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Bettina Schoen-Behanzin entered Freudenberg Group in October 2012. As Regional Representative Asia she has been leading the Regional Corporate Center, based in Shanghai, China and is providing guidance and support for strategic planning and business development for the Freudenberg Business Groups in the region. From March 2008 to September 2012 she served as Managing Director of Wittur Elevator Components, China. She assumed the role of Managing Director of Rittal Electro-Mechanical Technology, China from 2000 to 2008, after having been the General Manager of Rittal in China as well as Sales and Marketing Manager of Rittal in Singapore. She had joined the Rittal Headquarters in Germany in 1992.

Bettina Schoen-Behanzin has acquired a Master degree in Sinology, Business Economics and Political Science at the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany. Furthermore, she did Post-Graduate Studies of Chinese and Economics at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Speaking Chinese fluently, Bettina Schoen-Behanzin has around 25 years of working experience in Asia, mostly in China, leading operational business as well acting in corporate functions. From April 2014 to April 2016 she served as Director of the Board of the German Chamber Shanghai, being reelected in April 2016 and April 2018 as President of the Board of the German Chamber Shanghai. In 2019, she was the first German woman to receive Shanghai Municipal Government’s Magnolia Gold Award.

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Marie-Claire Swärd Capra is a Swedish diplomat since 1989. She is a lawyer by training and has graduate and post-graduate degrees in law. Mrs Swärd Capra served as Sweden’s Ambassador to the WTO 2007-2011, and was Sweden’s Ambassador to Algeria from 2016 to 2020. She has served at Swedish diplomatic missions abroad, including Seoul (1990-93), Copenhagen (1993-96), Paris (1998-2003, 2011-16), Washington (2003-04), and Geneva (2007-11). She joined the services of the European Commission in 1995 before returning to national diplomatic service in 1998.

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Marko Tulus is CFO & Country Officer of Sandvik China, based in Shanghai. Since joining Sandvik in 1996, a Swedish based high-tech and global engineering group, Mr. Tulus held several divisional positions within Sandvik as Vice President Finance.

Mr. Tulus transferred to China in year 2010 taking over responsibility for Supply Chain and Manufacturing operations in China for Mining and Construction. Thereafter he was leading Marketing function within APAC region for business area Mining. In his current role as CFO and Country Officer of Sandvik China Holding, he is responsible for legal governance, financing and tax functions.

In 2020, Mr. Tulus joined European Union Chamber of Commerce in China as Treasurer.

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Denis Depoux began his career in China in 1993 with French energy giant EDF before entering the management consulting industry. In 2001, Depoux joined Roland Berger, focusing on the energy and environmental sectors, and sharing his strong consulting expertise and rich industry experience in the US, Europe and Asia.

Depoux has been actively supporting the firm's Greater China operations since 2007. Since moving to Shanghai in 2015, he has contributed a lot to the transformation towards the new Roland Berger in this region. For Roland Berger Greater China, he has been committedly overseeing a wide variety of Competence Centers. In 2020, Denis was elected Managing Director and has been devoted to the management of Roland Berger's global affairs.

In the energy and utilities sector, Depoux has supported the transformation of major European players throughout the energy market's transition facing a more liberalized and competitive market. He has made extensive contributions in the areas of new products and services, the development of wholesale-market trading, risk management, the development of energy services, etc. He has also advised on several major mergers of European energy players and supported the expansion of electricity and natural-gas players into Europe, the Americas and Asia. More recently, Depoux has supported European and Asian energy players in addressing challenges raised by the trends toward low-carbon energy, energy efficiency, decentralized energy generation and the Internet of energy.

Beyond the energy sector, Depoux has extensive experience in performance and operations improvement, operational and G&A cost reduction, purchasing process transformation, screening, commercial and strategic due diligence for acquisition targets, post-merger integration and organization and governance.

