A diligent reporter, exacting editor and China hand with two decades of experience who enjoys the challenge of managing teams of people to work toward a common objective -- creating necessary, informative and distinctive journalism. Guides 30-plus reporters, photographers and video journalists spread across four bureaus covering China.

As Vice-Chair of the Board of Governors of the American Chamber of Commerce – People's Republic of China (AmCham) and Chair of its Policy Committee and Insurance Forum, Les Ross is a longstanding leader of the American business and legal communities in China and in frequent contact with government officials and other stakeholders.

Mr. Ross concentrates his practice on mergers and acquisitions and regulatory matters and has experience in a broad range of industries. He has represented both foreign and local companies and has particular experience advising foreign companies on competition law and regulatory compliance in China.

Mr. Ross represents foreign companies in their strategic expansion in China through direct investments and mergers and acquisitions in industries ranging alphabetically from agriculture to water services. He also has extensive experience representing foreign banks and corporations, including Chinese entities, in their strategic expansion in the United States, particularly focusing on M&A and regulatory clearances and compliance. He has also represented clients in trade, dispute resolution and regulatory matters in China.

Stephen Shih is a partner in Bain & Company's Beijing office. He is a senior member of Bain's global Industrial Goods & Services practice. He also leads Bain China's Organization practice.

Stephen advises clients across a range of sectors related to industrial and commercial equipment, resources and energy, automotive, consumer and business services and technology. He has substantial experience with growth strategy, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and customer and marketing strategies.

Stephen has applied his consulting expertise globally with Bain, having worked in Bain's Boston and Hong Kong offices. He also leads Bain's Asia-Pacific recruiting efforts.

He is active in the Beijing community, leading Bain's China Business Climate Survey partnership with the American Chamber of Commerce in China and serving as a Senior Practitioner Adviser at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management.

Stephen graduated from Princeton University with an AB in Economics, magna cum laude. He holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he graduated as a Carter Fellow.

Michael Thorneman is the managing partner of Bain & Company's Greater China practice with offices in Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

He is a senior leader in the firm's Private Equity, Industrial Goods & Services, Strategy and Mergers & Acquisitions practices. He is also engaged with Bain's Developing Market 100 initiative.

Michael has nearly 25 years of management consulting experience, with more than 13 years of experience living and working in China. He advises multinational corporations as well as Chinese companies.

He has served leading companies across a range of industries, including industrial goods and services and consumer products. He serves private equity and corporate clients in the areas of strategy, performance improvement, M&A, organization and investments. He also holds deep expertise in commercial due-diligence, portfolio company performance improvement and fund strategy.

Before he relocated to China, Michael served clients throughout Europe in the Stockholm, London and Brussels offices. He frequently speaks at executive summits and has been quoted by major media outlets on topics relating to private equity, M&A and corporate strategy.

Prior to joining Bain in 1995, Michael worked in business consulting and the telecommunications industry. He also served as a Systems & Telecommunication Sergeant in the Royal Swedish Navy.

Michael holds an MBA from INSEAD, France, an MScEE from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden and an International Baccalaureate from United Nations International School, New York. He received the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation Scholarship for his studies at INSEAD.

Jing Ulrich is Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Asia Pacific at JPMorgan Chase. She provides strategic advice to the firm’s most senior global clients across all sectors and asset classes, while building relationships with executives at Asia’s leading enterprises. Ms. Ulrich works with all lines of business at JPMorgan Chase to foster greater cross-border collaboration and strengthen senior client relationships in Asia Pacific and the rest of the world.

Educated at Harvard and Stanford Universities, Ms. Ulrich is one of the most prominent advisors to the world’s largest asset-management companies, sovereign wealth funds, and multinational corporations. Her views influence the allocation of trillions of dollars of investments.

Ms. Ulrich has received numerous accolades for her work in the industry. She has been ranked four times as one of Fortune Magazine's 50 Most Powerful Global Businesswomen. Forbes named her one of Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen and twice named her among the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World. The South China Morning Post selected Ms. Ulrich as one of the top 25 most inspirational and influential women in Hong Kong. In recent years, publications including China Entrepreneur magazine and FinanceAsia have consistently ranked Ms. Ulrich among the top business elite in Asia. She has also been dubbed as "the unofficial voice of China" and the "Oprah Winfrey of the investment world.”

Because of her in-depth knowledge of China’s linkages with the rest of the world, Ms. Ulrich has been an important figure shaping the international community’s approach to investing in Asia Pacific. In her previous position, she established J.P. Morgan’s Hands-on-China Series, which became a leading forum for views and research on China’s transformation. The series hosted hundreds of corporate leaders and industry experts. Ms. Ulrich also created the world’s foremost China investment summit, attended each year by thousands of global business and government leaders. In addition, Ms. Ulrich also serves on the Multinational Committee of the APEC China Business Advisory Council.

Before joining J.P. Morgan, Ms. Ulrich was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank and CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, where she led the top-ranked team covering China. Global institutional investors regularly voted her the best China strategist in polls conducted by Institutional Investor, Asiamoney, and Euromoney. Before moving to Asia, Ms. Ulrich worked in Washington DC as one of the first fund managers to focus on the Greater China markets.

Mr. Zimmerman is the Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce China, which represents more than 3,000 US companies and individuals with trade and investments in China, and was elected and served as the organization’s chairman for two prior terms (2007, 2008) and vice chairman for two terms (2005, 2006).
Mr. Zimmerman has been involved with trade-related matters for 25 years and represents US companies in a broad range of industries with respect to their joint venture investments, manufacturing investments, liquidation and dissolution of investments, mergers and acquisitions activities, regulatory compliance, customs and trade matters, labor and employment, intellectual property rights enforcement and dispute resolution matters. In general, his day-to-day work involves helping businesses overcome the complexities of doing business in China, which oftentimes involves obtaining government approvals or seeking government support to enhance or modify current legal or regulatory provisions and practice.
Mr. Zimmerman is recognized as one of Asia’s leading business lawyers in the categories of Chinese Law, Dispute Resolution and General Corporate Law in theAsiaLaw Leading Lawyers Survey 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 (published by Euromoney Publications). He is listed in the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions of The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers for Arbitration. In addition, he is listed as a Leading Individual in the category of Corporate/M&A for foreign law firms in China in the 2004 through 2009 editions of the AsiaPacific Legal 500: The Guide to Asia’s Commercial Law Firms. The AsiaPacific Legal 500 characterizes James as an “exemplary counselor,” and as having a “longstanding track record of taking leading investors into China.”
In addition to matters involving the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Zimmerman has significant trade and investment-related experience in a broad range of countries including throughout Asia and the Pacific Region (e.g., India, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, New Zealand and Australia), North, Central and Latin America (e.g., Canada, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil), the Middle East (e.g., Saudi Arabia and Israel) and the European Union.
Mr. Zimmerman is the author of several books, chapters, and articles concerning trade and China related issues, including the well-recognized China Law Deskbook (1999, 2005, 2010, 2014), a publication of the American Bar Association. He is also the author of the book Extraterritorial Application of US Labor Standards (1992) and is the author of articles in a variety of international scholarly journals including, but not limited to, International Labour Review, China Business Review, Journal of Alternative Dispute Resolution in Employment, Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, Cornell International Law Journal, The International Lawyer, Asia Dispute Review and Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review.