Panel Participants
Evrim Kanbur
Expat Neighbors
Founder
Evrim is a business developer, travel blogger, story teller, free soul that believes in ideas to add value to lives of many. More over she believes that distances can increase creativity. That’s how her China adventure started and led her to found “Expat Neighbors” which aims to help expats to meet people and businesses living/woking/are located close to their neighborhood. Right after university, she started to work for Deloitte as an auditor. Afterward3,5 years, she started to work for a local Mobile Payment company as a Business Development Manager. Just before coming to China she was working as a Payment Systems Turkey Country Manager of an American Company. She is also the founder of “While Travelling Blog” where she inspires more than 35K people per month through her travelling experiences. Evrim is holding a Masters’ Degree in Risk, Finance and Banking from Istanbul University and Strategic Marketing Management from Oxford College of Marketing.
Andrea Vercellotti
Director
Biznest
Andrea Vercellotti is the director of the entrepreneurs association and business network Biznest. He grew his experience in
consulting foreign business in China, working for different consulting foreign companies. He previously lived in the United
States, France and Italy where he specialized in foreign languages, political sciences and business administration and he
finally decided to settle down in China where today he is running with his team the entrepreneurs association Biznest
present in Shanghai and Beijing.
Expat Neighbors is a location based social network that aims to give a unique expat experience and helps expats to connect with individuals and businesses who live/work/are located in their neighborhood. We have meetings in every district and also monthly activities like Bubble Football District Championship, Horror Hospital Escape where people from every district can join. Through these activities, we put our expat neighbors in challenging situations where they can have fun and
also get to know themselves and others better and see how they react under pressure. As the spring arrived, we had our first Expat Neighbors Picnic in April with 160 Expat Neighbors participating. Our next Expat Neighbors Picnic will be held on 31st May to welcome the summer. Through our platform, people found their business partners, flatmates, travelling buddies and running buddies in their neighborhood. How about you? Are you new in town? or you've been here for a while but still feel like you don't see like-minded expats around your area? Do you wanna find your people? You're this close to build amazing connections. It’s your time to step into a world of opportunities by becoming
an Expat Neighbor through expatneighbors.com
Biznest is the association of entrepreneurs present in Beijing and Shanghai since 2006 and part of the JCEF (Jeune Chambre
Economique Française), providing services and support to entrepreneurs in China. It gathers entrepreneurs, experts and
professionals from different sectors.
Its activities involve organization of business forums and conferences as well as more customized workshops, issuing
publications on business topics and supporting entrepreneurs through other services and through its network.
The association is a reference point for entrepreneurs from abroad coming to China and for those already present in the
country.
Yoann Delwarde
Shanghai Leadership Toastmasters Club
President
French engineer, open-minded and dynamic person, Yoann is currently working as a Technical Sales Manager for BASSETTI China in Shanghai. He likes travelling (13 countries already visited), dancing and is playing in a drama 'The phantom of the Opera' which will be played the 27th of June 2015in Shanghai. Passionate about public speaking, he is currently President of Shanghai Leadership Toastmasters Club, one of the best platform in Shanghai to share and debate.He is always willing to listen and think that the best ideas come from debates.
Toastmasters is a Nonprofit organization. The goal is to make effective oral communication and leadership a worldwide reality. It helps members learn the art of speaking, listening, and thinking by...doing! It was established in 1924. Currently more than 315,000 members worldwide belong to this family in more than 126 countries.
Mission: We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.
Values:
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Integrity
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Respect
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Service
- Excellence
Yonanetl Zavala
Hola China
Founder
Mexican woman who has being enjoying life in China since 2009. Who believes that any one is able to be, do and have what ever any really desire in order to do good to themselves and in harmony with everybody and everything. Loves children, animals and has work since the age of 14 years old in different industries which has give her enough experience to leader a team.
Created in 2009 in order to introduce Latin Culture in China and help Latinos or spanish-portugues speakers to make life easier in China. Our target is 24 countries connecting within China. Now HOLA CHINA is used as a bridge, with 775,000 yearly unique visits! 55% inside China 45% world wide. HOLA CHINA introduces to China People, Products, Projects and Services.
