Advisory Boards

Andrew Wu is Group Representative Director in China for Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), a world leader in luxury goods boasting a portfolio of more than 50 prestigious brands across five main sectors. Previously Andrew was Managing Director of Sony Music Entertainment Group's China operations. Andrew has participated in many of our Quest programmes to China as a valued host.

Herman is a member of the Leaders’ Quest Strategic Advisory Board having joined us as a participant in India in 2006 and Brazil in 2007.

Herman Spruit is Managing Partner, Frontiers Capital which he joined in 2007. Previously he was Regional Managing Partner, UK and Europe for the strategy consultants Marakon Associates. Marakon was one of the pioneers of managing for shareholder value and was described by Fortune as "the best kept secret in consulting" and by the Economist as "advises some of the world's best performing companies".  Over 18 years, Herman was central to building Marakon’s UK and European business as a leader of the firm and its practice.  During this time he advised multiple CEOs and their top teams on the strategies and capabilities required to deliver sustained value growth. He started his career at HSBC as an International Manager with postings in Hong Kong and a wide variety of emerging markets.

In addition to LQ, his developing world interests include serving on the Advisory Board of The Sierra Leone Investment Fund, a Freetown-based investment company promoting entrepreneurship in Sierra Leone.

Herman is a native Dutch speaker with an MBA from IMD and a BSc in Economics from Bristol University.

Jeanne-Marie Gescher, OBE, is one of the today's leading experts on China, an adviser to some of the world's most effective corporations, the leading expert on China's media industries, and an observer and commentator on economic and social change.

A resident of Beijing since 1989, Jeanne-Marie is a recognized thinker and regular speaker to government, industry, and policy think-tanks on global issues of sustainability and sustainable investment. She has been actively involved in the build-out of major PRC policy initiatives, facilitating WTO accession, and helping build China's private enterprise and knowledge economies.

In 1993, Jeanne-Marie founded Claydon Gescher Associates (CGA), a strategy consulting group, to work on some of China's most complex industries and issues. The group – which includes CGA Digital and Sustainable China@CGA – is supported by its own think tank and is actively involved in building dialogue (policy, social, and economic) across borders.

Jeanne-Marie is the author and owner of Soul States

Pradeep Kar is a well-known technology entrepreneur in India and is Founder, Chairman & MD of Microland Limited, a leading IT outsourcing company of IT infrastructure management and technical support services based in Bangalore. He is also a non-executive Director of United Business media PLC. A serial entrepreneur, Pradeep has founded a further four companies. A frequent speaker on industry and technology issues affecting both business and financial communities, his industry acumen has been recognised with numerous accolades, notably 'India Young Business Achiever' and a 'Global Leader for Tomorrow' by the World Economic Forum.

Subi Rangan is a Professor of Strategy and Management, The Abu Dhabi Crown Prince's Diwan Endowed Chair in Societal Progress and Shell Fellow in Business and Environment at INSEAD business school. He received an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. His research and teaching revolve around the strategy and management challenges facing multinational firms. In 1998, Subi won the Academy of International Business’ Eldridge Haynes Prize for the best original essay in international business. In 1995, the academy also awarded their Best Dissertation Award to his doctoral thesis. His articles appear in such journals as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Strategic Management Journal and the Sloan Management Review. Subi is co-author of two books: Manager in the International Economy and A Prism on Globalisation.

Subi co-leads the AviraQuest programme, a joint venture between Leaders’ Quest and INSEAD designed to help senior leaders in global multinationals think about reconciling performance with purpose in their organisations. He is also currently working on the topics of global competition among, and cross-border cooperation within, multinational firms. Subi is a member of the World Economic Forum’s global agenda council on Emerging Multinationals. He is recipient of the Outstanding Teacher award in 2009, 2008 and 1998 (and nominee in 1999, 2002 and 2003) for his MBA course on global strategy and management

Wendy Lucas Bull, one of South Africa's leading businesswomen, is one of two founding partners and owners of Peotona, a women's investment consortium that has just concluded a ground-breaking BEE investment deal with de Beers. Wendy is also on the boards of Eskom, Aveng, Dimension Data and Nurcha, amongst others. She also represents South Africa on the Global Trade and Poverty Forum. Wendy was the founding chairman of Business Against Crime (BAC) and was Business Woman of the Year in 1995 (BWA) and Top Woman in Business in 2004 (Top 300).

