Introduction
Savio Kwan was Alibaba's first Chief Operating Officer (COO) and the person who helped Alibaba to survive the first "winter", and did a lot of important work for the early development of Alibaba. In 2001, Savio Kwan joined Alibaba as President and COO, and laid a solid foundation for the development of business and talent cultivation of Alibaba during his tenure. In 2004, he became Alibaba's Chief Human Resources Officer, and in 2005, he stepped down to co-found a consulting company dedicated to helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) grow. In terms of management, Kwan believes in simplicity. He believes that "if you have the way first, then you have the plan, and then you match it with the talent array, then you will get the world". In this visit to HKUST, Mr. Kwan will talk about his 30 years of experience in the industry and encourage young people not to waste any crisis, to respond to the changes with confidence, to see the future clearly, and to fight for your world with "strategy" and "judgement".
Mr. Kwan received his Master of Business Administration degree from London Business School and was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award in 2011. He has been a member of the Board of London Business School since 2016 and actively involved in giving back to his alma mater.
Speaker
Mr. Savio Kwan
Former President and the First Chief Operating Officer of Alibaba
Mr. Savio Kwan has 30 years of experience in international corporate management, having worked for General Electric for 17 years in key positions in sales, marketing, corporate operations, business development and joint venture construction. Within four years, he successfully increased the sales revenue of General Electric's medical equipment in China from zero to US$70 million.
Mr. Kwan also spent 4 years as President of China for BTR Plc, a Fortune 500 company based in the United Kingdom. At BTR, Mr. Kwan was the President of the China region, which consisted of 8 manufacturing divisions. Through 3 years of consolidation and expansion, the company achieved an annual sales revenue of US$150 million.
Mr. Kwan became one of the partners of A & K Consulting in 2005 and has been dedicated to business management consulting for SMEs in China for over a decade, aiming to help SMEs in China to develop more easily, with less risk, and in a healthier manner! In 2011, he was awarded the Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award by the London Business School, and in September 2017, Henley Business School of the University of Reading conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration on Mr. Kwan.
In January 2014, Mr. Kwan became a non-executive director of the British American Tobacco Group and has retired in April 2023.
Moderator
Prof. Zhang Qian
Acting Head of Division of Integrative System and Design, HKUST
Tencent Professor of Engineering
Chair Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, HKUST
Director of Digital Life Research Center
Co-Director of HKUST-Huawei Joint Laboratory
Dr. Zhang joined Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Sept. 2005 where she is now Acting Head of Division of Integrative System and Design, Tencent Professor of Engineering. Before that, she was in Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, from July 1999, where she was the research manager of the Wireless and Networking Group, research interests including Internet of Things (IoT), smart health, mobile computing and sensing, wireless networking, as well as cyber security. Dr. Zhang has published more than 400 refereed papers in international leading journals and key conferences. She is the inventor of more than 50 granted international patents. Dr. Zhang was served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Trans. on Mobile Computing (TMC) from Jan. 2020 to Dec. 2022.
Dr. Zhang is a Fellow of the IEEE and the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Science (HKAES). She has received MIT TR100 (MIT Technology Review) world’s top young innovator award. She also received the Best Asia Pacific (AP) Young Researcher Award elected by IEEE Communication Society in year 2004. She received the Oversea Young Investigator Award from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in 2006. She won the Prize for Scientific and Technological Innovation of Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation in 2012. And she held the Cheung Kong Chair Professor in Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2012-2015).
