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Chris Torrens, APCO’s managing director of the Greater China region, is a veteran risk and compliance expert with more than three decades of experience providing strategic advice for multinational clients across various sectors.
Before joining APCO, Chris worked at Control Risks for more than 20 years. He served as partner in the Greater China and North Asia region where he led the East China geomarket out of Shanghai before moving to Beijing to lead the North China geomarket. During this time, he oversaw the growth and diversification of the company’s Chinese client base. Before this role, Chris was based in London as the partner responsible for the Global Risk Analysis practice for Europe, Middle East and Africa, managing all political, security and operational risk analysis for the region.
Chris also served as a Shanghai-based associate director in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ advisory practice and as the Hong Kong-based head of research at Batey Burn, a UK government relations and public affairs consultancy, which was acquired by APCO in 1999.
Chris has lived in Greater China for nearly 25 years. He holds an MBA from the China-Europe International Business School, a BA Honours degree in Modern Chinese Studies from Leeds University and speaks Mandarin. His book, “Doing Business in China,” was published by The Economist in 2010.
Chris currently serves as vice-chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in China.

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Yue Su is the Principal Economist of Access China/Asia at The Economist Intelligence Unit. She is a frequent guest in national and international media, providing critical insight into China’s economic trends and fast changing policy environment.
Yue leads The EIU’s China research team, which provides economic and political coverage of China and has a strong client-facing element, both in terms of interacting with global clients looking at China and Chinese clients looking for a global perspective.
Yue joined the EIU in 2013. She has deep knowledge of China’s economic data and policy environment, and has played an instrumental role in shaping our forecasts and analysis for China at both the national and sub-national level. She also drives, for example, our recent successful calls on China’s GDP growth in the Covid-19 era and leads our coverage interpreting policies such as “common prosperity”, China’s 14th Five Year Plan etc. Yue has focused her research on subjects including China’s demographic trends, regional and industrial economics, infrastructure and Chinese ODI/Belt and Road Initiative.
During her time at The EIU she has contributed to several special reports, including the China Going Global Investment Index (2015 & 2017), Prospects and challenges on China’s “One Belt, One Road”: a risk assessment report and China’s supply-side structural reforms: progress and outlook. She has also acted as a consultant or advisor on several commissioned studies in the infrastructure field, such as on public-private partnerships in China and Asia.
Yue holds a doctorate in political economy from the Chinese Academy of Governance. Her research focused on the aid effectiveness of multilateral development banks and analysed the factors that might disrupt the investment returns of infrastructure projects. Before joining The EIU she worked as a local government civil servant in China. Yue holds a Masters of Economics from The University of Hong Kong.

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Rebecca is AFP's Shanghai Bureau Chief. She moved to China in April after previously working as a news editor on the agency's Asia-Pacific desk in Hong Kong. Before this she worked at the BBC for seven years, where she edited one of BBC News' flagship TV programmes, Outside Source. She was also one of the founding producers of the BBC’s award-winning diversity project, 50:50.
She started the Asia Matters podcast with NPR's Vincent Ni and The Wire China's Andrew Peaple, and still acts as a producer for the show.

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Joanne Wood is a 40-year veteran investment banker turned tech investor and entrepreneur.
In 2006, she founded Capital Eight, a corporate finance house headquartered in Shanghai, advising clients on a wide range of M&A, debt and equity capital raising, corporate restructure and infrastructure financing. Joanne previously worked in senior corporate finance positions with UBS, Jardine Fleming and GE Capital across Europe, the USA and Greater China, and was internationally ranked as a leading Asian-emerging markets advisor.
In 2012, Joanne began mentoring tech startups in China, advising aspiring entrepreneurs as an accredited mentor of Silicon Valley’s SOSV accelerator programs. She now mentors globally, and also serves on the Advisory Boards of a UAE-headquartered Web3 infrastructure platform, an Italian biotech and an Australian new energy venture. In 2023, she joined the founding team of a pioneering Singapore agri-tech developing a proprietary range of alternative plant-based proteins from farm waste.
Over the last 20 years, she has been active in the local community serving as Chair of the British Chamber’s Financial Services Group, Chair of the American Chamber’s Ethics Council, inaugural Chair of the National Australian Chamber Greater China and Vice Chair of the EU Chamber’s Investment Working Group. She is a staunch advocate of female entrepreneurship and the empowerment of women in business.
Joanne is a regular speaker at international conferences and often asked for her views on the China investment environment. She holds an MBA from London Business School, a B. Arts degree from the University of Adelaide, South Australia and reads, writes and speaks Mandarin.

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Davide is currently covering the position of Managing Director and President of Casappa Hydraulics Shanghai and President of Casappa Hydraulics Korea.
Casappa Group is a medium-sized multinational enterprise, funded in 1952 in Parma - Italy. Casappa focuses on creating and delivering value to customers with its Power, Filtration and Electronic Control solutions for Hydraulic Systems, serving global and local top-class OEM customers in different field of applications, such as construction and earth moving machines, industrial, material handling and agriculture vehicles.
Casappa Hydraulics Shanghai is the Regional Headquarters of Casappa Group in East-Asia.

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Julia Coym leads Control Risks’ political and regulatory risk consulting team for Greater China and North Asia and is based in Shanghai. With 15 years advising organisations on risk and corporate strategy, Julia helps clients respond to rising geopolitical risks, the politicisation of technology and data, industrial policy, as well as anti-competition, cyber security and other regulatory enforcement.
Prior to joining Control Risks, Julia worked as a Principal Political Risk Analyst for Maplecroft, a UK-based global risk and investment advisory firm, where she wrote and oversaw risk assessments on China and other Asian countries, including focusing on the manufacturing, extractive, transport, financial, retail and other sectors. She was also previously a contributor of political and economic analysis for the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Julia speaks Mandarin, is a native German speaker, is fluent in French and has previous experience in Frankfurt, Washington, Paris, Beijing, London and Berlin.

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Marco Leporati is the President of Savino Del Bene Shanghai. He has received a Law degree from Università degli Studi Milano. His professional journey began at Pirelli in Italy, working in the tyre division, and later transitioned to a role in an Australian company active in the food industry in Europe. This role provided Marco with his initial exposure to Chinese companies, leading to his first visit to China in 1993. In 1998, he relocated to Beijing and subsequently worked in Shanghai with a logistics and transportation company. With over 20 years' experience in the industry, Marco now holds the positions of President and Managing Director at Savino del Bene Shanghai.

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Dr Gang Yang has received his master’s degree in industrial engineering and a doctorate in production management from TU Berlin. In the period of 2007 – 2011, he taught at Sino-German graduate school of Shanghai Tongji University as Professor of DHL-Chair for Global Supply Chain Management.
Before becoming the CEO of TRUMPF China since 2018, Dr Gang Yang was heading the global machine tool sales of TRUMPF group in Germany.
Before joining the industry sector, he had several consultant positions in top global consulting companies. Now, he is a senior executive with almost 20 years’ experience in general management both in Germany and China.