Speakers

Jamie Allen
Secretary General, ACGA, Hong Kong

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Debanik Basu
Lead – Emerging Markets, Responsible Investment & Governance, APG Asset Management, Hong Kong

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Ruchi Biyani
Responsible Investment and Governance Analyst, Janus Henderson Investors, London

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Madhabi Puri Buch
Chairperson, Securities and Exchange Board of India, Mumbai

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Elisa Cencig
Senior ESG Policy Adviser, Norges Bank Investment Management, London

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Hetal Dalal
President and Chief Operating Officer, Institutional Investor Advisory Services, Mumbai

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Amar Gill
Secretary General Designate, ACGA, Hong Kong

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Sharmila Gopinath
Specialist Advisor, India, ACGA, Kochi

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Dr Niraj Gupta
Head of the School of Corporate Governance & Public Policy, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Gurgaon

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Udaya Kumar Hebbar
Managing Director, CreditAccess Grameen, Bangalore

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Karine Hirn
Partner and Chief Sustainability Officer, East Capital Group, Hong Kong

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Grace Hui
Founder and CEO, Net Zero Asia; Former Head of Green and Sustainable Finance, HKEX, Hong Kong

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Professor G. S. Jayasree
Founder & Managing Trustee, Samyukta Research Foundation, Thiruvananthapuram

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Christopher Leahy
Specialist Advisor, Southeast Asia, ACGA; Managing Director, Blackpeak, Singapore

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Nana Li
Head of Sustainability & Stewardship, Asia-Pacific, Impax Asset Management, Hong Kong

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Richard McGregor
Senior Fellow, East Asia, Lowy Institute, Sydney

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Chirag Mehta
Chief Investment Officer, Quantum Asset Management Company, Mumbai

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Debasish Mohanty
CEO, Airawat Indices, Mumbai

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Jane Moir
Head of Research, ACGA, London

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Shireen Muhiudeen
Founder, Corston-Smith Asset Management, Kuala Lumpur

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Gillian Ng
Senior Director of Corporate Governance & Sustainability, Iclif Executive Education Center of the Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur

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Sandeep Parekh
Managing Partner, Finsec Law Advisors, Mumbai

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Professor Kavil Ramachandran
Senior Advisor, Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

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Seungjoo Ro
Head of Sustain Asia/ESG Research, CLSA, Hong Kong

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Praveen Sangana
Vice President – Equity, ESG & Forensic Research, Fidelity Investments, Bangalore

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Udith Sikand
Senior Emerging Markets Analyst, Gavekal Research, Hong Kong

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Tan Boon Gin
CEO, Singapore Exchange Regulation, Singapore

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Amit Tandon
Founder and Managing Director, Institutional Investor Advisory Services, Mumbai

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Julia Tay
Partner, Asia-Pacific Public Policy Leader, EY, Singapore

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Steven Watson
Chair, ACGA; Partner, Capital International Investors, Hong Kong

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Yuelin Yang
Chief Stewardship and Wellbeing Governance Officer, IMC PAA, Singapore; ACGA Council Member

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Dr Zhengjun Zhang
Founding Partner and CEO, King Parallel Consulting, Beijing

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Jamie Allen
Secretary General
Asian Corporate Governance Association
Hong Kong

Jamie Allen is the founding Secretary General of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA), an independent membership association carrying out original research, advocacy and education on corporate governance in Asia since 1999. A published author, he has more than 30 years of experience writing about Asian business, finance and economics.

Prior to founding ACGA, he was a consultant providing customised research to multinational companies. From 1992 to 1995, he was editor of Business Asia for the Economist Intelligence Unit and a contributor to The Economist magazine from 1994 to 1996. He is one of the main authors of Awakening Governance: The evolution of corporate governance in China and CG Watch 2020 – Future promise, two reports published by ACGA in July 2018 and May 2021, respectively.

Jamie is the local convenor for the Sustainability and Climate Action Task Force formed in February 2022 by the Financial Reporting Council of Hong Kong. His past public service roles include being a member of the Public Shareholders’ Group, formed by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, sitting on the Listing Committee of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and serving on the Operations Oversight Committee of the Financial Reporting Council of Hong Kong.

