CNN Connects: The Panel
(CNN) -- CNN Connects: China Rising will cover China's role in the world and complex issues facing this dynamic country as a result of its economic boom. The following are biographies of some of the panelists taking part:
Peggy Yu
 |  Peggy Yu |
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Founder, dangdang.com
Peggy Yu is founder and co-president of http://www.dangdang.com/, the largest online store of books, movie and music of Chinese language.
Peggy's tenure with the book business started when she joined the Science and Culture's publishing group in 1997.
She steered the transition of the company from a trade publisher to a professional publisher. She was responsible for establishing strategic relationship with international book industry companies such as John Wiley and McGraw-Hill.
She has also been very active in promoting international intellectual property rights in China. Prior to that, Peggy worked in the area of mergers and acquisitions advisory services in New York and held various positions for industrial corporations in the U.S. including UPS, Babcock & Wilcox and Garick Corporation.
The Web site http://www.dangdang.com/ was launched in November 1999, and offers over 200,000 Chinese language titles. With loyal customer following and fast growth, the company has been profiled as one of the most successful e-commerce sites in China.
Peggy Yu was born in Sichuan, China. She also holds MBA in finance from New York University and bachelor degree of English literature from a Chinese college. She is married with one son and loves to spend time with her son, reading magazines and trading stocks on the Internet.
About the company
Dangdang.com 2004 revenues were more than $12 million. Amazon.com recently bought out its main competitor, joyo.com. Dangdang reportedly rejected a buyout from Amazon for $150 million. Joyo.com, the second largest online book distributor in China, was acquired by Amazon for $75 million.
Irwin Mark Jacobs
|  Irwin Mark Jacobs |
Chairman and CEO, QUALCOMM
Dr. Irwin Mark Jacobs is co-founder, chairman and CEO of QUALCOMM Incorporated, a pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology.
Dr. Jacobs has led the commercialization of CDMA technology and its success as the world's fastest-growing, most advanced voice and data wireless communications technology. Now used by tens of millions of consumers worldwide, CDMA is the technology of choice for third-generation wireless communications services.
Dr. Jacobs holds several CDMA patents, contributing to QUALCOMM's extensive portfolio of more than 3,000 issued and pending U.S. patent applications. More than 115 companies have licensed CDMA for the manufacturing of wireless devices and network infrastructure equipment, integrated circuits and test equipment.
Dr. Jacobs previously served as co-founder, president, chairman and CEO of LINKABIT Corporation, directing its growth from a few part-time employees in 1969 to over 1,400 employees in 1985, and first introduction of Ku-band Very Small Aperature Earth Terminals (VSATs), commercial TDMA wireless phones, and the VideoCipher satellite-to-home TV system.
LINKABIT merged with M/A-COM in August 1980, at which time Dr. Jacobs served on the company's board of directors until he resigned from M/A-COM in April 1985. Over 35 San Diego communications companies trace their roots back to LINKABIT. He is a former professor at MIT (in electrical engineering).
About the company:
QUALCOMM Incorporated is a leader in developing and delivering innovative digital wireless communications products and services based on the Company's CDMA digital technology. Headquartered in San Diego, California, QUALCOMM is included in the S&P 500 Index and is a 2003 FORTUNE 500 company traded on The Nasdaq Stock market under the ticker symbol QCOM.
Luc Vandevelde
|  Luc Vandevelde |
Chairman, Carrefour
Luc Vandevelde, 54, a Belgian national, is married and has one son. He became Chairman of the Carrefour Supervisory Board in February 2005. He is the Founder and Managing Director of Change Capital Partners, an independently managed private equity firm focused on middle market investments that leverage its extensive retail and consumer industries expertise. He is a Non Executive Director of Vodafone Group Plc.
Luc is the former Chairman & CEO of Marks & Spencer. He joined in February 2000 as Executive Chairman and assumed the responsibilities of Chief Executive from September 2000 until September 2002. From January 2003 his role as Chairman became part-time. He left in May 2004 to return to the Halley Group following the tragic death of its President, Paul Louis Halley.
Luc received the Business Leader of the Year Award in October 2002 and the Sunday Telegraph Corporate Giant Award in November 2002.
He moved to Promodes in 1995, initially as President and Chief Operating Officer and latterly as Chairman, during which time he built the company into an international retailer with operations across Europe, Asia and South America.
Under his leadership, sales and profits increased significantly and the market capitalization of the company grew six fold.
Prior to his move to Promodes, Luc was CEO of Kraft France and Italy. During his 24 year career at the group, he had experience of working in 30 countries and performed a number of operational, strategic and financial management roles, including the successful acquisition and integration of Jacobs Suchard.
About the company:
Carrefour is a mighty force in retailing. It is the biggest in Europe, and second only to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the world. In Europe, it pioneered the format of out-of-town hypermarkets, creating new retail centers complete with giant car parks, and dozens of smaller, satellite retailers. No other company has done as much to reshape Europe's urban landscape as Carrefour. Carrefour posted 1.8 trillion won ($1.78 billion) in revenue in 2004. Carrefour has been in China since 1995. It has more than 58 hypermarket stores there (and 200 discount stores.) By 2009, it hopes to have 25 more hypermarket stores in China.