Mission:
To bridge IberoAmerica and China, with information that is, above all, useful, timely and dedicated to this market segment. To be the tool for IberoAmerica and China to learn about each other and to be a gathering point for for all IberoAmericans, regardless of distance between of their nationality.
Bertha Estrada
Heart to Heart NGO
Financial Director
With 12 years of experience as an entrepreneur in finance and tax, Bertha moved to Shanghai as an expat in January 2014 and joined Jiao Tong University´s MBA program.
Bertha is originally from Mexico City and a graduate of Saint Joseph´s
University in Philadelphia. Her background has given her the
opportunity to learn how the different layers of society enrich a
country´s culture but how they affect the least fortunate. After having
her first child, she became a volunteer at local libraries in Philadelphia
and then joined a community group to help the homeless people of
Philadelphia. Her MBA program at Jiao Tong University gave her the opportunity to become a ¨local¨ quickly and learn about community organizations like Heart to Heart... She joined the Heart to Heart Shanghai finance team in early 2015 and is now transitioning to the finance manager’s position (volunteer). She has just been asked to join (and accepted) the Heart to Heart Board of Directors as well.
Heart to Heart Shanghai is a non-profit community outreach organization composed entirely of volunteers who donate their time to give support to Chinese children from extremely poor families who are undergoing heart surgery. We started in 2003 by conducting hospital play sessions one day a week in one hospital, but have grown greatly in scope. We now:
-Sponsor extremely poor children from the provinces for heart surgery
-Oversee and volunteer in 2 hospital playrooms 7 days a week
-Donate school libraries in poor rural areas
Raymond Phang
Director of event Management
Shanghai PRIDE
Raymond is one of the key organizers of ShanghaiPRIDE. 5 years ago, he started as a merchandise volunteer and was inspired by the team. Since then, he took on several roles - Volunteer Manager, Consular Relations, Event Planner etc. and has helped grew many functions into independent teams. Raymond has been representing ShanghaiPRIDE in TEDx talks, Pecha Kucha, NYU Ally Week and is grateful to be able to contribute towards the positive changes and increasing inclusion & acceptance of LGBT in the local community and greater society. Borned and raised in a multi-racial and multi-cultural environment, he has always been passionate about languages and meeting new people of diverse backgrounds, not to forget, he always hunts for great food.
ShanghaiPRIDE, the first mainland Pride, was started by ShanghaiLGBT in 2009. After six years of events, this makes us the longest existing LGBT festival in China. The festival includes social and cultural activities hosted at venues around the city with the aim of promoting diversity and social awareness for the LGBT community. During this festival, we also conduct fundraising activities to help support local LGBT-related charities.
We have grown remarkably over the years – we began with eight organizers and a modest gathering in 2009, and have grown remarkably over the years to a large one in 2014 with over ten different social and cultural events reaching thousands of LGBT individuals inShanghai. Each year we have more volunteers assisting us and a growing number of participants.
Mission:
To create awareness and promote tolerance for the LGBT community in Shanghai and surrounding areas through various sports, cultural, educational, and social activities.
Kay Gabriel
Founder
NEC
Kay Gabriel has over 13years of Experience living/working and doing business in Asia. With good understanding of Chinese Culture. He is the owner of iinvestUSA a consulting firm that offer EB-5 investment services to Chinese who wants to immigrate to the United States. He is also the President of Golden Consulting Co Ltd , Founder of Golden Education Center and Founder of one of the fastest growing networking group in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore. Networking Events Club with the mission to bring together all the networking groups in town to socialize, share ideas, contacts and most importantly, business referrals.
We believe in inclusive networking because we understand the influence of people. That's why our mission is to bring together successful, motivated professionals and help them become more successful by creating connections that take their careers to the next level and beyond! NEC, Brings together all the networking groups in town to socialize, share ideas, contacts and most importantly, business referrals.
At each of our events, we say, no one stand alone. We welcome everyone, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or belief, to come to our events to participate, socialize or just observe and make new friends
We also aim to help F & B businesses to boost awareness of their venue by choosing different unknown or infamous venues every time for our events.