In 2017, he received an International Corporate Governance Network Lifetime Achievement Award and a Regional Corporate Governance Recognition Award from the Minority Shareholders Watch Group of Malaysia.

He is a graduate of the Australian National University, Canberra, where he received a BA (Hons) in political science and Chinese language. He studied Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan from 1983 to 1984.

Debanik Basu
Lead – Emerging Markets, Responsible Investment & Governance
APG Asset Management
Hong Kong

Debanik Basu leads APG Asset Management’s sustainability efforts in key emerging markets including India, ASEAN and Latin America. Prior to joining APG, he headed the research function at ISS India and was responsible for delivering governance solutions and advisory services to institutional clients.

From 2009 to 2012, Debanik worked for the Securities and Exchange Board of India where he conducted due diligence on M&A deals and corporate restructurings for Indian companies and developed proposals on a broad range of policy matters.

Debanik has an MBA in finance and strategy from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore.

Ruchi Biyani
Responsible Investment and Governance Analyst
Janus Henderson Investors
London

Ruchi Biyani is a Responsible Investment and Governance Analyst at Janus Henderson Investors, a position she has held since 2022. Prior to joining the firm, Ruchi worked at Nishith Desai Associates (NDA), most recently as head of the European practice from 2013. She was a senior leader of the corporate and M&A practice with NDA from 2008, where she advised boards and investors on private investment in public equity deals, IPOs, private equity investments, M&A and corporate litigation across various sectors and geographies. She began her career in 2006 with Housing Development Finance Corp as a management trainee in the secretarial and investor relations department.

Ruchi has a bachelor of commerce degree in accounting from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics, a bachelor of law degree from Government Law College and a master’s degree in finance from the London Business School. She is a qualified company secretary and holds a Certificate in ESG Investing from the CFA Institute. She has 15 years of corporate governance experience.

Madhabi Puri Buch
Chairperson
Securities and Exchange Board of India
Mumbai

Madhabi Puri Buch is Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), a position she assumed on March 2, 2022.
She served as Whole Time Member of SEBI’s board from April 2017 until October 2021, handling various departments within the organisation.

Prior to joining SEBI, Madhabi worked for three decades in financial markets and banking. She served as Consultant to the New Development Bank in Shanghai, Head of the Singapore Office of private equity firm Greater Pacific Capital, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at ICICI Securities and Executive Director on the Board of ICICI Bank. Madhabi has also served as a non-executive director on the boards of various companies.

She has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and is a graduate in mathematics from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi.

Elisa Cencig Senior ESG Policy Adviser Norges Bank Investment Management London Elisa Cencig is Senior ESG Policy Adviser at Norges Bank Investment Management where she is responsible for the fund’s engagement with international organisations, standard-setters and policymakers on sustainability, responsible investment and corporate governance. Prior to joining Norges Bank she worked at the UK Financial Authority, first on EU Withdrawal Policy and Strategy and more recently leading the Financial Conduct Authority’s engagement at the Financial Stability Board. Earlier in her career, Elisa worked at the Association of Financial Markets in Europe’s Brussels office on prudential and resolution policy and advocacy. She was also part of the European Commission’s secretariat team supporting the High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance. She is an alumna of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa (Italy) and the College of Europe (Belgium) and holds a PhD in political science from the London School of Economics.

Hetal Dalal
President and Chief Operating Officer
Institutional Investor Advisory Services
Mumbai

Hetal Dalal is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IiAS) and is responsible for overall business execution. Hetal’s role also includes the oversight of the governance research published under IiAS’ ‘Institutional EYE’ sub-brand, and the development of IiAS’ data products (IiAS Adrian and IiAS ComPAYre) that enhance market participants’ understanding of best practices.

Prior to joining IiAS, Hetal worked with CRISIL Limited – a Standard & Poor’s company, and India’s largest rating agency. During her 13 years at CRISIL, Hetal held positions across several verticals of the ratings business.

Hetal is a Chartered Accountant and holds a management degree with a specialization in finance from NMIMS Mumbai, which was then affiliated to the Mumbai University.