Lanying Zhang is Policy Advisor for ActionAid Asia and is our Lead Partner for the LQ Foundation Centre for Leadership in China. She has 15 years’ experience in the field of social development work. Having gained her degree at Peking University, she started her career in the Philippines, where she developed, managed and implemented projects, training/workshops and study programmes in the area of sustainable agriculture, environmental education, health education and participatory development approach promotion.

Lanying then returned to China to help spearhead the development of the country’s social sector. This was a major initiative at a time of huge change in China, and with NGOs and social enterprises in the country still in their infancy. In 2002, she took up the challenge of establishing ActionAid in China. Today, ActionAid China is widely seen as one of the leading NGOs in the country, with 13 field offices directly supporting local people to self-initiate changes as well as influence local government to better respond to the needs of the poor.

Since 2008, Lanying has been focusing her energies on the launch of the Centre for Leadership in China, in partnership with the Leaders’ Quest Foundation. The Centre aims to provide intensive, year-long, experiential leadership development opportunities for up to 300 emerging grassroots leaders over the next three years. Lanying is planning to move on from her position as Director at ActionAid China, but will continue to play a key advisory role in the Centre for Leadership in order to develop and expand the model across China.

Richard Wong has been a practitioner of human capital management in Asia Pacific and North America for the past 25 years. He has played vital roles in guiding business teams through transformative changes brought on by growth, business direction reforms, restructuring, and mergers and acquisitions. In June 2007, he won the Best HR Leader award at the HRM Awards 2007 ceremony in Hong Kong, an industry event sponsored by global HR consulting companies.

Richard helms the global Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Relations for Flextronics, a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) company with annual revenue in excess of USD30 billion and a global workforce of 200,000 employees, 70% of whom are in Asia. Preceding his current role, Richard led Flextronics’ HR function in Asia for four years since mid-2005. In that position, he successfully drove the transformation of the HR function, enabling the company to double its revenue and workforce in the region within 3 years. In 2008, Flextronics was selected as FORTUNE’s most admired Asia-headquartered company, second only to Toyota. Richard was one of the key architects and enablers in garnering the accolade. He has played a pivotal leadership role in developing Flextronics’ Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives in Asia and fostered long-term relationships with NGOs and worked with them on special causes, such as improving the welfare of migrant workers in China.

Before joining Flextronics, Richard was Honeywell’s VP of HR for Asia Pacific. Preceding his stint at Honeywell, he held executive HR positions with Nortel Networks and HSBC Investment Banking in Asia Pacific. Earlier, Richard was a career civil servant of the governments of Ontario and Metropolitan Toronto leading such mission-critical projects as restructuring of provincial civil service, comprehensive management audits of the correctional services, and re-engineering of the social services operations.

Tang Haisong is the founder and former CEO of the highly successful website Etang, which is now one of the largest late-teen sites in China, catering to ‘Generation Yellow’ (who followed their Communist predecessors, ‘Generation Red’). The company initially raised US$48 million from venture capital companies in the US to create this new lifestyle youth brand, offering wireless services, online and offline products. In 2007, Haisong moved from Etang to join RMB China, taking on responsibility for RMB’s Chinese private equity operations, covering deal sourcing, deal structuring, office establishment and staff recruitment.

Haisong’s work experience includes time with the Shanghai Municipal Government, where he was Deputy Director of Foreign Trade, with Ermenegildo Zegna, where he was assistant to the CEO, and with McKinsey & Co, where, from 1993-1996, he was a BA (Business Analyst) based in both the UK, the US and China.

Haisong gained a BSc in Laser Physics from Shanghai’s Fudan University in 1989 and an MBA from Harvard in 1998. He is fluent in Mandarin, Shanghainese and English and also speaks Japanese and French. He is married to Florence, who runs a tea house in Shanghai, and they have a son and a daughter.

