Unlocking Success: Understanding Government-Business Relations in China

Li MA is the associate dean, the director of EMBA programs and a professor at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. He obtained his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis and his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Tsinghua University. He has also taught full time at Tsinghua University, and part time at Washington University in St. Louis in the United States and Yonsei University in Korea. He studies negotiation, conflict management, and participative management, especially in international contexts. His publications appear in journals such as MIT Sloan Management Review, Leadership Quarterly, Human Relations, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Management and Organization Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, Negotiation Journal, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, International Journal of Human Resource Management, and a number of Chinese academic journals.

Li-An ZHOU is the Director of Faculty of Economics and Management at Peking University, a Professor of Applied Economics at Peking University Guanghua School of Management. Prof. Zhou received his BA and MA in economics from Peking University, and his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University. His research interests include political economy, industrial organization, economic development, and Chinese economy. Prof. ZHOU has published papers in economics and management journals including American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, RAND Journal of Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic History, and Strategic Management Journal. He is also the author of the book Incentives and Governance: China's Local Governments. He has conducted pioneering research on the incentives and behaviors of government officials' promotions and government governance, generating widespread influence in the academic community both domestically and internationally.

Stewart is co-head of the Office of Government Affairs for Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong. In this role, he focuses on the firm's public policy agenda in Asia Pacific Ex-Japan, and manages the firm's relationships with key regulators, policy officials, business groups and community leaders in the region. Stewart joined Goldman Sachs as a Managing Director in 2022. Prior to joining the firm, Stewart held multiple roles in international public policy and the private sector. Most recently, he served as a member of the Executive Office at HSBC, advising on sustainability policy and regulation. Before that, Stewart relocated to Hong Kong to lead Government Affairs for HSBC's Asia Pacific region. He joined HSBC in 2016 as deputy head of Group Government Affairs, helping to establish a new global function to engage with public policy makers across the company's geographical footprint. Earlier in his career, Stewart worked at the Bank of England, where he acted as Governor Mark Carney's Financial Stability Board (FSB) Sherpa, leading the team to support the governor in his role as FSB chair. Before that, in 2008, he worked as alternate executive director on the board of the World Bank Group, representing the UK government in Washington, DC. He began his career in HM Treasury, working for five years in London on the UK's strategic approach to the European Union (EU) and six years in Brussels, focused on EU financial regulation. Stewart earned a BS in Physics from the University of Glasgow.

Li-An ZHOU is the Director of Faculty of Economics and Management at Peking University, a Professor of Applied Economics at Peking University Guanghua School of Management. Prof. Zhou received his BA and MA in economics from Peking University, and his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University. His research interests include political economy, industrial organization, economic development, and Chinese economy. Prof. ZHOU has published papers in economics and management journals including American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, RAND Journal of Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic History, and Strategic Management Journal. He is also the author of the book Incentives and Governance: China's Local Governments. He has conducted pioneering research on the incentives and behaviors of government officials' promotions and government governance, generating widespread influence in the academic community both domestically and internationally.