Amar Gill
Secretary General Designate
Asian Corporate Governance Association
Hong Kong

Amar Gill is Secretary General Designate of ACGA, and will be responsible for directing research, advocacy and educational work in 12 Asia-Pacific markets, as well as for overall management of the association.

Amar has been a passionate advocate of good governance in the region for over 20 years, and was an ACGA council member from 2005 to 2008. From 1995 to 2018, he was with CLSA, a Hong Kong-based regional securities company, where he was responsible for thematic research. Amar was coauthor of the CLSA-ACGA CG Watch reports from 2001 to 2014. He won equity research awards from publications including Asiamoney, Euromoney and Institutional Investor, and rose to become Head of Asia Research. Before joining CLSA, he held positions at Chemical Bank in Singapore as well as Southern Bank and Rashid Hussain Berhad in Malaysia.

Amar joined BlackRock in 2018. He was Head of Investment Stewardship for APAC, leading BlackRock’s largest regional stewardship team and overseeing engagement and voting in the region. In 2023, Amar led the team that produced a report entitled Board Independence in Asia Pacific: A stewardship perspective, highlighting the significant governance issues in markets characterized by dominant controlled companies. He has been a member of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission’s Public Shareholder Group since 2020.

Amar graduated with a first class degree in philosophy, politics and economics, and completed a master’s thesis in ethics at Oxford University, UK.

Sharmila Gopinath
Specialist Advisor, India
Asian Corporate Governance Association
Kochi

Sharmila Gopinath is Specialist Advisor, India, at the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA). She joined ACGA in 2005 and worked on a full-time basis until December 2012, when she moved to India and took up her current role on a part-time basis..

Sharmila has been involved in numerous aspects of ACGA research, advocacy and events for 18 years. She has written the India chapter in CG Watch since 2007, was a co-author of our White Paper on India in 2010 and has contributed to various submissions made by ACGA to government bodies and regulators in India. She helped organise our annual conference in Mumbai in 2008 and member delegations to India in 2010 and 2014. During her time with ACGA, Sharmila has also worked on other markets, primarily Hong Kong and Malaysia, and spoken at numerous events around the region.

Sharmila is a former journalist with a background in business writing and editing. During her career she has worked in Hong Kong, New York and Singapore, covering topics such as information technology, general business and finance. Sharmila began her journalistic career as a reporter for the Hong Kong Standard in the mid-1980s. From 2000 to 2001 she reported for the Computer Times in Singapore.

She holds a BA in English from the University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, Canada.

Niraj Gupta
Head of the School of Corporate Governance & Public Policy
Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs
Gurgaon

Niraj Gupta leads the School of Corporate Governance & Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, New Delhi. He also heads a national public policy initiative at the Independent Director’s Databank and is a nodal officer for India’s CSR Awards.

Niraj has more than 30 years of research, teaching and consulting experience, and has a doctorate in business policy. He is a visiting research fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research, and a DEA Fellow at the Foundation Maison Des Sciences, Paris, France, focussing on corporate governance, business sustainability and responsible business conduct.

Niraj has engaged in various research projects and authored several research papers and reports on corporate governance and other business-related areas.

Udaya Kumar Hebbar
Managing Director
CreditAccess Grameen
Bangalore

Udaya Kumar Hebbar is Managing Director of CreditAccess Grameen (CA Grameen), a position he has held since 2010. Under his stewardship, CA Grameen has become India’s leading microfinance organisation, with US$2bn in assets under management. Udaya has over 35 years of experience in the financial services sector, including leadership positions with ICICI Bank, Corporation Bank and Barclays Bank.

Udaya chairs the Microfinance Institutions Network and is member of the board of the Association of Karnataka Microfinance Institutions and CA Grameen.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Mysore, a master’s in commerce from Karnatak University Dharwad and certifications from the Indian Institute of Bankers and Vanderbilt University.

Karine Hirn
Partner and Chief Sustainability Officer
East Capital Group
Hong Kong

Karine Hirn is a Partner and Co-founder of East Capital Group. Born in France and based in Hong Kong since 2013, Karine is Chief Sustainability Officer for the East Capital Group and Chairperson of the Luxembourg-domiciled management company and fund structures. Previously, Karine was China Chief Representative in Shanghai, and CEO of East Capital in Sweden.

