Speaker: David Snell (Assurance Partner, PwC)
Masterclass Date: 6 October 2018

David is a partner in PwC’s London Mid-Tier Assurance practice with over thirty years’ service with the firm. He leads PwC’s services to AIM companies with a particular focus on IPOs and he has been involved in many successful London IPO’s as well as working on acquisitions and disposals for Listed clients.

He also leads PwC’s Law Firm’s Advisory Group and specialises in providing audit, advisory and merger support services to Law Firms. His recent audit clients include Linklaters, Herbert Smith Freehills, DLA Piper, Clifford Chance and Simmons & Simmons.

He is a respected commentator on partnership and law firm issues and has co-authored PwC’s Law Firm Survey for the last twenty years. As well as working extensively with UK law firms, he also works regularly with international law firms across the US, Europe, Asia and emerging markets (particularly China).

David’s clients include both private and publicly owned companies (eg Savills plc, Wilmington plc and Huntsworth Plc) and he has extensive experience of working with Boards, applying his technical and business knowledge with a pragmatic, solutions based approach.

David regularly presents and writes on topical issues affecting listed companies and has close contact with key advisors, including the London Stock Exchange. He has also been PwC’s presenter at the AIM Awards event and voting panel chair since 2010.

David has worked in London throughout his professional career and is passionate in his support of London. He has been instrumental in a number of initiatives over the recent years designed to highlight London’s role as a major global city. He is presently PwC’s relationship partner for the CBI.

He is married with two adult children and lives in Ealing. Hobbies include astronomy, ancient history and the garden.

Speaker: Fionn Wright (International Coach & Trainer)
Masterclass Date: 6 October 2018

Fionn is named by City Weekend Magazine as one of the “11 Most Influential Movers & Shakers in Shanghai” - a city of 24 million - for his ability to hack business & human systems and lead, coach and train others to follow suit.

After skipping 2 grades, Fionn earned a Bachelor in International Business at the University of British Columbia while learning to speak fluent Chinese and traveling the world for free by developing a method of speed-learning to distill 4 months of information into 4 hours.

After filming an Internationally Award Winning Documentary about Chinese Business, he worked in Africa, Europe, North America, South America and Asia as a business trainer and personal coach before settling in Shanghai and becoming the youngest Mindfulness, NLP & Neuroscience Coach in the world and a bilingual Chinese TV Personality with over 100 million views.

Seeing gaps in Shanghai’s traditional market for coaching, training and education, he founded and ran 3 companies before selling them on to make more of an impact by leading a team to develop the first Holistic Medical Wellness Programs in China.

In 2016 he returned to Europe to help the top Business Coaching Company in the World expand its operations, directly train over 3000 students to perform at their best, live-stream his teachings to over 30,000 simultaneous viewers and do a Masters in Coaching for Vertical Leadership Development.

He now travels the world with his family, coaching, training, consulting and speaking with the mission to help people achieve their China Dream, using China as an engine to evolve our planetary consciousness and ensure a sustainable future for humanity.

Speaker: Marcus Scott (Chief Operating Officer, TheCityUK)
Masterclass Date: 4 August 2018

Marcus Scott is the Chief Operating Officer for TheCityUK and has held this role since December 2013. In this role he is responsible for leading the TheCityUK's strategy development and day to day implementation of processes to deliver that strategy. Marcus's focus is on marshalling the company's resources to create maximum value for members and stakeholders. He has also been the CFO of TheCityUK since May 2011. In 2017, Marcus won the Global Excellence 2017 award for the Industry Association CFO of the year. He also sits on TheCityUK leadership team.

Prior to TheCityUK Marcus had over 10 years' experience as a Chief Financial Officer for a number of technology companies, developing start-ups and high growth businesses including being CFO of AIM listed Cleantech company ITM Power and Cambridge based antenna company Antenova. Marcus trained as a Chartered Accountant and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Speaker: Syrus Lohrasb (Founder and CEO, China-Britain Business Fusion)
Masterclass Date: 2 June 2018

Syrus is the founder and CEO at China-Britain Business Fusion and inaugural China-Britain Artificial Intelligent Summit and previously with large scale organisations such as the Swire Group and Johnson & Johnson. He is also a former CFO with experience of operating in Real Estate, Audit, Telecom, Automotive, Music, Food, Security, Pharmaceuticals and Fashion, Syrus has executed comprehensive international sales, business planning and development processes in a wide range of industries.

Founded in 2011, China-Britain Business Fusion (CBBF) is a 7-year old multidisciplinary and multi-industry consultancy assisting British and Chinese companies with their respective market-opportunities plans. Given China's tall 2030 AI target and its increasing emphasis on innovation and UK's immense AI capabilities, CBBF is progressively focused on developing partnership between China and the UK in the technology space. As part of this focus, CBBF organised the inaugural China-Britain AI Summit 2017 at the Institution of Engineering & Technology in September 2017 to illuminate the China and UK AI landscape.

Speaker: Thomas Zhang (Head of Europe, Wind Information)
Masterclass Date: 2 June 2018

Thomas is currently the Head of Europe at Wild Information - China's largest financial market data provider. Prior to joining Wind Information, he worked as a journalist and editor at globally renowned media organizations such as BBC World Service and the Financial Times for more than ten years. He also once served as the APAC Editor for eFinancialCareers in Singapore. In the mid of 2016, he returned to London and set up Wind's London office, with the aim of developing Wind's business across the entire Europe.

Speaker: Ollie Shiell (Founder and Senior Partner, Asiability 亚能咨询公司)
Masterclass Date: 7 April 2018

Ollie is the Founder and Senior Partner of Asiability - a UK headquartered company facilitating good trade and investment between the People’s Republic of China and the rest of the world. 

Asiability’s clients come from sectors including aerospace, education, financial services, life sciences and real estate.  Asiability works with its clients to bridge the network and knowledge deficit to deliver high value commercial and philanthropic opportunities.  Asiability’s strategic partners are Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business and the Hurun Report which is best known for the China Rich List and China Philanthropy Report.

From 2011-2015 Ollie was head of Europe for Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (China’s leading executive school funded by Asia’s richest man Li ka shing), where Ollie and his team designed and delivered executive education programmes for over 3,000 Chief Executives and owner entrepreneurs from China.

Prior to joining CKGSB Ollie was Director of Development and Corporate Relations at Saïd Business School University of Oxford from 2004.  As a member of the leadership team responsible for the ‘Oxford Thinking’ fund-raising campaign, Ollie worked with colleagues to secure £1.25 billion of investment.

A graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, Ollie’s non-executive experiences includes the London Symphony Orchestra, Social Bite (a social enterprise supported by Bill Clinton, George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio) and the China-Britain Business Council.