Clay Chandler
|  Clay Chandler |
FORTUNE Magazine, Senior Writer, Asia Editor
Clay Chandler is Asia Editor at FORTUNE. He is based in Hong Kong, where he covers China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. Before joining FORTUNE in October 2002, Chandler was Asian economic correspondent and Hong Kong bureau chief for the Washington Post. He opened the paper's first Shanghai bureau in 2000, after serving as chief economic correspondent in Washington, D.C. He was Tokyo correspondent for the Wall Street Journal from 1989 until 1993, when he joined the Post. Chandler has a B.A. in government and East Asian studies from Harvard.
Robert Friedman
|  Robert Friedman |
FORTUNE Magazine, International Editor
Robert Friedman is the International Editor of FORTUNE. He oversees the Europe and Asia editions of the global business magazine, which have a combined circulation of 185,000 copies, and coordinates international coverage for the U.S. edition.
Prior to joining FORTUNE in June 2000, Friedman was an assistant managing editor of Life magazine, where he was in charge of international and medical coverage.
He also edited six special issues of Life and two books: The Beatles: From Yesterday to Today (Bulfinch, 1996) and The LIFE Millennium: The 100 Most Important Events and People of the Past 1,000 Years (Bulfinch, 1998).
A graduate of Columbia College, Friedman was editor-in-chief of The Columbia Daily Spectator and co-author of Up Against the Ivy Wall, a book about the 1968 student protests at Columbia. He also has an M.A. in American literature from Columbia University, and has been an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in New York.
Han Sung-Joo
|  Han Sung-Joo |
Professor, Korea University
Fmr. South Korean Foreign Minister
Han Sung-Joo is currently a professor of international relations at Korea University. He most recently served as Ambassador to the U.S. (April, 2003 - February, 2005).
He was the Republic of Korea's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1994 and served as the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Representative for Cyprus (1996-97). He was also a member of the United Nations Inquiry Commission on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
He is credited with having played a key role as Korea's foreign minister in co-ordinating the U.S. and South Korean policies in relation to the North Korean nuclear issue.
Han is a graduate of Seoul National University (1962) and recipient of a Ph.D. degree in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley (1970). Previously, Professor Han taught at the City University of New York (1970-78), Columbia (1986-87), and Stanford (1992) among others, and was a distinguished fellow at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (1986-87).
Since the 1970s, Professor Han served as an advisor to the Korean government in the fields of foreign affairs, national defense, and unification. In 1985, he visited Pyongyang, North Korea, as a member of the Red Cross Delegation to discuss and arrange family reunions and other humanitarian issues.
He is also Co-Chairman of the CSCAP (Council for Security Cooperation the Asia-Pacific), a second-track regional security organization which works closely with the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum). Professor Han has served as chairman or co-chairman of several bilateral forums that Korea has had with other countries, including ASEAN, Canada, Japan, and France.
He is a member of the International Panel on Democracy and Development, founded by UNESCO and former Secretary General of the United Nations Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He also serves as a member of the International Board of Governors of The Peres Center for Peace.
A frequent contributor to professional and news journals both at home and abroad he was an international columnist for Newsweek (1984-93). Professor Han has authored many publications on domestic and international politics. He has also been lecturer of distinguished lecture series, the latest of one of which was given at Harvard University in April, 1998, on the subject of "Korea Between China and the United States: The Emerging Triangle."
His publications include The Failure of Democracy in South Korea (1974); The U.S.-South Korean Alliance (1983); The Division and Unification of Korea (1992); Choice for Korea in a World in Transition (1992); Korean Diplomacy in an Era of Globalization (1995), and Korea in a Changing World (1995).
Wu Jianmin
|  Wu Jianmin |
President, China Foreign Affairs University
Vice Director, CPPCC Foreign Affairs Committee
Wu Jianmin is the President of China Foreign Affairs University and President of China's International Exhibitions Bureau President. He also serves as Vice Director of the CPPCC Foreign Affairs Committee.
Born on March 30, 1939, in Chongqing Municipality, Mr. Wu is the former spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and director of the ministry's Information Department; Ambassador to the Netherlands; Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland; Ambassador to France.
Li Shan
|  Li Shan |
Chief Executive Officer of Bank of China International Holdings
Li Shan is currently CEO of Bank of China International Holdings. Formerly he was Managing Director and head of China Investment Banking, Lehman Brothers Asia (Hong Kong). Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, he was the Deputy Head of the Investment Bank Preparation Committee of China Development Bank. Also, he worked as an Executive Director of the Advisory Group at Goldman Sachs International (London), Executive Director of Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs (Asia), Executive Director of Economic Research Department of Goldman Sachs (Asia), and International Economist at the Goldman Sachs New York office. Prior to his tenure at Goldman Sachs, he was an Associate of Global Foreign Exchange Trading at Credit Suisse First Boston.
He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.A. in Economics from the University of California, Davis, and B.E. in Management Information Systems from Tsinghua University.
