for the renowned international affairs English-language magazine, The Diplomat, a member of the 11th Council of the Guangdong People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and was recognized as one of the “Highly Cited Chinese Researchers” by Elsevier in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Global, Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Leader, PwC, Shenzhen, China

Director for China and Drucker Relationships, Peter F. Drucker School; former Associate Researcher, Shenzhen University; stars Alumna, Shenzhen, China

Virginia Cheung is the Director for China and Drucker Relationships at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management and a former Associate Researcher at Shenzhen University. She holds a PhD in Management and an EMBA from the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito School at Claremont Graduate University. Virginia specializes in integrating Western and Eastern thought leadership, with a focus on leadership, management, and effective societies. Her comparative research explores alternative management philosophies, with a unique emphasis on bridging Peter Drucker’s management principles and Confucianism.
She co-authored "Creating the Organization of the Future" and its Chinese counterpart with renowned Peter Drucker Chair Professor Bernard Jaworski. Virginia also holds a Master’s in Law and Economics from the University of Hamburg and a degree in Economics from the University of Bradford. In addition to her academic career, she has held leadership roles at Phoenix Satellite Television and Siemens AG and served on the boards of Chinese high-tech startups. Her cross-cultural expertise and industry experience enable her to deliver innovative, practical management solutions that address global challenges. Virginia is passionate about advancing management thinking by fostering collaboration across disciplines, industries, and cultures.

Co-Founder and Financial Journalist, The Market, Zurich, Switzerland

Mark Dittli is a journalist and author in Zurich, specializing in financial markets and global economics. He is Co-Founder and Financial Journalist of The Market, a new financial media platform that was launched in April 2019. The Market publishes in-depth analytical and background articles as well as interviews on companies, global industry trends and macroeconomic issues. From 2012 to 2017, Mark was the editor-in-chief of Finanz und Wirtschaft, Switzerland’s leading financial newspaper. Prior to that, he was the editor of the international section of Finanz und Wirtschaft and has spent five years as the U.S. correspondent of the paper in New York, covering economic and monetary policy as well as company issues. Mark has studied business economics in Zurich, journalism in New York and is a CFA charterholder. He is currently pursuing a Masters degree in history at the University of Zurich. Mark is married, has two children and lives in Zurich.

Tenured Associate Professor, Deputy Head of Dept. of Research, SUSTech, Shenzen, China

Dr. Quanying Liu, joined Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in September 2019, as an Associate Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Doctoral Supervisor, PI of Neural Computing and Control Laboratory (NCC lab). Before joining SUSTech, Quanying obtained her PhD degree from ETH Zurich and received postdoctoral training at Caltech.

Quanying's research focuses on interactions among neuroscience, AI and control theory, including multi-modal neural signal processing (EEG, sEEG, fMRI, DTI), AI for neuroscience (explainable AI to interpret the structure and function of the brain), optimization for neuromodulation (tES, TMS, electrical stimulation).

Dr. Quanying Liu has published over 80 research articles in top journals/conferences such as Nature Methods, The Innovation, PNAS, Neuroimage, and ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR. Her work has been cited more than 2800 times, with an H factor of 27. She is the associate editor of IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine (JTEHM).

Founder and Executive Chairman, stars Foundation, Weinfelden, Switzerland

• 2014 – present: Executive Chairman and Founder of the stars Foundation Board, Weinfelden, Switzerland
• 2008 – 2014: Chairman and Co-Founder of the stars Foundation Board, Weinfelden, Switzerland
• 1994 – 2016: Member of the Board of UBS Wolfsberg and Congress Hotel Seepark AG
• 1994 – 2014: CEO, UBS Wolfsberg. Emphasis on Business Development, i.e. initiating, supervising, and conducting UBS Briefings, UBS Health Forum, UBS Arts Forum, UBS Study Trips, UBS Think Tanks, Wolfsberg Podium (www.wolfsberg.com)
• 1981 – 1994: Various responsibilities for UBS Management and Executive Development, Member and Chairman of the Board of UBS Art Collection
• Concurrently: Member of the Board of various companies and foundations in Switzerland

Art Collector, Business Leader, Former Swiss Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, North Korea and Mongolia, Mauensee, Switzerland

Uli Sigg in his career traversed very diverse fields: from journalism to industry to diplomacy as Swiss ambassador to China, North Korea and Mongolia to venture capital investing and to art. He served on various boards of global companies.He currently is a member of the Advisory Board of China Development Bank and an active investor and board member in several tech ventures. Of his extensive interactions in more than forty years with  the PR China, two are of historic significance: to establish 1980 the first industrial joint venture between the PRC and the outside world which marks the beginning of the PRC‘s epochal globalization process; and to form the singular collection of Chinese contemporary art that can represent the story line from its beginnings in the 70ies to the present -  and then restituting 1500 works back to China, to the M+ Museum in Hongkong. He also established 1997 the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) for Chinese contemporary artists living in Greater China, now transformed into the SIGG PRIZE. He is a member of the M+ Museum Board, the International Council of New York Modern Art Museum MOMA, International Advisory Council of Tate Gallery, London and member of the Board of Kunstmuseum Zürich.

Tenured Associate Professor and PhD Advisor at SUSTech, and Chief Scientist at AlayaDB.AI., Shenzhen, China

Bo Tang received the PhD Degree in the Department of Computing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He was a member of Database Research Group. He was supervised by Dr. Ken Yiu. He was a visiting researcher at MonetDB group (Amsterdam) and Microsoft Research Asia (Beijing). Before that, he obtained his BEng degree in computer science from Sichuan University.

About AlayaDB.AI

AlayaDB.AI builds scalable infrastructure for long-context AI, enabling agents to process complex tasks with greater efficiency, higher performance, and lower cost. As AI moves from short conversations to real work, context becomes the new bottleneck. AlayaDB.AI helps unlock the next generation of agentic applications by making long-context inference reliable, scalable, and commercially viable.

Consul General, Consulate General of Switzerland, Guangzhou, China

Markus Thür was born 1966 in Scherzingen/Thurgau in the Eastern part of Switzerland. He joined the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs in 1992. He holds a Swiss Federal Diploma in Business Administration and a Diploma in International Relations FFHS. 

After his consular training in Berne/Switzerland and São Paulo/Brazil, he was subsequently transferred to the Swiss consular and diplomatic representations in Lyon/France, San José/Costa Rica, Houston/USA and Dakar/Senegal. From June 2011 to 2016 he was in charge of the section for the Citizen Services and Support for Representations at the Consular Directorate of the Foreign Ministry in Berne/Switzerland followed by the appointment as Consul General of Switzerland in Munich, Germany. From 2020 to 2024, he was appointed as Consul General of Switzerland in Cape Town/South Africa and in November 2024 Mr. Thür started his appointment as Consul General of Switzerland in Guangzhou. 

He is married to Juçara Thür-de Idaira Cavalcante Braga and is the father of two adult children. 

Partner, PwC China, South China Markets Leader, Shenzhen Office Tax Leader, China

Research Associate Professor, SUSTech Southern University of Science and Technology; President, stars Shenzhen alumni chapter, Shenzhen, China
Ke is an experienced researcher and practitioner in quantitative finance and risk management, with a solid educational foundation that includes a doctoral degree in Quantitative Finance from ETH Zurich, a master’s degree in Mathematical Finance from Columbia University, a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Peking University, and a Bachelor of Mathematics from Beijing Normal University. His profound background encompasses financial bubbles, quantitative trading, complex systems, and data mining. Ke co-founded and leads Gaia-Qingke Fund Management Ltd., a top quantitative hedge fund in China, and has been instrumental at the Financial Crisis Observatory founded at ETH Zurich, offering critical bubble warnings and financial market reports utilized globally.

His contributions extend into the international business realm, with over ten years of investment experience and a deep commitment to fostering European-Chinese business cooperation. Ke co-founded and is the Secretary-General of the Swiss-Sino Innovation Center, demonstrating his dedication to international collaboration and innovation. He is also a co-founder and board member of the ETH Alumni Chapter Shenzhen and holds board positions in the Chinese Association of Finance Professionals in Switzerland and the Peking University Alumni Association in Switzerland. Dr. Wu served as the Executive President of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in Zurich (ACSSZ) from 2016 to 2018. His work has been acknowledged with several prestigious awards, including Shenzhen Overseas High-level Talents, Marie Curie Fellowship under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Program, and the National Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad Award.

About Gaia-Qingke Quant Fund

Gaia-Qingke Quant Fund is a China A-share focused quantitative investment manager with current assets under management of approximately RMB 3 billion. Founded in 2021, the firm is built by a team with strong backgrounds in quantitative research, asset management, complex systems science, and institutional trading. Gaia-Qingke manages systematic strategies across index enhancement, market neutral, and risk-controlled portfolios, with a focus on disciplined risk management, diversified alpha generation, and scalable execution in China’s equity market.

The firm has built a strong live track record across its flagship strategies. Its CSI 500 index-enhancement strategy delivered approximately 65% absolute return in 2025 and generated more than 100% cumulative excess return over the benchmark over the past 4.5 years. Gaia-Qingke was ranked No. 2 nationwide in the 2025 average-return ranking of quantitative private fund managers. Supported by recognized product rankings, institutional distribution channels, and a research-driven investment process, Gaia-Qingke aims to provide institutional and high-net-worth investors with transparent, repeatable, and risk-aware quantitative investment solutions.

Chief Economist, PwC, China