Founded in Shanghai City on October 2014, NEC now has branches in Shanghai, Beijing, HongKong, Singapore and Dallas TX with more cities coming soon
Pakusevski Feliks
Advisory Board
TEDx Fuxing Park
Gentleman Scientist for Innovation Economics. Book author and film producer for his project; “The Next Trillion - China Innovates”. Ex knowledge and innovation consultant for IBM and Accenture. Serial entrepreneur and mentor for Startup Weekend, Go Up, Chinaccelerator Next. Workshop founder of SEL for design thinking and human centered design. Innovation workshop facilitator and trainer at well known Universities in China. Guest speaker at several forums. Ambassador for FDI infrastructure in ASIA. Speech Coach/ Speaker Recruiter and on the Advisory Board of TEDx FuxingPark.
TED is a platform for ideas worth spreading. Started in 1984 as a conference where technology, entertainment and design converged, TED today shares ideas from a broad spectrum — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. The TEDx Program is designed to help communities, organizations and individuals to spark conversation and connection through local TED-like experiences.Fuxing Park is located in the former French Concession of Shanghai, Huangpu District.
It carries the history of the city. The park was originally built during the Ming Dynasty as a private garden. Then being part of the French concession, the garden was converted to a park and reopened in 1909. After the French, the Japanese renamed the park “Daxing Park”. Finally, in the mid-20th century, the Chinese regained control of the park land and dubbed it “Fuxing Park”. Little by little some Chinese elements of design were added.
As a MIX of cultures and history, Fuxing Park perfectly fit out TEDx theme of “Fusion”. The park fills with dancers, card players, mahjong enthusiasts, tai chi solo and group artists, singers of traditional or modern music…as a fusion of all kinds of people living in Shanghai: young, elderly, foreigners or locals.
Christine Liu
Founder
Shero China
As Founder of sHero, Christine aims to inspire and empower women to live life to the fullest and to offer professional women total solutions for maintaining adeeply meaningful and satisfying balance between career and family. In 2007, Christine Liu started Women Empowering Women, a dialogue connecting extraordinary women and remarkable professionals, who have become successful—each in their own way—to share and offer their opinion and advice to other women who want to learn more about how they can augment their professional and personal skill sets.
Based in Shanghai, Christine Liu has held leadership positions in multi-national companies ranging from luxury fashion to pharmaceuticals including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Honeywell and Richemont. She is an accomplished Human Resources Executive with practical insights into human and organizational psyches.
With expertise in identification of talents for building brands in new markets, Christine is now developing positioning and distribution strategies for clients to better navigate the fast changing Chinese market and strategically expand to the global market for Chinese local brands. Christine is the Senior Consultant for Silkroute Strategists (silkroutestrategists.com) for its Asian Affairs, bringing brands to markets around the world.
Passionate about promoting the wellbeing of women and children, she is also an alumnus of the world-class “Women and Power” program conducted by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
sHero is all about inspire, inform and connect women to empower themselves to reach their full potentials and live their best lives.
The potential for women to contribute to decision-making is under utilized. As a group and through dialogue, we are ideally suited to inspire women to find confidence in their unique abilities, and to equip them with skills to provide inspiration at all levels of society.
sHero, as a Brand behind a Brand, where we collaborate and partner with experts and organizations and Brands creating women centered Projects, Programs and Products to support them to achieve career advancement and life happiness. By knowing, loving self and daring to be self, women can achieve the aim of living a meaningful life that fulfills us financially and spiritually.
Christal Oliver
President
CAC Shanghai
Christal Oliver is the current and youngest President of the Caribbean Association in China (CAC). Living in Shanghai since 2009, she has successfully received a BEng in Environmental Engineering and is currently pursuing a graduate degree in the same discipline.
From a young age, she has shown great passion towards voluntary work and outreach and has been involved in many outreach projects and organisations. This passion, along with her strong Caribbean roots are what inclined her to become a member of the CAC. Through the CAC, she has been able to work along on many outreach projects throughout Shanghai and other provinces in China.
The Caribbean Association of China was founded in April 2007 by a group of Caribbean nationals residing in Shanghai with the goal of supporting the embassies' of the various Caribbean Islands. In addition to supporting Nationals through social programs, student events, and networking meetings, the CAC also supports Chinese Communities throughout China in various kinds of charity outreach activities.
Our mission is to foster a stronger understanding and appreciation of our Caribbean culture, strengthening Sino-Caribbean relations, and to serve as a support network for the Caribbean community in China.