James Zimmerman is the 2016 Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, and also served as the chairman in 2007, 2008, and 2015, and as a vice chairman in 2005 and 2006. Mr. Zimmerman is the managing partner for the Beijing office of the international law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, and is the author of several publications concerning trade and China related issues, including the well-recognized China Law Deskbook, a publication of the American Bar Association (now in its 4th edition).
Mr. Zimmerman has been a registered foreign lawyer with the Ministry of Justice since 1998 and is recognized as one of Asia’s leading business lawyers in the AsiaLaw Leading Lawyers Survey and is listed as a Leading Individual in the category of Corporate/M&A for foreign law firms in China of the AsiaPacific Legal 500: The Guide to Asia's Commercial Law Firms. Mr. Zimmerman is a member of the California Bar (since 1988) and admitted to practice before the United States Court of International Trade and various other federal courts.
Mr. Zimmerman served on the board of the International Institute of Conflicts Prevention & Resolution (2009-2012) and the Business Advisory Council of the United Nation’s Greater Tumen Initiative (2009-2011). Mr. Zimmerman also serves on a number of non-profit boards focused on child health and education issues in China and is active as a fundraiser for charitable organizations. He has lived and worked in Beijing since 1998.
Steven Zhang is the Chief Economist and Head of Research at Morgan Stanley Huaxin Securities. Before this role, he was Senior Economist of UBS. Before UBS, he was the China Economist of Morgan Stanley (Asia), and Research Analyst at International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Steven has deep insights and thorough understanding in large financial institutions in China. He was engaged in the research of ICBC and ABC’s Hong Kong IPO when working at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse respectively. He is an active columnist for many mainstream media including Sina, Tecent and Caiijng Magazine.
Small group dialogue between the heads of several companies, Chinese and American MNCs. Topic will focus on
-expectations of leaders in human resource
-2017 demands in human capital
Obed D. Louissaint serves as IBM vice president of human resources for IBM Watson, Cognitive Solutions and Research and technical talent. In this role, Obed is responsible for the people strategies and investments for several of the company’s fastest-growing and most strategic parts of the information technology market – Watson, Watson Health, Watson IoT, education, security and commerce.
Obed was most recently vice president human resources of the HR Partner Organization, with global responsibility for the HR business partners who advise over 40,000 managers across the enterprise. The HR generalists are the client facing segment of the global team of HR professionals and collaborate with each of the functional disciplines to administer corporate policies and people solutions.
During his tenure, he has held successive HR roles across multiple geographies, business units and at the enterprise level leading diversity, workforce programs, and delivery centers across growth markets. Obed has led HR teams within several growth businesses to reinvent recruitment, talent management, compensation/incentives, and global mobility policies.
Obed is a graduate of Cornell University with a degree in Industrial Labor Relations with focus in Economics & Organizational Behavior. He is a trustee of the Student Agencies Foundation, on the Management Advisory Council for the National Academy of Minority in Engineering and a member of the INROADS alumni association.
(Ballroom C)
Every HR professional in China has been challenged to develop great retention programs. We have all had many opportunities to learn about and discuss talent retention. But the challenges in 2016 in China are different from anywhere else in the world at any other time. On the one hand, we have a booming job market where the most talented are regularly recruited. On the other hand, we have a relatively sluggish economy that demands that we keep our best performers on board. In this panel, our experts will share their own stories of how they have been been working to address both of these retention challenges.
Innovation is vital to future economy. The panel will provide expertise opinions about how millennium generations work and think differently to achieve innovation and growth, what difficulties we are facing and how leaders should guide and assist the millennials to reach the common goal.