Janet is a career China business specialist who brings China executional competency and strategic counsel to foreign invested businesses, and similarly advises Chinese government organizations on effective international communications and growth strategies.

After earning a degree in Chinese studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985, Janet moved to Xi'an, married a Chinese man and spent the next 18 years - as Janet Zhang - living and doing business in China. During this time, spent mainly in Xi'an, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, with sabbaticals in Washington D.C. and Silicon Valley, she developed her extensive knowledge of China’s commercial landscape and the patterns of the US-China economic relationship.

Fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, she spent the 1980's in trading, sourcing and buying agency projects before joining the strategy consulting arm of Coopers & Lybrand in Shanghai. Moving for the next 15 years between operations - mainly in China's retail sector - and consulting, Janet held senior management positions in private equity (VP of Richina Capital), systems integration (COO, Web Connection/Chinadotcom Shanghai) and public relations (Director, Burson-Marsteller Shanghai) before moving back to the United States in 2003 to help integrate PR Newswire's China operations into their USA base.

She has written for Economist publications, authored an award-winning case for IMD and the Chinese language Harvard Business Review, and written essays for travel publisher Odyssey Guides. She speaks often - particularly to organizations new to the US-China business - on how to understand and align with, rather than struggle against, the cultural and economic forces that typically frustrate executives on both sides of the divide.

 

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