Karine is a French Trade Advisor and honorary member of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. She is also an advisor to the Centre for Emerging Markets at Northeastern University in Boston. Prior to East Capital, she worked in the banking industry and as a financial consultant in Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow, Russia.

Karine holds an M.Sc. in management from emlyon business school and a postgraduate degree in eastern European studies from Sciences Po Paris and studied at the Moscow Academy of Finance and Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki. She speaks French, English, Swedish and Russian, and is conversational in Mandarin and Spanish.

Grace Hui
Founder and CEO
Net Zero Asia
Hong Kong

Grace Hui is the founder and CEO of Net Zero Asia, which focusses on carbon asset development and carbon finance innovation. From 2013 to 2022, Grace was a senior executive with Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), where she played a critical role in strengthening Hong Kong as a market for global equity fundraising as well as a regional green finance centre. Among other achievements, Grace designed and implemented a listing regime for new economy companies; spearheaded regular reviews of the ESG Reporting Guide for companies listed on HKEX; initiated a new business for HKEX in green and sustainable finance, including carbon markets; and founded HKEX’s Sustainable and Green Exchange (STAGE).

Prior to joining HKEX, Grace was with UBS for over 10 years in various roles in Hong Kong and New York, including managing director, chief of staff and global chief operating officer of its legal & compliance department.

Grace is currently an adjunct professor in the Environment and Sustainability Division at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; an honorary adviser to the Accounting and Financial Reporting Council (AFRC); a member of both the AFRC’s Inspection Committee and the Sustainability and Climate Action Task Force; a member of the Sustainability Committee of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants; a member of both the Finance Committee and the Global Centre for ESG Education and Research Advisory Committee of The Hong Kong Management Association; and an independent non-executive director of a company listed on HKEX.

Professor G. S. Jayasree
Founder & Managing Trustee
Samyukta Research Foundation
Thiruvananthapuram

Professor G. S. Jayasree is Founder and Managing Trustee of Samyukta Research Foundation (SRF), a knowledge sharing platform focussed on gender and culture. Previously, she was Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Kerala and Head of the Institute of English.

Professor Jayasree founded “Samyukta: A Journal of Women’s Studies” with the support of her colleagues in the University of Kerala in the year 2001. The journal that enjoys international acclaim has an unbroken publishing history of 23 years. In the year 2019, Prof. Jayasree widened the scope of her activities by launching Samyukta Research Foundation.

Professor Jayasree is particularly interested in analysing the vexed relationship of gender and caste in her native state, Keralam (previously Kerala), by looking at a vast repertoire of cultural artefacts ranging from inscriptions on copper plates to contemporary texts of literature. Apart from tracing the intersections of gender and culture, she is interested in translating works from Malayalam to English.

Christopher Leahy
Specialist Advisor, Southeast Asia, Asian Corporate Governance Association
Managing Director, Blackpeak
Singapore

Christopher Leahy is Specialist Advisor, Southeast Asia, with the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) and also Managing Director and a founder of Blackpeak, a leading investigative research and advisory firm established in Asia and with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, New York, Washington, DC, and London. Prior to working in the investigative field, Chris was a journalist, holding positions as Asia Editor for Euromoney and contributing editor for Asiamoney.

Chris began his career as a stockbroker, and was later an investment banker, working in the UK and Asia with leading financial institutions such as Warburg Securities (now UBS), BNP Paribas Peregrine and Crosby. For the past 28 years, he has been based in Asia.

Chris began writing for ACGA in 2003, specialising on Southeast Asia. He has written the Indonesia and Philippines chapters in ACGA’s CG Watch report since 2007 and has contributed to other markets as well, including Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. He has spoken at numerous ACGA member events over the past decade and has represented ACGA as a speaker at many conferences around the region.

Nana Li
Head of Sustainability & Stewardship, Asia-Pacific
Impax Asset Management;
Specialist Consultant, Asian Corporate Governance Association
Hong Kong

Nana Li is Head of Sustainability & Stewardship, Asia-Pacific, at Impax Asset Management, which she joined in 2022. Nana researches, prioritises and organises ESG engagements with Impax’s investee companies and regulators, manages external sustainability and ESG-related inquiries, and assists in the ongoing development of the Impax proprietary ESG-analysis and methodologies.

