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Tim Stratford
Chairman Emeritus at AmCham ChinaTim Stratford is Chairman Emeritus at AmCham China and Managing Partner in Covington & Burling LLP’s Beijing office and a member of the International Trade, Corporate and Government Affairs Practice Groups. Mr. Stratford’s practice is focused on advising international clients doing business in China and assisting Chinese companies seeking to expand their businesses globally. As a former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Stratford is the most senior former U.S. trade official working as a member of the U.S. business community in China. Except for the five years he spent in Washington, D.C. in government service (2005-2010), Mr. Stratford has lived and worked continuously in the greater China region since 1982.
While at USTR, Mr. Stratford was responsible for developing and implementing U.S. trade policy toward mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Mongolia. He worked closely with other senior U.S. and Chinese officials from numerous government departments and agencies to address problems encountered by companies engaged in bilateral trade and investment and co-chaired a number of important bilateral working groups and dialogues established under the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade and the U.S.-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue.
Prior to serving at USTR, Mr. Stratford was General Counsel for General Motors’ China operations, where he was a member of GM’s senior management team in China and oversaw the company’s legal and trade policy work. Mr. Stratford also served previously as Minister-Counselor for Commercial Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and as Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Brigham Young University, and is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese.
Hongjun YU
Former Vice Minister of International Department of the CPC Central CommitteeYU Hongjun, male, was born in 1954 in Nong’an, Jilin Province. He achieved his PhDin Laws at Renmin University of China. YU is currently a visiting professor and doctoral supervisor of Guangzhou University, chief researcher of the Charhar Institute and Vice President of Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament. He used to be the former member of the Subcommittee of Foreign Affairs of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, former Vice Minister of International Department of the CPC Central Committee and Director General of China Center for Contemporary World Studies, former Chinese Ambassador to the Republic of Uzbekistan, former Deputy Director of Bureau of Soviet Union and former Director of Bureau of Central Asia of International Department of the CPC Central Committee, former chief secretary of Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Kazakhstan, former Counselor of Bureau of Policy Studies of Office of the Foreign Affairs Leading Group of the CPC Central Committee, former Deputy Director and Director of Research Office of International Department of the CPC Central Committee and former instructor at Party School of the Jilin Provincial Committee of CPC.
Rakesh Mohan
Former Director of International Monetary FundDr. Rakesh Mohan is Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University, and Distinguished Fellow at Brookings India.
He is also a Senior Advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute and a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow of Stanford University. He was until recently Executive Director on the Board of the International Monetary Fund representing Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Sri Lanka.
He was Chairman of the National Transport Development Policy Committee of the Government of India, with the rank of Minister of State 2010-2014. He was Secretary, of the Indian Ministry of Finance, and also Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between 2002 and 2009. In this capacity, he co-chaired the G20 Working Group "Enhancing Sound Regulation and Strengthening Transparency" (2009), and the CGFS Working Group on Capital Flows (2008-09).
Mohan has authored three books on urban economics and urban development; He has also authored two books on monetary policy: 'Monetary Policy in a Globalized Economy: A Practitioner's View' (2009), and "Growth with Financial Stability: Central Banking in an Emerging Market" (Oxford University Press, 2011). His new edited book, "India Transformed: 25 Years of Economic Reforms" (Penguin Random House) is forthcoming in June 2017.
He has a BSc (Eng) from Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London(1969), a BA from Yale University (1971), and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.
Ambassador Teresita Schaffer
Former US Ambassador to Sri LankaIn a 30-year career in the US Foreign Service, Ambassador Schaffer was recognized as one of the State Department’s leading experts in South Asia, where she spent a total of 11 years. Her other career focus was on international economic issues. She served in US embassies in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, and from 1992-95 as US Ambassador in Sri Lanka. During her assignments in the State Department in Washington, she was Director of the Office of International Trade and later Deputy Assistant Secretary of state for the Near East and South Asia, at that time the Senior South Asia Policy position in the State Department.
Ambassador Schaffer was previously a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She also created the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and directed it from 1998-2010. That program produced path-breaking research on economic, political, security, and risk management trends in India and Pakistan, but also more broadly on the region that extends from Afghanistan through Bangladesh.
Ambassador Schaffer is the author of India at the Global High Table: The Quest for Regional Primacy and Strategic Autonomy, published in 2016 (co-authored with her husband, Howard Schaffer); as well as India and the US in the 21st Century: Reinventing Partnership, published in 2009 and widely recognized as the leading work on the post-2000 US-India relationship and its future prospects. Ambassador Schaffer and her husband also wrote How Pakistan Negotiates with the United States, published in 2011. Earlier writings included Pakistan’s Future and US Policy Options (2004); India at the Crossroads: Confronting the Challenge of HIV/AIDS (2004) and a series of other studies on HIV and public health issues in India; and two studies on women in development in Bangladesh (1985).
Ambassador Schaffer received a BA from Bryn Mawr College and studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. She did graduate work in economics at Georgetown University. She speaks Hindi, Urdu, French, Swedish, German and Italian, and has studied Bangla and Sinhala.
Robert Zoellick
Former President at World Bank GroupRobert B. Zoellick is the non-executive chairman of AllianceBernstein, a leading global investment management firm that offers high-quality research and diversified investment services to institutional investors, individuals, and private wealth clients in major world markets. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In addition, Zoellick serves on the boards of Temasek, Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, and Laureate International Universities. He also is a member of the board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, chairs the Global Tiger Initiative, and is a member of the Global Leadership Council of Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian agency.
Zoellick was the President of the World Bank Group from 2007-12, U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005, and Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006. From 1985 to 1993, Zoellick served as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and Under Secretary of State, as well as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff.
Zoellick is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Award of the Department of the Treasury, and the Medal for Distinguished Public Service of the Department of Defense. The German government awarded him the Knight Commanders Cross for his achievements in the course of German unification. The Mexican and Chilean governments awarded him their highest honors for non-citizens, the Aztec Eagle and the Order of Merit, for recognition of his work on free trade, development, and the environment.
Zoellick holds a J.D. magna cum laude from the Harvard Law School, a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a bachelor's degree (Phi Beta Kappa) from Swarthmore College.