J. Michael Evans has served as the President of Alibaba Group since August 2015. As President, Michael is responsible for leading and executing Alibaba Group’s international strategy for globalizing the company and expanding its businesses outside of China. He has also served as a member of Alibaba’s Board of Directors, since Alibaba’s initial public offering in September 2014.
Michael received his bachelor’s degree in politics from Princeton University in 1981, a master’s degree in Finance in 1984 from Oxford University and won an Olympic gold medal for his home country Canada as a member of the men’s eights rowing team in the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics.

Chris Tung joined Alibaba Group as the Chief Marketing Officer in January 2016. He commands a huge amount of influence in the global marketing community. He has helped to build strong Alibaba’s brand portfolio by combining best-in-class creativity with the latest technologies. As a result, Alibaba has been ranked as the most valuable brand from China by many recent independent surveys. He presided over the phenomenally successful “Double 11 (Singles’ Day)” extravaganza; spearheaded the company’s global Olympics sponsorship and created the “Uni Marketing” methodology and tools to support over 180,000 global brands to run marketing campaigns on Alibaba platforms effectively.

After graduating from Northwestern Polytechnical University in China with a Master of Computer Science, Raymond Ma began his career at IBM, where he spent the following ten years working across the IBM IT consulting arm, before moving on to run product portfolio of IBM Smarter Cities. Raymond was appointed General Manager of Alibaba Cloud ASEAN in 2015. In this role he specialized in providing cloud and data analytic services to the ASEAN market. In 2016, Raymond was appointed General Manager Alibaba Cloud ASEAN and ANZ. Raymond is currently General Manager of Europe and ANZ for Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

Roland Palmer has been Alibaba Group’s General Manager for UK, Benelux and Nordics since December 2021. Roland joined Alibaba Group in May 2016 as Managing Director for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, where he was responsible for all Alibaba Business Units across the three markets. In 2018 he was appointed Head of Europe for Alipay, part of Ant Group.
Roland has an extensive knowledge of European retail, e-commerce and FMCG, having worked as a strategy consultant for Bain & Company. Roland holds an MBA from the IMD Business School in Switzerland.

Ada XU began her career with Alibaba Group in 2016 by leading Tmall Business Development for France. In 2019 Ada was appointed to develop Fliggy, the travel platform of Alibaba Group, for the EMEA region.
Prior to joining Alibaba, Ada set up her own business that helped French companies learn how to work and invest in the China market, all while studying for her master’s degree in International Business and Entrepreneurship.
Now based in Paris, Ada has lived in China, Mauritius and Madagascar. She speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, French, English and Spanish.

Miss Carmen Chiu joined Fortnum & Mason in August 2019 as the Regional Managing Director for the Asia Pacific region.
Carmen has over 20 years of experience in brand management in the food industry across FMCG, E-Commerce, HORECA and Luxury Retail & Hospitality channels, including 6 years based in China.
A native of Hong Kong who grew up in the UK, she has built a career that spans the globe. She played a significant role in building the China expansion plan and opened a 100 company-owned stores in 3 years.

Ian has over 35 years’ experience working within the UK and international retail sector as a journalist, editor, and publisher and as founder and Chairman of the World Retail Congress. He helped launch leading UK trade publication Retail Week, and developed a range of initiatives that have become key industry events, including the Retail Week Conference and the Retail Week Awards. In 2007 he launched the World Retail Congress to serve the international retail market. Ian has also been a Non-Executive Director of Saudi Arabia’s largest food retailer, Azizia Panda. He writes a regular column for the German retail magazine, Handles journal and speaks regularly at retail events around the world.

David is now at WPP as the CEO of The Store, the WPP Global Retail Practice and Chairman, BAV Group. David is an acknowledged expert in Branding and Consumer change in China. He is a leading authority on digital, Artificial Intelligence and Voice in retail. He broadcasts and lectures around the world including BBC, CCTV China, CNBC, Davos The World Economic Forum, Yale, CKGSB and Cambridge Universities. He is Chairman of the Centre for International Business and Management (CIBAM) where Academics, Business and Policy Makers meet with activities taking place at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge. He is a board member of China-Britain Business Council.

Ellie is CEO & Founder of QIVA Global, an award-winning operating partner to European consumer brands in China. She is passionate about consumer retail for its ability to generate large-scale positive impact, disrupt status quo and empower consumers to contribute positively to society, communities and the planet.
A fluent Mandarin speaker, Ellie and her team at QIVA lead the operations for some of Europe’s best-loved brands in China. Prior to founding QIVA, Ellie worked for both Thomson Reuters and Deloitte. She is a graduate of Tsinghua (Beijing) and Durham Universities.

Ntola Obazee has over 10 years of experience in commercial sales across all channels (retail, B2B, e-commerce and marketplaces). She has held senior leadership positions in the UK and Europe with a focus on strategic business development and market-entry methods across SME, omnichannel & vertical retailers. She has experience in strategic e-commerce planning & execution with a focus on international business development, marketplace models and cross-border e-commerce. Ntola led the onboarding and strategic launch of Emma Bridgewater in China.