Prior to joining Impax, Nana worked as the Research and Project Director at the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA). At ACGA, Nana published five significant reports relating to corporate governance research in Asia. Whilst there, she also presented to the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and the Shenzhen Asset Management Association. Nana has been the Chair of ACGA’s China Working Group since 2018 and remains a Specialist Consultant to ACGA.

Nana also sits on the Financial Capital Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network, the ESG Committee of Women in Finance Asia and the Caixin China ESG30 Forum.

She has an MBA from the University of Chicago (Honours), a Master of Finance from the University of Hong Kong (Dean’s List) and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales (Distinction). She is a CFA charterholder and has finished the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants Qualification Programme.

Richard McGregor
Senior Fellow, East Asia
Lowy Institute
Sydney

Richard McGregor is Senior Fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute, Australia’s premier foreign policy think tank, in Sydney.

He is a former Beijing and Washington Bureau Chief for the Financial Times and the author of numerous books on East Asia.

Richard’s most recent book, Xi Jinping: The Backlash, was published by Penguin Australia as a Lowy Institute Paper in August 2019. His book on Sino-Japanese relations, Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century (Penguin Books, 2017), was called “shrewd and knowing” by the Wall Street Journal and the “best book of the year” by the Literary Review in the United Kingdom. In late 2018, it won the Prime Minister of Australia’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. His book, The Party (Penguin Books, 2010), on the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party, was translated into seven languages and chosen by the Asia Society and Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun as their book of the year.

Richard is a Senior Associate (Non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the United States. He was also a visiting scholar at the Wilson Center and George Washington University in Washington, DC, from 2014 to 2016.

Chirag Mehta
Chief Investment Officer
Quantum Asset Management
Mumbai

Chirag Mehta is Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Quantum Asset Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of Quantum Advisors. He joined the Quantum group in 2006 and has two decades of experience in asset allocation, equities and alternative investment strategies. He currently manages the Quantum India ESG Equity Fund, the first Indian fund built on a proprietary ESG framework. Chirag spearheads Quantum’s efforts in the world of responsible investment and engages with government, policymakers and companies to further sustainable finance in Indian markets.

He is a member of a government-led task force focussed on enhancing sustainable finance in India, as well as a member of the advisory board of the Workforce Disclosure Initiative, part of the ShareAction group and a member of the Global Stewardship Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network.

Chirag was ranked the fourth best performing fund manager in the world under the age of 40 by Citywire in 2017. He is a qualified Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst. and holds a Master in Management Studies, Finance, from Mumbai University.

Debasish Mohanty
CEO
Airawat Indices
Mumbai

Debasish is Chief Executive Officer of Airawat Indices, a Mumbai-based India index provider. He is also an Independent Director in LIC Pension Funds. Before joining Airawat, he served L&T Mutual Fund, and subsequently HSBC Mutual Fund, as an advisor on business-related strategies, and was National Head of Sales and President at UTI Asset Management.

Debasish has an MPhil in economics from the Centre of Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and is a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. He holds certifications as a wealth manager and financial planner from the American Academy of Financial Management India and Financial Planning Standards Board, respectively. He has been a member of various working committees of the Association of Mutual Funds in India, including the Standing Committee on Certified Distributors, the Common Platform Committee and the Operations & Compliance Committee.

Jane Moir
Head of Research
Asian Corporate Governance Association
London

Jane Moir is Head of Research at the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) where she coordinates our diverse mix of research reports, bulletins and commentary, which identify and analyse corporate governance trends, issues and themes within the 12 markets we cover.

Before joining ACGA, Jane worked as a financial journalist in Japan and Hong Kong and enjoyed a legal career as a barrister in the civil and criminal courts of Hong Kong.

As a journalist, Jane worked at the Japan Times and spent 11 years at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong covering legal issues, financial regulation, corporate governance and market misconduct.

Jane has also worked as a political and economic risk consultant with a focus on corporate malfeasance and corruption in the Asia-Pacific region. She was admitted as a barrister in 2012.

