Alan Seigrist - Entrepreneur, Financial Guru and IT Technology Expert
Alan Seigrist is the Chief Financial Officer and a founder of The Executive Centre, Asia＊s largest serviced office company with operations in 15 cities and 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific. He is also a member of the Board and a shareholder, having joined The Executive Centre in 1999 as a core member of the executive team that led the buyout in 2000. Alan has worked hand-in-hand with the CEO over this period to drive the business to the current US$60 million in annual revenues. With The Executive Centre, Alan has lived and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and Shanghai.
Prior to The Executive Centre, Alan worked as the Corporate Finance Manager at private equity firm Pathfinder Asia, with over US$300 million in assets. With Pathfinder, Alan has lived and worked in Manila, Hong Kong, Saigon and Sydney. Previous to Pathfinder, Seigrist spent six years at Bechtel Corp. based in San Francisco, working in project management and business development on projects around the world (contract value of more than US$2 billion). Alan has previous work experience at IBM and Unocal Corp.
Alan has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA, both from the University of California at Berkeley. Alan＊s father, Connie Seigrist, flew for General Claire Chennault and is a veteran of WWII, Korea, Bay of Pigs and Vietnam, as well as several Asian battles, including the Taiwan Straits Crisis in the 1950s where he flew in the battles of Quemoy, Matsu and Tachen islands in support of the ROC. Alan＊s mother, Nora Sun, is a former U.S. diplomat and daughter of former ROC Premier Dr. Sun Fo and Shanghai developer ※Rose§ Lan Yi
John Macy - HRMS Icon, Publisher
A career professional with over 35 years experience in the HR practice and application of technology, as a senior manager with Qantas Airways and CET consultancy.
Founder and Director, Competitive Edge Technology Pty Ltd, a consultancy company set up in 1994 and specializing in human resource system specification and selection.
Presented at conferences all over the world, including IHRIM, has written and contributed chapters to several books on HR technology and has numerous articles published in magazines in USA and Asia/Pacific.
Assignments undertaken for CET have included Asia (particularly Malaysia and Singapore), most major cities within Australia and project assistance within the USA.
Representing the HR business community, has chaired committees in Australia to produce data interchange standards and is a leader in the field of open standards, SOA and emerging component technology for HR.
Regarded as the leading HR system consultant in Australia and has chaired the Australian Human Resource Institute's (AHRI) technology SIG since the early 1990s.
Dr. Bill Dunbar 每 Investment Banker and M&A Expert
Dr Bill Dunbar has 15 years of high-level experience working on major infrastructure, economic development and real estate projects for both the public and private sectors. He is a specialist in developing and implementing financing and investment strategies for major institutions.
His career includes a long period as the key government adviser on infrastructure to the Premier of Australia＊s largest province 每 New South Wales - which has an annual infrastructure budget of approximately AUD8bn. This province includes Sydney 每 Australia＊s largest city with over 4 million people and host of the 2000 Olympics.
During this time, Bill reformed the policies and systems of government to enable the private sector to finance, build and operate infrastructure projects. This resulted in a wide range of new projects include a complete orbital road expressway system for Sydney; upgrading and sale of Sydney＊s major international airport; major new schools and hospitals; and new port infrastructure to handle Australia＊s growing export resource market.
He was also responsible for major government property transactions as Chairman of the Government Property Panel.
Bill honed these financing and investment skills in infrastructure and property at Macquarie Bank 每 one of the world＊s largest investment banks and investor in infrastructure assets. During this time, he worked on AUD1bn port redevelopment project and AUD250m public and affordable housing development for a major Australian provincial government.
He left Macquarie Bank in 2005 to establish CPG Capital Partners, which is a boutique investment banking business focused on establishing infrastructure funds in China. He was responsible for the research, concept development and proof of concept stages which resulted in CPG＊s major business decision to focus on the transport and logistics sectors in China. He has been working in China since 2005 and living in Shanghai since 2007.
CPG is planning to establish infrastructure funds in China in 2009 to buy and operate toll roads which CPG has secured by agreement with government and private vendors. At present, the toll road portfolio for the CPG Fund is valued at over RMB30bn.
Bill＊s scope of expertise now encompasses investment in all major infrastructure and real estate asset classes 每 with specific skills in transport infrastructure, logistics assets and large industrial and high tech urban development projects.
Frankie Ko 每 Senior Executive and Investment Banker
Frankie Ko joined AEA Investors (Asia) Ltd. in 2007 as an operating partner. He supports investments in Asia but he is heavily focused on working with portfolio companies to improve operational excellence to maximize value creation. Frankie Serves on the board of directors of the China subsidiaries and Korean and Japanese joint ventures of portfolio companies.