Alex is a trailblazing senior executive with 19+ years of experience in eCommerce & digital, management & technology consulting, retail & wholesale industries with a proven track record of successful new business build-up, customer growth, enterprise-level digital transformation and P&L management. In 2002, he started his first eCommerce startup and expanded the business to multiple top platforms. Then he joined Alibaba Group as one of the founding members of Taobao’s Marketing team. Prior to joining BP, Alex served as Chief Digital Officer AsPac & India at one of the biggest European conglomerates.

David Buchanan leads strategic customer engagement across the EMEA region and actively supports customers with strategies for success in China in partnership with Alibaba. David has held leadership positions in Salesforce for 10 years helping many customers with global digital transformation and achieving business success with Salesforce. David is based in London and alongside his China responsibilities, is also a Professional Leadership Coach within Salesforce.

After completing a Masters in e-commerce in the US and working for several Silicon Valley start-up firms during the high-tech boom, Eva made her way to London in 2001. Following the demand for a healing serum created for the patients of her husband, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon Dr Yannis Alexandrides MD FACS, Harley Street Clinic, Eva astutely expanded and built a unique skincare brand: 111SKIN. Under her guidance, 111SKIN, now a decade old, can be found at luxury retailers around the world, including Harrods, Selfridges, Bergdorf Goodman, Violet Grey, Saks Fifth Avenue, MECCA, and Joyce Beauty – and 65 international spas.

Francesco began his career working in the small business sector in the banking world for more than 10 years, where he closely followed the internationalisation processes of several small and medium-sized Italian companies. He has specialised knowledge of the Alibaba.com marketplace, managing shop windows for Azienda Agricola Ciccio Zaccagnini, a winery that produces over 7 million bottles each year and exports to over 60 countries, and Rosso Fine Food, a start-up specialising in the export of Italian food & beverage products. After 18 months and a fast growing year in 2022, Rosso Fine Food is already exporting to more than 30 countries, with more than 70% of its turnover from leads generated through the Alibaba.com platform.

Frans started in the 1970s as a hobby brewer of Dutch and Belgian specialty beers. In the early 1990s, when the microbrew industry took off in the USA, Frans quickly became the expert in the field of brewing Belgian specialty beers in the USA. Around 1995 he moved to the Caribbean to set up a new brewery that, in addition to the local market, also provided export to America. During his time in the Caribbean, Frans had already experimented with distilling spirits, but that had always been secondary to brewing beer. After he sold the Dutch brewery to a business partner, he started his current distillery in Almere in 2011 because of his lifelong love for special whisky.

Sunny is an international digital & eCommerce business innovator, GM and executive coach. Within her 15 years of rich experience in Nestle and Unilever, Sunny founded 4+ new digital businesses across China and global markets including Unilever China eCommerce, Alibaba global partnership, etc. In her current role, Sunny is heading Unilever’s global new digital growth and capability development including social commerce, quick commerce, etc. In her free time, Sunny is passionate to coach managers and business owners to reach their highest potential.

Tommy Crooks founded the Edinburgh Natural Skincare Company in 2010, with the simple goal of creating a 100% natural handmade skincare brand here in Scotland. Today his company has exactly the same ethos, and their basic recipes have stayed the same since the very beginning. From making bars of soap at the kitchen table in 2010, the company now sells worldwide. In addition to signing up as a seller on Alibaba.com, the company also launched a flagship store on Tmall Global last month – becoming the first Scottish brand to do so.

Sharon Gai currently serves as the General Manager of China at Pattern, an ecommerce accelerator that helps brands expand their business in China. She is a China-born Canadian who has had 10+ years in ecommerce, digital marketing and branding. She has been the keynote speaker in over 100 ecommerce and retail conferences such as Shoptalk, Ecomworld, Etail, and Ecommerce Asia with over 40,000 attendees as well as the presenter to governments and heads of states on the developments of the tech industry in China. She has appeared on CCTV, Techcrunch, Retail Asia, The Next Web, and the Singularity University sharing with the world the latest trends from China. She is the author of the book, Ecommerce Reimagined: what we can learn in retail and ecommerce from China. Sharon has an Honors Bachelor’s degree in International Development from McGill and a Masters in Information Management from Columbia University.

Jack Harrison is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of ArcOn Brands, an established brand management and consultancy company that helps brands launch successfully in the East. Originally from the United Kingdom, Jack has spent the last 14 years in Greater China and speaks fluent Mandarin having studied at the National Taiwan University. Originally a strategy consultant with Accenture in Beijing, Jack joined Jardine Matheson as Development Director for KFC Taiwan and then left to bring Jamie Oliver Restaurants to Greater China before co-founding ArcOn Brands. ArcOn Brands is an established Brand Management Consultancy with a key focus on APAC including Greater China.