Shireen Muhiudeen
Founder
Corston-Smith Asset Management
Kuala Lumpur

Shireen Muhiudeen is the founder of Corston-Smith, a responsible asset management firm. Prior to founding Corston-Smith in 2004 Shireen was Chief Executive Officer of AIG Investment Malaysia.

Corston-Smith pioneered a diversity research project in 2010 with 3,000+ data points showing a positive correlation between the number of women on corporate boards and financial indicators.

Shireen was the first female Chairman of the Stock Exchange of Malaysia and an Executive Committee member of the Economic Action Council for Malaysia, which is chaired by the Prime Minister. She has served on the Federal Land Authority and Labuan Offshore Financial Centre.

Shireen was named one of Forbes Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen in 2014 and one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Asia-Pacific’s Asset Management Industry by Asian Investor in 2011.

Gillian Ng
Senior Director of Corporate Governance & Sustainability
Iclif Executive Education Center of the Asia School of Business
Kuala Lumpur

Gillian Ng is Senior Director of Corporate Governance & Sustainability at Iclif Executive Education Center of the Asia School of Business. She heads a team that runs a wide range of corporate governance courses including the Financial Institutions Directors’ Education Program, the Mandatory Accreditation Program, the Money Services Business Directors’ Education Program (MDEP) and the Shariah Leaders’ Education Program for Shariah committee members of Islamic financial institutions. Gillian is the Lead Faculty for MDEP. She also teaches in the Pathway to a Governance Practitioner Program and other custom-built programs.

Before joining Iclif, Gillian was with Bank Negara Malaysia in the Prudential Financial Policy Department. She was recently appointed to the National Mirrors Committee (Governance of Organizations Committee) under the ambit of the Governance, Integrity and Anti-Corruption Centre and heads the secretariat team to the National Special Committee on Corporate Governance, which reports to the Special Committee on Anti-Corruption led by the Prime Minister.

Gillian has a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in accounting and business administration, from the Strathclyde Business School in Glasgow, where she was awarded a Best in Class Scholarship. She also completed the Certified Public Accounting exams and was a PWC Silver medallist for the subject of management information systems. In November 2017, Gillian was awarded the FT Non-Executive Director Programme (Level 7) Diploma.

Sandeep Parekh
Managing Partner
Finsec Law Advisors
Mumbai

Sandeep Parekh is the Managing Partner of Finsec Law Advisors, a financial sector law firm based in Mumbai. He has worked as an Executive Director at the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and has been on faculty at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He has worked for law firms in Delhi, Mumbai and Washington, D.C., and is admitted to practice law in New York.

Sandeep is an independent director on the board of HDFC Bank (India’s largest private bank, listed on the NYSE and in India) and sits on the Advisory Committee of the School for Regulatory Studies & Supervision of the National Institute of Securities Markets. He was the Chairman of SEBI’s Working Group on Proxy Advisory and was a member of SEBI’s Advisory Committee on Mutual Funds.

Professor Kavil Ramachandran
Senior Advisor, Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise
Indian School of Business
Hyderabad

Kavil Ramachandran (Ram) is Senior Advisor at the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He was the centre’s first Chair Professor and later its Executive Director. Ram was also the founding head of the ISB’s Centre for Entrepreneurship.

Ram has a Ph.D. from Cranfield University, UK, and has taught family business at universities in Germany, the UK and Switzerland. His special expertise is in managing the challenges at the interface of governance, professionalisation and strategy, particularly in rapidly growing mid-size multi-generational family businesses.

In addition to authoring numerous books and case studies, Ram has served on committees advising the Government of India, the World Bank and the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Seungjoo Ro
Head of Sustain Asia/ESG Research
CLSA
Hong Kong

Seungjoo Ro is Head of ESG Research at CLSA in charge of conducting ESG/sustainability/corporate governance research focussed on Asian markets and managing the research-wide ESG integration. He joined CLSA as a management trainee associate in 2008 and moved through the ranks as an
analyst covering internet, technology, online media and telecoms stocks. Later, he relocated to Hong
Kong as head of thematic research.

