Opening Remarks at the 2011 Tsinghua Management Global Forum

QIAN Yingyi

Dean, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University

October 25, 2011

Distinguished members of the Advisory Board, distinguished guests, faculty and students, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning. Welcome to Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management and to the 2011 Tsinghua Management Global Forum.

Since 2007, each year the School of Economics and Management has held Tsinghua Management Global Forum in conjunction with the Advisory Board Meeting. The forum is a platform where prominent business leaders, leading scholars and high-level government officials exchange their ideas and views on varieties of issues concerning the economy and business practice in China and the world. Many of the participating panelists are members of the Advisory Board of the School. Other panelists are School’s friends and long-time collaborators. Participants of the Forum are mostly faculty, students and alumni of the School as well as friends from the media.

In the last four years, we had four distinguished speakers to deliver keynote speeches at the Forum, and they were ZHOU Xiaochuan, a Board member and Governor of the People’s Bank of China, JIANG Jianqing, Chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, LOU Jiwei, a Board member and Chairman of China Investment Corporation, and Dominic Barton, a Board member and the Global Managing Director of McKinsey & Company. Their insights shed lights on the complicated realities of today’s economies and business practices concerning China and the world. We at Tsinghua SEM are proud to provide a venue for the audience at the School and beyond to listen to the wisdom of these distinguished speakers.

This is the fifth year of since forum’s inception, and this year’s theme is, very appropriately, “China in the Changing World.” We will have four sessions for discussion, including “Industrial Transformation and the New Pattern of Growth,” “Institutional Entrepreneurship in Finance,” “Preparing Talents for the Future,” and “The Emerging Power of the 21st Century.” We expect to hear profound insights from the panelists to bring us great inspirations on the issues of everybody’s concerns.

I am delighted that we have 14 members of the Advisory Board joining today’s Forum. They are Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director, McKinsey & Company; Sir John Bond, Chairman, Xstrata and former Chairman, Vodafone Group and HSBC Holdings; Henri de Castries, Chairman and President, AXA; Victor Fung, Group Chairman, Li & Feng Group of Companies; Christopher Galvin, Co-Founder & Chairman, Harrison Street Capital and former Chairman & CEO, Motorola; Maurice Greenberg, Chairman & CEO, C. V. Starr and former Chairman & CEO, AIG; Nobuyuki Idei, founder and CEO, Quantum Leaps Corporation and former Chairman & Group CEO, Sony Corporation; LI Rongrong, former Chairman, State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of China’s State Council; Robin Li, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Baidu; Andrònico Luksic, Chairman, Luksic Group; Nitin Nohria, Dean, Harvard Business School; David Schmittlein, Dean, MIT Sloan School of Management; John Thornton, Guest Professor & Director, Global Leadership Program, Tsinghua SEM and Chairman, Board of Trustees, Brookings Institution; and Marjorie Yang, Chairman, Esquel Group. We are very grateful to their presence today, and I know some of them traveled a long way to get here. Please join me in welcoming them all.

Now, it is my great honor and privilege to introduce today’s keynote speaker, John Thornton. After graduating from Harvard College and received Master’s degrees from Oxford and Yale, John had a successful career in the financial service industry in New York and London. In 2003, John retired as Co-President and a member of the Board of Directors from Goldman Sachs Group. He is now a director of HSBC Holdings and the Non-Executive Chairman of HSBC North America Holdings. He is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution, an influential think tank in the U.S., and also on the boards of Ford Motor Company, News Corporation, and China Unicom.

John is an old friend of the School and is also part of the School. He joined the Advisory Board in 2000 when it was founded and is now the Chairman of the Board. He has been the Guest Professor and Director of the Global Leadership Program at the School since 2003. In September 2008, John was awarded the Friendship Award by the Chinese government in recognition of his contribution to China.

I have known John before I joined Tsinghua SEM. John and I both served at the same time as independent directors of China Netcom and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Over the years I had the opportunity to learn from him for fresh ideas and different perspectives on many issues concerning the economy and management practice. I am gratified that he accepted my invitation to deliver the keynote speech on the theme of China in the changing world, the topic I am sure John has been thinking about for the last decade, if not longer.

Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming John Thornton to the podium to deliver the keynote speech for the 2011 Tsinghua Management Global Forum.