Depoux is a key speaker at top-level forums in Asia, including the Boao Forum for Asia, World Knowledge Forum and China Development Forum. As one of the leading foreign experts working in China, he was invited to a New Year meeting with Chinese Premier to discuss the nation's development. Besides, Depoux often shares his insights on trendy topics both inside and outside China by taking interviews and writing articles for mainstream media channels, including People's Daily, CCTV and Caijing.

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Since November 2014, Bruno Weill has been the Chief Group Representative for China of BNP Paribas. He contributes to the definition of the Group’s strategy and coordinates all its activities in China. He represents the Group as a director or supervisor at the Board of most BNP Paribas’ wholly-owned legal entities and joint ventures in China. He is also the Group Executive Sponsor for a few Chinese and International strategic clients in China.
After his baccalaureate in Spain, Bruno completed a Master degree in Physics before graduating from the French engineering École des Mines de Paris. He started his career in the mining industry in South Africa, in petroleum applied-research in Belgium and in consulting in France and in the United States.
However, since he joined BNP Paribas Group in 1989, Bruno has dedicated his professional career to the banking industry. He started in Paris at Inspection Générale and then joined Project Finance before been promoted in Singapore as project finance head of South East Asia and then deputy head Asia. In 1999, Bruno returned to Paris and was appointed as global senior relationship manager of several large multinational companies. In 2004, in Hong Kong, he was named head of Financial Institutions Group for Asia and managed teams of investment bankers in seven Asia-Pacific countries.
In 2009, Bruno moved to Nanjing as executive vice president of the Chinese listed bank, the Bank of Nanjing. He led the transformation of the cooperation to a broad strategic partnership based on business complementarities (particularly in the areas of consumer finance, corporate banking, financial markets, and so on).

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Ioana has been based in Shanghai since 2003 where she worked for the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (European Chamber) from 2004 to 2022. From 2009 to 2022 she served as General Manager of the Chamber’s Shanghai Chapter and was responsible for implementation and development of European Chamber objectives, visibility, and advocacy activities on a regional level in Shanghai and neighbouring regions.
Ioana is currently an Associate Director with X-PM Transition Partners, a leading European Executive Interim and Transition Management firm with teams in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. X-PM is part of the WIL group, a network of 13 firms operating in 35 countries that deliver interim and transition solutions to clients around the world and offers a unique international “multi-sourcing” model that leverages the assets of each member firm and ensures the best assignments globally.
A German-qualified lawyer, Ioana practiced with a German law firm in Shanghai from 2003 and 2004. She also holds a PhD degree in law from Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, where she worked from 1999 to 2003 as a Senior Research Assistant focussing on the areas of Civil Law, Insurance Law, Comparative Law, International Private Law and Labour Law.

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Renata Pavlov has an extensive managerial and executive experience on international level both with public and private sector in the field of global relations, public affairs, communication and business development.

Prior to joining the Fincantieri Group, one of the world’s largest shipbuilding groups, Renata served as the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Finance of Italy and as the Advisor for International Affairs and Cooperation to the Minister of Innovation of Italy. She also held the executive director position in the OECD Centre involved in governance matters for the MENA Region. In 2015 and 2016 Renata led a two-year capacity-building project for the Parliament of Myanmar.

In the past, she was also directly involved in advising on bilateral relations between Chinese and Italian Academic institutions. In the private sector Renata hold senior positions with Charme Fund, Telefonica Group, Goldman Sachs and Dogan Group, among others.

For several years, she had been a lecturer of Leadership and Communication in Public Management at the Italian School of Government. Renata is of central-European descent and received her education in Austria, USA and in former Czechoslovakia. She is proficient in six languages and has two adult children.

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Pius S. Hornstein, MSc, PhD, is General Manager General Medicines and Country Lead, Sanofi China. Since March 2019, he leads over 8000 Sanofi China people who focus on introducing more innovative products to China across a broad range of treatment areas including Specialty Care, Cardiovascular, Diabetes and Vaccines, and driving digital innovations to better serve China’s fast growing healthcare needs. Pius is committed to developing people while fostering a company culture of diversity, respect and integrity, and making Sanofi China a real magnet for talents.