Prior to CLSA, Seungjoo worked as a strategy planner at Samsung Electronics’ Biomedical Research Institute and an account strategist at Google.

Praveen Sangana
Vice President – Equity, ESG & Forensic Research
Fidelity Investments
Bangalore

Praveen Sangana is a Vice President in the Equity Division at Fidelity Investments. In this role, he heads the India-based global governance and forensic accounting, international ESG and emerging markets sector research teams, and supports portfolio managers in their investment decisions.

Praveen joined Fidelity in 2007 and has served in various roles, including sector research (energy, utilities, industrials and consumer), forensic research, emerging markets stock research and management. Before returning to India, he worked in the United States supporting international and emerging markets equity and debt portfolio managers.

Prior to joining Fidelity, Praveen was a research analyst with a London-based special situation hedge fund focussed on investment research and financial due diligence. Previously, he was a financial analyst at Hewlett-Packard and an analyst at Deloitte Consulting. He has been in the finance industry since 2003.

Praveen has a bachelor of commerce and an MBA. He is a Certified Forensic Accounting Professional and an intermediate-level Cost and Management Accountant (CMA India).

Udith Sikand
Senior Emerging Markets Analyst
Gavekal Research
Hong Kong

Udith is Senior Emerging Markets Analyst at Gavekal Research. He joined the company in 2013 as an analyst covering macroeconomic and market developments in India and the major Southeast Asian economies. His role has since expanded to look at non-Asian emerging markets including Brazil and Turkey in addition to Japan. Previously, he worked with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods and CreditSights. Udith has an undergraduate degree in economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi, and a Masters degree in international political economy from the University of Warwick.

Tan Boon Gin
Chief Executive Officer
Singapore Exchange Regulation, SGX Group
Singapore

Tan Boon Gin is the Chief Executive Officer of Singapore Exchange Regulation, an independent regulatory subsidiary of Singapore Exchange (SGX Group), which undertakes all front-line regulatory functions to promote a fair, orderly and transparent market. Boon Gin joined SGX Group as Chief Regulatory Officer in 2015.

Before joining SGX Group, he was the Director of the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Police Force. Prior to this, Boon Gin held several appointments at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) including Director of the Enforcement Division, Director of the Corporate Finance Division and Executive Director of the Investment Intermediaries Department. Boon Gin was seconded to MAS after serving as a district judge at Singapore’s Subordinate Courts.

Boon Gin’s earlier roles include serving as a justices’ law clerk at Singapore’s Supreme Court and Deputy Public Prosecutor at the Attorney General’s Chamber, where he specialised in corruption and white-collar crime, before leaving to practise at Messrs Sullivan & Cromwell in New York. He is a member of the Singapore Institute of Directors Council and serves as Chairman of the Board of SATA CommHealth.

Boon Gin is an advocate and solicitor and holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and Harvard Law School. He was awarded the Public Administration (Silver) Medal in 2010 by the Singapore government.

Amit Tandon
Founder and Managing Director

Institutional Investor Advisory Services
Mumbai

Amit Tandon is the founder of Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IiAS) and has been its Managing Director since July 2011.

Before IiAS, Amit was the Managing Director and CEO of Fitch Ratings India from 2001 to 2011. Prior to joining Fitch, he was with ICICI Group for 17 years in its project finance, leasing, merchant banking and securities businesses.

Amit is a member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s advisory committee on ESG and the committee to review the takeover code, among others. He was a member of the Kotak Committee on Corporate Governance and the Reserve Bank of India’s Technical Advisory Committee on Money, Foreign Exchange and Government Securities Markets. Amit was also a member of a working group convened by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to review comments received on the Companies Act, and the disclosure subgroup on the Ministry of Finance’s Task Force on Sustainable Finance. He is a member of the governing body of the Foundation for Audit Quality.

Amit studied economics at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. He has an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Julia Tay
Partner, Asia-Pacific Public Policy Leader
EY
Singapore

Julia Tay is Partner and Asia-Pacific Public Policy Leader at EY, where she is responsible for regulatory and public policy matters across more than 20 countries. She has nearly 30 years of professional experience from a diversified background including audit, commerce and government. She is based in Singapore.