Before joining AEA, Frankie was vice president of business development for Dow Chemical. His was responsible for project development and strategic marketing in Greater China. Frankie was instrumental in developing the coal-to-chemicals project, which is not only the most significant energy and petrochemical project ever developed, but also the largest Sino-foreign investment in China. Frankie also developed a crude oil-to-refinery-to-cracker-to-downstream-chemicals project in China. Frankie served on the board of directors and steering team of various Dow joint ventures in Asia. He was chairman of the board for two joint ventures in China.
Frankie spent twenty of his thirty-one year career at Dow managing manufacturing plants in Asia and North America. He served as the general manager of Dow＊s first joint venture in China. He was director of market development and technology for DuPont Dow Elastomers, a joint venture between DuPont and Dow. Frankie founded LG Dow Polycarbonate Ltd. in 1998 and served as executive vice president of the joint venture, before he became Asia Pacific commercial director for Engineering Plastics and Polystyrene. Frankie was Greater China country manager in 2002 before he was appointed to his last position in 2004.
Frankie holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Kentucky, and he also holds an M.B.A. from Marshall University.
Mark Samlal 每 Senior Executive, BPO Practitioner and HR Consulting Expert
Mr Mark Samlal is the Group CEO of Vicplas International Limited who are slotted on the Singaporean Stock Exchange are a premier Contract manufacturer in the Medical device market and upvc Pipes and fittings. Vicplas companies operate in China, Malaysia and Singapore.
From 2006 to 2008 Mr Samlal was the Executive Director and Corporate Development Officer for Omni Industries Pte Ltd, a Global Precision Engineering and Injection Molding. At Omni Industries Mr Samlal＊s responsibilities was the management of the Group＊s Information Technology, Group Human Resource and Corporate Governance strategies and business units.
Prior to Omni Industries Mr. Samlal held the positions of Vice President for Convergys Asia Pacific (2004 - 2006) and prior to that Executive Director and General Manager of Automatic Data Processing Asia Pacific (1999-2003)
Mr Samlal has 17 years experience in managing diverse employee populations, in the manufacturing, business process outsourcing and information technology. His business has focus has been primarily in business turnarounds, strategic business development, acquisition projects and global strategy development.
Along with this position Mark is the Chairman of Pay Asia Pte Ltd and Supply Source Asia Pte Ltd and a Non Executive Director of India Tales Media Pvt Ltd.
Chris Houle has more than fifteen years of senior management experience, including work in international acquisitions, partnerships and restructurings.
Mr. Houle is co-founder and CEO of Quantrix, a provider of business modeling and analytics (BMA) solutions and services to customers in 50 countries with resellers in the United Kingdom, China, Australia, France, Germany, Mexico, Chile, Israel, South Africa, and Brazil. Quantrix Modeler provides unprecedented business insight by enabling companies to develop accurate, secure, and dynamic forecast, budget, planning, risk, and data models. Quantrix Modeler delivers rapid return on investment by empowering businesses to break away from restrictive two-dimensional spreadsheets and complicated modeling and business intelligence tools. Chris brought a wealth of business, sales, marketing, management, and international experience to the company.
Prior to co-founding Quantrix, Mr. Houle served in multiple capacities for enterprise resource planning (ERP) software provider Scala Business Solutions from 1994 to 2002. Headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Scala was publicly traded on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Mr. Houle started at Scala as managing director for Scala＊s Czech Republic division, where he grew the business by more than 50% while launching an operation in Slovakia; as managing director of the Eastern and Central Europe division, he achieved 70% CAGR while launching operations in Romania, Turkey and Kazakhstan that represented 15% of regional sales within two years. As president, he downsized and restructured Asian and Russian operations while acquiring Norwegian, Finnish, and Baltic State distribution partners. In six quarters, he grew the business from US$60 million to US$100 million. As chairman and CEO, Mr. Houle transformed the company during a highly-depressed technology market to increase share price by 84%, return the company to operating profit and positive operating cash flow, and develop a strategic focus that identified and captured the company＊s target market.
Before joining Scala in 1994, he served as a privatization consultant in the newly-reformed Eastern Bloc through AT Kearney and the MBA Enterprise Corps. His work led to a joint venture between Skoda Pilsen and a major U.S. engineering and construction firm. He began his career at Ameritech in 1985 managing information systems and treasury operations for its newly-formed, high-growth leasing company.
Mr. Houle received a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, and a master＊s degree in international business from Katholieke University in Belgium. He received a bachelor＊s degree in finance and economics from Bradley University.
Marc Dawson 每Entrepreneur, China Talent Management Expert and Executive Coach
Before establishing Talent Spheres Group, Marc was the VP HR & Organisation Asia for Lafarge 每 Boral, a Franco-Australian joint venture in the Construction Materials industry. His major contribution in this role was to set up the Asia HR function, modernize HR processes and policies by introduction of HR best practices, focus on talent identification/ management, develop succession planning strategies and provide support to Country VPs on all Strategic HR matters.
