Renato Lulia is CEO of Itaú BBA International, based in London. Before taking on that role in January 2016, he was managing director in charge of corporate and investment banking for Itaú BBA in Northern Europe, Portugal and Asia. Prior to that, he led the expansion of the bank in Latin America and launched its operations in Argentina, where he then served as head of corporate banking and as a member of the executive committee. Before joining Itaú BBA in Brazil as a senior banker, Renato held various roles with financial institutions in the U.S. and Brazil. He studied civil engineering at the University of São Paulo and recently completed the Advanced Management Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr Yu Jie is Head of China Foresight at LSE IDEAS and teaches at LSE. Her research focuses on the decision-making process of Chinese foreign policy as well as China's economic diplomacy. She appears regularly at major media outlets such as the BBC, the Financial Times, the Independent and the Washington Post, briefs both public institutions such as the European External Action Services(EEAs), Silk Road Fund in Beijing and the UK Cabinet Office on China’s foreign affairs as well as corporates such as Bloomberg and UBS. She served as an expert witness at House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. Prior to LSE, she was a management consultant, specialised at Chinese investments in Europe and Chinese market entry strategies for European conglomerates at the London Office of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants，managing projects with EADS, Shanghai Automotive (SAIC),China General Nuclear Group（CGN).

Leon Zhang has assumed executive roles in telecommunications sector and now chairs Envision Energy’s One Belt One Road(‘OBOR’) business globally. With a MSc degree in Posts and Telecommunications of Nanjing University and MBA from Fudan University, he has 15 years front line experience as the country head, regional director in emerging markets e.g. Myanmar, Indonesia, Philippines and Bosnia etc. Leon has been helping bridge gaps for these emerging markets in digitalization, communications and clean energy supply by leveraging OBOR policy and government-to-government soft loan.

Mr. Vincent Xie is Funding Partner and CEO of Knights Genesis. Mr. Xie has rich experience in alternative investment in domestic China and overseas. He has led and participated as core team member in many large-scale overseas investments for Chinese enterprises in North America, Middle East, Africa and Europe in real estate, infrastructure, energy and forestry. He is also a seasoned investor in big data and large consumption. He has been working with many Chinese enterprises such as China Development Bank, ICBC, Sinosure, China Railway Construction Corporation, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, China National Building Material Company, Ping An, Shanghai Municpal Investment (Group) Corporation, etc. Mr. Xie is also a council member of CCG and a committee member of LSEEMF.

Robert is a corporate lawyer specialising in M&A. He advises companies and private equity houses and will represent companies at all stages of their development whether they be large multinationals or younger growing businesses. He frequently acts for sellers of businesses on their exits as well as corporates and private equity houses implementing buy and build strategies. He acts for both domestic and international companies making acquisitions and is the partner who leads the China Group in the UK, helping many Chinese State Owned Enterprises and other large Chinese and South East Asian companies expand internationally. Robert regularly helps Asian buyers on the corporate aspects of real estate acquisitions. He also has many years of experience advising on IPOs and other listed company transactions on both the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange and AiM.

James Kynge is emerging markets editor. He writes about emerging markets and, in particular, China’s growing global footprint in business, finance and politics. He won the 2016 Wincott Foundation award for Financial Journalist of the Year. His prize-winning 2006 book, “China Shakes the World”, was a bestseller translated into 19 languages. Before returning to London in 2008, he spent 25 years reporting from Asia with postings in China, Japan, former Soviet Central Asia and Southeast Asia. He is chairman of FT Confidential Research, having founded “China Confidential”, a research company, in 2009.

General Sir John Nicholas Reynolds "Nick" Houghton GCB CBE ADC Gen and Constable of the Tower of London is the Chief of the Defence Staff of the British Armed Forces. He served as Commanding Officer of 1st Battalion, the Green Howards in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. After Regimental duty General Houghton commanded 39 Infantry Brigade in Belfast during the period which led to the Good Friday Agreement. He was the Director of Military Operations in the Ministry of Defence at the time of 9/11; at the outset of operations in Afghanistan; and during the foot and mouth crisis. Subsequently he was Chief of Staff of the ACE Rapid Reaction Corps from July 2002 to April 2004 and Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Operations) from May 2004 to October 2005. More recently General Houghton was the Senior British Military Representative and Deputy Commanding General of the Multi-National Force-Iraq from October 2005 until March 2006. He became Chief of Joint Operations (CJO) in April 2006 at the time of the commitment of UK Forces to southern Afghanistan and, subsequently, during the extraction of UK forces from southern Iraq. He was appointed both OBE and CBE for his time in command in Northern Ireland and awarded the US Legion of Merit for his service in Iraq. He was appointed KCB for his time as CJO. General Houghton became Vice Chief of the Defence Staff in May 2009. In June 2015, General Houghton also received an honorary Panglima Gagah Angkatan Tentera (PGAT) award from the Deputy Minister for Defence of Malaysia. General Houghton graduated from St Peter's College, Oxford, having taken an in-Service Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern History.

Dr Karin von Hippel is the first woman and non-Briton to hold the position of the Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute. Prior to joining RUSI, she served for nearly six years in the Bureau of Counterterrorism, and eventually as Chief of Staff to General John Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter-ISIL. Further to this, she has served as a director for the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project in Washington DC and is a research fellow at King’s College London. She has also worked for the UN, the EU and has several publications to her name, on top of degrees from the LSE, University of Oxford and Yale.