Before leading China business, which represents Sanofi’s second largest market worldwide, Pius was the General Manager and Country Chair of Sanofi Brazil. During his tenure in Brazil, he built with the Brazilian team a high-performance organization with great diversity and gender balance, and implemented the highest ethical and integrity standards. Sanofi Brazil was selected among the top 150 best companies to work and named as a Top Employer, both two times in a row.

Pius has extensive experience in the healthcare industry. He joined Sanofi in 1998 and held a variety of key positions over the years, including marketing, sales management and other strategic global managerial positions. He has successfully launched major treatments and led the global team for the anticoagulant that is part of the World Health Organization list of essential medicines. He was Global Marketing Head Cardiology, General Manager in Switzerland, Vice President of Operations Support & Strategic Initiatives for Emerging Markets, and Vice President for the Turkey and Middle East Zone encompassing direct P&L responsibility for 17 countries.
Pius started his career in the healthcare industry at the Cardiology Department of the University of Basel in a research collaboration with Novartis in Switzerland. He also worked at Servier, France.
Pius has a master degree in pharmacy and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Basel, Switzerland, with a PhD degree in medical research. He is also an alumnus of INSEAD and Singularity University. He speaks fluent German, English, French, and Portuguese. Pius is a Swiss national and is based in Shanghai.

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Elisabeth Staudinger is currently President of the Asia Pacific region for Siemens Healthineers, based in Shanghai. Elisabeth joined Siemens in 1998 and has held several roles with increasing responsibility spanning procurement, strategy, manufacturing and R&D. Prior to relocating to the Asia Pacific region Elisabeth was global CEO of the Refurbished Systems Business of Siemens Healthineers.

Elisabeth has been closely connected to China since 1991, studying at both Nanjing and Peking Universities. In 1997, she spent some time working with ‘Advantage Austria’ the Austrian trade promotion organization in Beijing. After joining Siemens, she headed an international procurement office from 1999-2002 in Shanghai, returning briefly in 2004, and has been in her current role since 2018.

Elisabeth studied Sinology and Economics in Vienna, Nanjing, and Beijing and holds a master’s degree in both subjects. Since 2019, she has been an active board member of the Asia Pacific Medical Technology Association (APACMed).

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Thilo Zimmermann is the General Manager of SEB Shanghai Branch since January 2019. SEB is a leading Nordic financial services group with a strong belief that entrepreneurial minds and innovative companies are key in creating a better world. Zimmermann joined SEB eighteen years ago and has wide experience in heading different teams within the bank.

Prior to that, Zimmermann worked at ING and Deutsche Bank back in Germany. Thilo speaks German, English, French and some Mandarin.

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With 30 years of experience with the WACKER group on three continents, Paul is a chemical industry veteran. Paul Lindblad started his position as the President of WACKER’s activities in Greater China in January 2013. For the eight years prior to coming to China, Paul was a member of the Managing Board of WACKER’s silicon wafer subsidiary Siltronic AG. Earlier responsibilities have included four years managing WACKER’s non-oxide ceramic business (ESK) in Kempten, Germany and two postings in Singapore: one as the South East Asia Chemicals business head, and another as the site President for WACKER’s 200mm wafer manufacturing operation in Singapore. Paul was appointed as the Board Director of AICM June, 2015, and Vice Chairman since in December 2017. The Shanghai Municipal Government awarded Paul the Silver Magnolia Award from Shanghai Municipal Government in Sep. 2016, and again a Gold Magnolia award in October 2018 Paul is an American, originally joining the WACKER group in California’s Silicon Valley. He has an MBA and a BS in Economics, both from Santa Clara University. Paul is married with two daughters. He is an avid reader, and whenever possible, active in mountain sports.