Yuebing Lu is the Deputy President and Chief Investment Officer for Jianyin Investment Corp. Previously he was the Managing Director of Climate Change Capital (CCC) responsible for their Chinese operations. CCC advises and invests in companies that recognise combating global warming is both a necessity and an economic opportunity. It manages funds with commitments totalling US $1.5 billion (as of Dec ’09) and aims to provide attractive returns to investors, demonstrating the financial opportunity associated with the low carbon economy.

Yuebing was the Executive Vice President of Alstom (China) Investment Co. Ltd, in charge of strategy, investment and industrial partnerships and, prior to this, Vice President of Ford Motor China Ltd., responsible for government relations and business development. He has also held a director position at Caterpillar (China) Investment Co. Ltd and was an advisor to the Chinese government on industry development strategy and foreign investment policy during his service in the Development Research Centre of the State Council.

Yuebing has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Tsinghua University, an MSc in management engineering from the University of Science and Technology Beijing and McMaster University, and a PhD in Economics from Clare College, Cambridge University, UK

Gopal Jain

Gopal has hosted many Quest visits in Mumbai and has joined us as a participant on one of our Quests to China and on one of our Inner Quests held in the UK. He is Managing Partner, Gaja Capital Partners, based in Mumbai. GCP is one of the first international private equity firms to focus on private equity opportunities in the Indian domestic market. Prior to co-founding GCP, Gopal was MD, India, of View Group, a private equity firm focused on the US-India corridor. He is one of the few investors in the Indian private equity sector that has a successful full-cycle investing track record in venture capital and private equity investments. His subject expertise includes Business Process Outsourcing and Financial services, and his interests include developing entrepreneurship in India.

Along with Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, Kalpana created the Task Force and then led the BATF for several years, using it to inform government policy and priorities.  She is also the Director of the Cancer Patients Aid Association.

Described by the press as a ‘personable dynamo’, Kalpana’s favourite quote is from the ‘Desiderata’ found in the Old Saint Paul’s church, Baltimore, dated 1642 :  “Be at peace with God whatever you conceive him to be and whatever your labours and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham and drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.”

After receiving an M.Phil from Oxford, Kar joined the Tata Administrative Services (TAS) in 1984, and went on to work with Tata Unisys and Titan Industries.

Lindsay Levin is Founder and Managing Partner of Leaders' Quest. Lindsay's long-standing interest in the impact of inspirational leadership combined with her passion for economic and social development issues and for bringing together leaders from different disciplines and perspectives led her to found Leaders' Quest in 2001.

Lindsay is also Chair and major shareholder of Whites Group, with businesses in the retirement care homes and property sectors in the UK. Through the 1990s she was CEO of Whites Group, which at that time included a network of Audi and VW motor dealerships that she went on to sell during 2004. Lindsay has founded a number of start-ups (where her near misses have shaped her learning at least as much as the successes!) and her entrepreneurial companies have been widely recognised for their focus on people and innovation. Lindsay was named as an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 1999.

Lindsay has a keen interest in international development; she is an active supporter of several global NGOs including Oxfam and a number of local NGOs in Asia and Africa. She was a Trustee of the New Economics Foundation from 2005 –2009. She Chairs the International Steering Committee of OneVoice, a conflict resolution movement, working to strengthen civil society in Israel and Palestine and regularly facilitates workshops and dialogues in the region.

Lindsay graduated in Economics from Cambridge in 1985 and started her career with Bain & Company in London. She lives in London with her husband David and their three sons, Zac, Joe and Louis.

Sujata founded our fellowship programme in Mumbai, describing it as her 'dream project’ and ‘the culmination of 20 years’ work’. It's her vision to replicate the model with other partner organisations and expand it across Maharashtra State and beyond.

Sujata is also Co-founder and Director of CORO, a non-profit organisation established in 1989 working towards propagating adult literacy in Mumbai’s slums. Since then, CORO has grown into an integrated community development project, working to respond to the issues identified by community people and particularly focusing on the empowerment of women.

Today, CORO encompasses a federation of around 300 grassroots women’s groups with an outreach of around 10,000 community women. Initiatives include a women's credit cooperative society, guidance centres for accessing basic amenities, legal aid and counselling centres, study classes for primary school children and capacity-building of grassroots activists.