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Kevin Rudd served as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister (2007-2010, 2013) and Foreign Minister (2010-2012).
Kevin was born in Nambour, Queensland and grew up on a farm nearby in Eumundi. After attending high school in Brisbane, Kevin went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts (Asian Studies) with first class honours at the Australian National University. It was here that his fascination with China began and he started learning Mandarin.

After university, Kevin joined the Department of Foreign Affairs, where he worked as a diplomat and received postings to Stockholm and Beijing. He returned to Australia to become Chief of Staff to Wayne Goss in the Queensland election campaign of 1989 and took on the role of Director-General of the Cabinet during Goss’ time as Premier. Kevin entered Parliament in 1998 after winning the seat of Griffith located in South-East Brisbane.
Kevin successfully led the Australian Labor Party to victory in the 2007 federal election after 11 years of in Opposition. While in office, Kevin’s government set into motion major reforms in domestic policy areas such as health, education, industrial relations, social security and infrastructure. He led Australia’s response to the Global Financial Crisis, reviewed by the IMF as the most effective stimulus strategy of all major economies. Australia was the only major developed economy not to go into recession. On 13 February 2008, Kevin delivered the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in Australia and committed to ‘closing the gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Kevin was also very active on the international stage where his considerable experience in foreign affairs assisted him to pursue numerous major policy achievements. These include making advances on climate change action, his role in the establishment of the G20 and diplomacy in moving towards an Asia-Pacific community through multilateral bodies such as the East Asia Summit, ASEAN and APEC.

Since leaving Australian politics in 2013, Kevin has continued to engage in international affairs. He has been appointed to many prominent roles such as a Visiting Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Distinguished Statesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Distinguished Fellow at both Chatham House and the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Currently, Kevin serves as President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, a “think-do tank” dedicated to second track diplomacy to assist governments and business on policy challenges within Asia, and between Asia, the US and the West. In 2015, he was appointed Chair of Sanitation and Water for All, a UNICEF-supported organisation working towards universal access to clean water and adequate sanitation. He is also Chair of the International Commission on Multilateralism and Chair of the Board of International Peace Institute's Board of Directors.

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Richard McGregor is a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute, a foreign policy think tank, in Sydney and a former Financial Times bureau chief in Shanghai, Beijing and Washington D.C. He has also reported from Taipei, Tokyo, Hong Kong and London. His book, The Party, on the Chinese Communist Party, published in 2010, was called a “masterpiece” by The Economist. Translated into seven languages, The Party was chosen by the Asia Society and Mainichi Shimbun in Japan as their book of the year in 2011. His book on Sino-Japanese relations, Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan and the Fate of US in the Pacific Century, was awarded the Prime Minister of Australia’s award for best non-fiction book of the year. His last book, Xi Jinping: The Backlash, was published in 2019.

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Jörg Wuttke is Vice President and Chief Representative of BASF China, based in Beijing. Since joining BASF in 1997, Mr. Wuttke has been responsible for helping guide the company’s investment strategies for China, negotiation of large projects and government relations.

Previous to joining BASF, Mr. Wuttke worked with ABB for 11 years; in fact his first professional encounter with China was in 1988 as the Finance and Administration Manager of ABB Beijing. In 1990, he returned to Germany as Sales Manager of ABB Power Plants Division, responsible for gas turbine sales to Africa and Russia. In 1993, he became Chief Representative ABB China in Shanghai and in 1994 moved to the President's Office of ABB China in Beijing, where he was responsible for the development and financing of large projects.

From 2001 to 2004 Mr. Wuttke was the Chairman of the German Chamber of Commerce in China. From 2007 to 2010, 2014 to 2017, and since May 2019 again he is the President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China

From 2011 to 2019, Mr. Wuttke was Chairman of the BIAC China Task Force of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC), a Paris based body of major business associations that lobbies the OECD.

From 2013 to 2016, and again since 2019 Mr. Wuttke is Vice Chairman of the CPCIF International Cooperation Committee, a group representing Multinational Companies in China’s Chemical Association.

Since its establishment in 2013, Mr. Wuttke is member of the Advisory Board of Germany’s foremost Think Tank on China, Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), in Berlin.

In January 2019 Mr. Wuttke joined the International Board of the Stars Foundation, in Switzerland. stars - for Leaders of the Next Generation.