Julia has been leading engagement with regulators and stakeholders on emerging public policy topics such as sustainability reporting policies, strengthening of corporate governance, and capacity building in the accountancy profession. She is also an EY representative on the Global Public Policy Committee comprising the six largest networks of accounting firms. In this role, she works with regulatory groups to improve audit quality globally.

Prior to joining EY in 2016, Julia spent over seven years with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), the national regulator of companies and public accountants, where she last served as Deputy Chief Executive.

Before joining ACRA in 2009, Julia spent 13 years as an auditor with KPMG Singapore and two years as the Group Vice-President of Corporate Finance & Treasury at a large publicly-listed healthcare company in Singapore.

Steven Watson
Chair, Asian Corporate Governance Association
Partner, Capital International Investors
Hong Kong

Steven Watson is Chair of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) and a partner at Capital International Investors where he is a portfolio manager for the International Growth and Income Fund, Capital Income Builder and the New Perspective Fund, among other funds and mandates. He is also Chairman of Capital’s China Group.

Prior to joining Capital in 1990, Steven was a research analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co and a vice president of China Communications, a marketing consulting firm.

He has a Bachelor’s degree in French from the University of Massachusetts, a Master’s degree in French studies from New York University and an MBA from New York University and l’ Université de Paris. Additionally, he studied Chinese at Wuhan University and the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute, China.

Steven joined the ACGA Council in 2007. He was elected Vice Chair in 2018 and Chair in 2022.

Yuelin Yang
Chief Stewardship and Wellbeing Governance Officer, IMC PAA
Deputy Group Managing Director, IMC Industrial Group
Group Managing Director, Unithai
Senior Advisor, PPI
Council Member, Asian Corporate Governance Association
Singapore

Yuelin Yang is a Senior Advisor to Pacific Pension & Investment Institute (PPI) whose membership comprises senior investment professionals from 17 countries, including some of the largest asset owners (public pensions and sovereign wealth funds) and asset managers worldwide, collectively representing more than US$25 trillion in assets. He was recently appointed to the standing Programme Committee of PPI, which advises the PPI board and management team.

Yuelin is a member of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) Governing Council and the Advisory Council at National University of SingaporeBusiness School’s Centre of Governance and Sustainability, as well as an independent director at Verlinvest Asia (family investment firm for one of the AB InBev families). He previously served on the Global Family Advisory Council of Family Office Exchange and has spoken worldwide on family businesses, family offices and their governance.

Yuelin is also Chief Stewardship and Wellbeing Governance Officer for IMC Pan Asia Alliance (IMC PAA), as well as Deputy Group Managing Director of IMC Industrial Group and Group Managing Director of Unithai. He has been with IMC since 1995 and has held various senior appointments. Prior to joining IMC, Yuelin was a member of the Office of the Chairman Stan Shih and Associate General Counsel at Acer Computers in San Jose and Taipei. He started his career practising law in Silicon Valley at the Cooley Godward and Brobeck Phleger law firms.

Yuelin has a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering from Stanford University and a JD from Stanford Law School.

Zhengjun Zhang
Founding Partner and CEO
King Parallel Consulting
Beijing

Zhengjun Zhang is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of King Parallel Consulting and leads the firm’s corporate strategy and state-owned enterprise (SOE) practices. His areas of expertise include SOE reform, corporate governance and strategic management.

Zhengjun and his team provide research and consultations on state capital distribution, SOE governance, and corporate strategy and management to the Chinese government, such as the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) and local SASAC bodies, as well as to large companies.

Zhengjun is also non-executive director of Beijing Capital Agribusiness & Foods Group, and has been a core member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Asia SOE Governance Network, a member of the Shareholder Responsibility Committee at the International Corporate Governance Network, and member of the Advisory Committee at Morrow Sodali.

Zhengjun was the chief of the SOE division and Senior Research Fellow at the Development Research Centre of the State Council of China for 11 years.

He has a PhD in management from Nanjing University, and a post-doctoral certificate from Renmin University of China. He was a visiting fellow of the OECD, the Stockholm School of Economics and the NLI Research Institute of Japan.