Prior to this, Marc was General Manager for Nicholson International (Shanghai and Qingdao offices), having taken the business from start up phase to a recognized consulting brand name in Shanghai. Focusing on developing partnerships with a limited number of key accounts in all industries, Marc successfully positioned Nicholson International as a top tier Executive Search and HR consulting firm, delivering quality services and strategic advice in all areas revolving around talent optimisation: identification of high potentials, leadership/ competency assessment, management development, talent management, succession planning＃ For the past 12 years, Marc has been personally consulting with Senior Executives, CEOs and board Directors in areas such as Executive Search, retention, Executive assessment, competency modeling, leadership development, C&B＃ Marc was involved in Asia-Pacific Senior executive searches as well as Greenfield staffing projects, JV mergers, start-ups, country -wide assessment centers (GE, Hutchison Whampoa, Schindler, Sodexho) or post M&A assessment of Board of Directors/Senior Executives (Lafarge, Caterpillar, GSK), HR audits＃
For the past 4 years Marc has been building ※Talent Spheres Group§- an Organizational Development Practice - here in Shanghai, regrouping and creating synergies with a number of HR/OD specialists (companies and individuals) in order to service Multinational or Local Corporate needs in OD, Talent Management, Strategic HR consulting and Executive Coaching. Marc also assists small/medium sized Companies build their organization or HR function - acting as an outsourced or part-time HR Director. Marc coaches Senior Executives facing challenges in leadership, personal performance or career development.
In Shanghai since 1997, Marc has also been actively involved in the City＊s business and social life: a member of the American Chamber of Commerce, The Economist Intelligence Network, the European Chamber of Commerce, Vice-Chairman of the British Chamber since 2004, Marc also chairs the Britcham HR Subcommittee. Marc is also an Associate Member of SHRM, the Human Capital Institute and a Registered Corporate Coach with the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches
Born in the United Kingdom, raised in France, Marc is fluent in English, French and Spanish and is conversational in Mandarin. He graduated from the Euromed Marseille Business School with a MBA in International Trade and Business Administration. Marc is married with three children.
Where Keke's passion and focus is on Sustainability and Corporate Social roles with ※The Evans & Peck Sustainability Leadership§ project that takes into account of Corporate & climate Sustainability Strategy, as well as the Agile Business Leader (ABL) Model delivered with facilitated action learning & web 2.0 community approach.
In her capacity as Founder, Kinnogene Inc. Keke worked with Dr. Philip Kotler and Mr. Milton Kotler at ※Branding Taiwan 2006§ in facilitating discussions amongst the working officials and academics Group for continued dialogues as part of the Branding Taiwan Project hosted by TaiTra.
Keke is part of the SOL and works with Peter Senge at his yearly China Executive Champion Workshop on sustainable organizational development and learning.
Keke FACILITATESAction Learning & Coaching Projects, as well as Strategic Management and Planning processes with Future Search, AGILE, Appreciative Inquiry & Participative Strategic Planning Approach, and with her many innovatively design interventions.
Keke gained her MNC & SME consulting/management experience in Australia, Asia, and Greater China. Including Digital Equipment Asia, ABB china, Xerox china, Accenture China, American Management Association China, Kinnogene Inc., and now Evans & Peck.
Keke lectures at the Strathclyde University's China EMBA program, was the panel expert of the Shanghai Labor Office's Trainer Certification Center; She is also actively involved in the community; she participates in Junior Achiever China's events, was the founding president for the Taiwanese Professional Women's Society in Shanghai, the membership VP of Expatriate women's society in Shanghai, Chair of the Shanghai Amcham Education & Training Committee, and the Executive Committee of Austcham Shanghai.
Keke's Learning Consortium since 2008 (https://kekelearningconsortium.kinnogene.com) is a Membership-Based Community, a Center for benchmarking, networking, research and collaborative projects, a community of trust, appropriate confidentiality and syndicated efforts to enhance the effectiveness of our efforts on Learning and Training. And the Kinnogene Innovation Center is to design and bring unique and innovative tools that supports organizations＊ innovation through participation 每 and the All@1™ Self-Facilitated Learning Games since 2005 (https://allin1designfactory.kinnogene.com).
Keke is professional members of IAF, ASTD, AIM, and DMI.
Mac Patrick 每 Global People Process Improvement Expert
Mac Patrick is Managing Director- Services, for Process Improvement Asia (Shanghai), Ltd. (PIA) and is also President of Process Advantage Technology, Inc. (PATech), California, USA. A Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser for High Maturity Appraisals for CMMI V1.2 as well as P-CMM, he works with commercial industry to define and realize their process capability improvement goals providing consulting, training, coaching, and appraisal services. For the last 30 years he has worked as a communication engineer, a software developer, manager, and consultant in the USA, Europe, and Asia.