Philippa "Pippa" Malmgren is an American policy analyst. She served as Special Assistant to the President of the United States, George W Bush, for Economic Policy on the National Economic Council and is a former member of the U.S. President's Working Group on Financial Markets. She is the founder of the DRPM Group and co-founder of H Robotics. She obtained her PhD from the London School of Economics in 1991 where she was invited to speak at the Summer Commencement in 2013.

Raymond McKeeve has extensive experience advising major private equity houses, sovereign wealth funds, and their investee companies as well as some of the leading alternative credit providers and lenders across all areas of corporate practice, including acquisitions, disposals, financings, and restructurings. Raymond's experience covers both the domestic U.K. and international markets including MENA and sub-Saharan Africa. Raymond is one of the earliest and youngest winners of The Lawyer "Hot 100 Award" and sat in a personal capacity on the MOD Defence Reform Unit chaired by Lord Levene. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Strategic and Security Institute at the University of Exeter.

Stephen Jen is the CEO and Co-CIO of Eurizon SLJ Capital Ltd, formerly SLJ Macro Partners LLP. Previously, he worked as the Managing Director of Macroeconomics and Currencies at BlueGold Capital Management LLP from May 2009 to March 2011, in charge of managing the firm’s currency risks as well as its macro strategies. Mr. Jen was also the Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, and from October 1996 to April 2009, held various roles, including the Global Head of Currency Research. Prior to Morgan Stanley, Mr. Jen had spent four years as an economist with the IMF, covering economies in Eastern Europe and Asia. Mr. Jen earned a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a BSc degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine (Summa Cum Laude).

Janet Henry was appointed as HSBC’s Global Chief Economist in August 2015. She was previously HSBC’s Chief European Economist and is a member of Handelsblatt’s Shadow ECB Council. Janet joined HSBC in 1996 in Hong Kong where she worked as an Asian economist in the run-up to, and aftermath of, the Asian crisis. From 1999 to 2007 she was a Global Economist during which time her original work on globalisation – including the global determinants of local inflation – was widely recognised. Janet’s career began at the Economist Intelligence Unit where she worked as an Asian economist in London and Hong Kong.

Spanish born and following a BA in Economics from Princeton University, Edward started his career in 1991 at Goldman Sachs as a financial analysis within the Investment Banking group. He was recruited to the Risk Arbitrage Group in 1994 as an Associate focusing on identifying opportunities in Latin America. Edward successfully built up the active proprietary trading activity in Latin America across the capital structure and later became Co-Head of the Firm-wide Latin American business, Chief of Staff of the Equities Division and a Member of Equities Risk Committee. Edward was made up to Partner in 2000. Edward left Goldman Sachs to Join Eton Park Capital as one of the founding partners in 2004. There he was responsible for public and private emerging market investments across a wide variety of securities, asset classes and geographies. Edward was a member of the firm Operating Committee (main body to assist Managing Partner Eric Mindich in management of the firm). He also Co-managed the investment staff in the European office and was a member of the Best Execution Committee and Operation Risk Committee.  Edward left Eton Park in 2013 to found Ronit Capital, an emerging markets oriented hedge fund. He is particularly active across various Jewish and Israeli charitable organisations and is a Chair of Bicom, Governors at Naima JPS and co- chair of Governors at Immanuel College.

Lyubov Pronina, EMEA Credit reporter at Bloomberg News in Brussels. A graduate of Moscow State Linguistic University, Lyubov has had a 20-year career in journalism covering business, politics and markets. Before joining Bloomberg News in 2006, she worked as a business reporter at The Moscow Times in Russia. With Bloomberg she covered technology and aerospace in Moscow as well as worked as a Kremlin pool reporter, helped launch the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in London and wrote about emerging markets.

Ricardo Tadeu is our Zone President Africa since October 2016. Ricardo is a Brazilian citizen. Ricardo received a Law Degree from the Universidade Candido Mendes in Brazil and a Master of Law from Harvard Law School. He is also Six Sigma Black Belt certified. He joined Ambev in 1995 and has held various roles across the commercial area. He was appointed Business Unit President for our operations in Hispanic Latin America in 2005, and from 2008 to 2012, served as Business Unit President Brazil. He was appointed Zone President Mexico in 2013.

Horst J. Kayser is Chief Strategy Officer at Siemens since November 2013. In his capacity as head of Corporate Strategy, he is responsible for the development of strategy at Siemens and reports directly to the Member of the Managing Board Dr. Roland Busch. Horst J. Kayser began his career in 1989, at McKinsey & Company in Germany, Canada and the U.S.. In 1995, he moved to Siemens Inhouse Consulting. In 1998 he became Managing Partner at Siemens Managing Consulting. Afterwards he held management positions in various areas and countries, e.g. as CEO of Siemens Ltd. Seoul, South Korea. In 2008 Kayser became President and CEO of KUKA AG, in 2010 CEO of 3W Power S.A./AEG Power Solutions. He was a member of the supervisory board of Kendrion N.V., NL from 2009 - 2015. Dr. Kayser holds a degree as Diplom-Wirtschaftsingenieur (Electrical engineering / Business administration) from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany and a Master of Public Administration at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He received his doctorate in business administration at the University of Mannheim.