HE Ms Frances ADAMSON
Ms Adamson arrived in Beijing on 8 August 2011, and presented her Credentials to the President of the People’s Republic of China, HE Mr Hu Jintao, on 16 August 2011.
Ms Adamson served in the Australian Consulate-General in Hong Kong in the late 1980s during the early years of China’s reform and opening, and first visited mainland China in 1987. She was seconded as Representative to the Australian Commerce and Industry Office in Taipei from 2001 to 2005.
She has twice served in the Australian High Commission in London, including as Deputy High Commissioner from 2005-2008 and as Political Counsellor from 1993 to 1997. She was Chief of Staff to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and then the Minister for Defence from 2009 to 2010.
Ms Adamson is an honorary patron of the China-Australia Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, patron of the Australia China Alumni Association, a member of the Advisory Board of the Australian National University’s Australian Centre on China in the World and a member of the national Board of the Australia China Business Council.
She is married with four children and speaks Mandarin.
Michelle GARNAUT
Melbourne-born Michelle Garnaut is a trained chef and restaurateur with a culinary career that spans over 25 years, several continents and positions that have ranged from waitress to chef to caterer and proprietor.
M at the Fringe After traveling the world, Michelle arrived in Hong Kong (only intending a short stay) where she worked in the restaurant business and opened her own catering firm. She opened M at the Fringe in Hong Kong in 1989, which became a pioneer of independent fine dining.
Pioneer on the Bund After a guest chef stint at The Peace Hotel in Shanghai in 1996, Michelle felt that Shanghai was ready for something similar, and in 1999 – when the rest of the Bund was a culinary desert – she opened M on the Bund on the historic waterfront. The first Glamour Room and Bar opened in 2001.
Cultural Events & Literary Festival In 2002, the now-famous cultural events series was launched at the Glamour Bar, along with the enormously popular Shanghai International Literary Festival. By 2006, the Glamour Bar moved to a bigger, better and even more glamorous space on the 6th floor.
Awards & Charity For her achievements, Michelle has been honored with awards that include Entrepreneur of the Year (International Woman of Influence Awards) and the Business Entrepreneurial Award (ANZ Australian Business Awards). Michelle has had a long-term commitment to charity work, including ongoing involvement in the ICC Beach Cleanup, books2eat, and Care for Children. She is currently working on The Village People project, targeted at improving the lives and health of women in rural China.
Paul GLASSON
Paul Glasson is the Chairman of Satori Investments and the Chairman of Sigiriya Capital and the Chief Representative in China of the Australia China Business Council.
He is a renowned expert on China’s ‘zou chu qu’ (or go global) policy and Chinese State Owned Enterprises. He has provided extensive public commentary on China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the State Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and outward investment flows from China.
Mr Glasson’s corporate advisory engagements have included roles with a number of China’s largest Chinese and Australian companies working on leading transactions such as with MCC on the $4.5 billion Sino Iron project, the proposed $3.5 billion Yilgarn infrastructure project, the $2 billion Baosteel acquisition, the $750 million HRL gas power project, the $285 million Aquila Resources share placement to Baosteel and the $175 million Aurox Resources – Atlas Iron merger.
He was described by The Australian as one of the five most influential Australians living in China and has been chosen as one of only two Australians as a Young Leader at the Bo’ao Forum for Asia in 2009 and 2010, which involved participation in a dialogue with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice-President Xi Jinping in both years respectively.
Mr Glasson is a fluent Mandarin speaker and is based in Shanghai.
Dominic MEAGHER
Dominic is an expert in the Chinese economy and the nexus of growth and sustainability. He has studied international development issues with a particular focus on China for over a decade and has researched China and East Asian energy issues for 6 years. Dominic has a multi-disciplinary background. He holds an Honours degree in Politics and International Relations with a major in History from UNSW as well as Graduate Diploma and Masters Degrees in International Development Economics from the ANU. He has submitted his PhD thesis in Economics at the ANU where he was a Rio Tinto China Scholar. Concurrent with his PhD studies Dominic was Project Manager of the China Economy Program at the Crawford School of Public Policy, a Project officer at the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research and a Consulting Editor with the East Asia Forum. He also interned with Citigroup in Hong Kong in 2007 where he advised against the prevailing belief that a repeat of the 1997 Asian financial crisis was impossible.
Dominic’s interest in China began in 2002 as an intern at the Asia-Australia Institute and his first trip to China was in 2003. He arrived without knowing a single word of Chinese and left after a year, having evaded SARS and becoming conversationally fluent in Mandarin. Since then, he has returned to China on an almost annual basis and has spent extended periods of time in a dozen different provinces.
Dominic’s recent research focuses on the impact of China’s economic transformation on the use of energy in the economy. His other research covers geopolitics, climate change, water management, international trade rules, rural poverty, Asian integration and financial regulatory systems. He has published short articles on US and Chinese politics, China-Japan relations, food crises, climate change, international trade, and China’s oil, coal and electricity industries.
Dominic was an advisor to the Australia-China Youth Dialogue in 2010 and participated as a Delegate in 2011 and was the lead author of the 2011 ACYD Delegates’ Submission to the Australian Government White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century. He misses living in Canberra and running ultra marathons and rogains with friends at Bruce Hall.
David WALKER
David Walker is Alfred Deakin Professor of Australian Studies at Deakin University. He is a leading cultural historian with a special interest in the history of Australian representations of Asia. His influential book, Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850 to 1939 (UQP, 1999) won the Ernest Scott prize for History in 2001. Anxious Nation has been translated into Chinese and was published by China Renmin University Press in 2009. An Indian edition was published in the same year. A translation into Hindi will appear in October 2012. He is co-editor with Agnieszka Sobocinska of Australia’s Asia: From Yellow Peril to Asian Century, (UWA Press, October 2012). Asian themes also appear in his recent book Not Dark Yet: a personal history (Giramondo publishing, 2011). Professor Walker has extensive experience in the development of Australian Studies programs in the People’s Republic of China, India, Japan and Indonesia. He is a Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Studies, Renmin University of China, Beijing and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities.