2009 Keynote Speakers
Jimmy Hexter, Director
Jimmy Hexter is a Director of McKinsey & Company and leads the Firm's Operations
Practice in Asia. He is located in the Beijing office, speaks fluent Chinese and
has been in Asia for nearly 20 years. In his 14 years with the Firm, he has served
multinational, Asian and Chinese companies in many industries particularly on operations
strategy, manufacturing performance, and procurement and supply chain strategy. He has
also worked with these companies on global and China strategies and organization design.
Jimmy is the co-author of Operation China: From Strategy to Execution, which was published
by Harvard Business School Press in December, 2007. He has also published extensively in
the McKinsey Quarterly, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and other publications, and is a
frequent speaker at executive events including the Young President's Organization and the
American Chamber of Commerce. Jimmy earned his undergraduate degree at Brown University
and his MBA at Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and received both the
Thomas A. Wolfe and Henry Ford Awards.
Dr. David Steel, Senior Vice President
Samsung Electronics North America
David Steel is senior vice president in the strategic marketing team of Samsung Electronics' North American Headquarters.
His responsibilities include strategic planning, market intelligence and marketing strategy.
Dr. Steel moved to North America in 2008, after spending ten years with Samsung in Korea. From 2007 until 2008, he was in charge of marketing strategy for the wireless phone division, the world’s number two manufacturer of mobile phones. From 2002 to 2007, he headed up marketing for the Digital Media Business, which covers about $25bn of sales across consumer electronics and IT products. In 2002, he became the first non-Korean to hold a regular executive position in Samsung.
Dr. Steel has worked at McKinsey & Co. and Argonne National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and a BA in Physics from Oxford University.
John Burbank, Founder and Chief Investment Officer
John Burbank is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Passport
Capital, LLC, a San Francisco based, global hedge fund (Absolute
Return 2007 “Fund of the Year”, Barron’s “World’s Best Hedge Fund”).
The firm manages approximately $2.1 billion in assets. Passport’s
investment process uses a combination of macroeconomic analysis
to develop major themes and rigorous fundamental research on individual
companies to create global portfolios. The investment team focuses
on the following industry sectors: Basic Materials, Energy, India,
Global Capital Markets, Internet/Technology, Global Consumer, Healthcare/Biotechnology
and Subprime Mortgage CDS.
Mr. Burbank has over a decade of experience investing in global equity markets. Prior to founding the firm in 2000, he was a consultant to JMG Triton Offshore, Ltd. From 1996 to 1998.
Mr. Burbank was the director of research at ValueVest Management. He holds a B.A. degree from Duke University and earned an M.B.A. degree from the Stanford Business School.
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If you have any recommendations for future keynote speakers, please contact our Co-Chairs:
Sam Ou, Nok Tamphanuwat and Lan Xiao.