Asia Society Northern California at APEC 2023
VIEW EVENT DETAILS
“The Long Conversation: A Marathon of big thinkers and ideas on Resiliency"
Nov 15, 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. PT
“The Long Conversation: A Marathon of big thinkers and ideas on Entrepreneurship"
Nov 16, 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. PT
Find us at the APEC CEO Summit in the 3rd Floor Exhibition Hall, Moscone West
Asia Society Northern California is working with NCAPEC to host two invitation-only programs with outstanding leaders in policy, business, tech, education, arts and culture on November 15 and 16 at APEC 2023 in San Francisco!
Speakers at The Long Conversation include:
- Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, 31st United States Ambassador to Japan; former Mayor to Chicago
- Dee Dee Myers, Senior Advisor to the Governor and Director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz); former White House Press Secretary
- Andrew Ng, Managing General Partner, AI Fund; Founder, DeepLearning.AI; Co-founder and Chairman, Coursera
- Tammy Ma, Lead of the Inertial Fusion Energy Initiative, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where they achieved controlled thermonuclear fusion; Asia Society Game Changer West Honoree
- Ian Bremmer, President, Eurasia Group & GZERO Media
- Mike Yeh, Vice President, Corporate External and Legal Affairs, Microsoft Asia
- Ambassador Hoesung Lee, Special Ambassador, Carbon Free Energy; President, Carbon Free Alliance
- Eunice Kim, Chief Product Officer, Netflix
- Cooper Abbott, Chief Executive Officer, Matthews Asia
- Hafimi Abdul Haadi, Chair, ABAC Inclusion Task Force; Co-Chair, Asia Business Leaders Advisory Council
- Sara Minkara, Special Advisor on International Disability Rights Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State
- James Higa, Founder & Managing Partner Offline Ventures; Board Member of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee; former Senior Director, Office of the CEO, Apple (Special Operations for Steve Jobs)
- Camille Dawson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State
- Peter Schwartz, Senior VP for Global Government Relations & Strategic Planning, Salesforce
- Gary Rieschel, Chair, Asia Society Northern California & Seattle; Founding Managing Partner, Qiming; Asia Society Trustee
- Ken Wilcox, Chairman Emeritus, Silicon Valley Bank; Honorary Chair, Asia Society Northern California
- Margaret Conley, Executive Directory, Asia Society Northern California & Seattle
The Long Conversation is an event format whereby speakers from a variety of fields conduct 15-minute rolling interviews on a single topic. Speaker A will interview Speaker B for 15 minutes, after which Speaker B will interview Speaker C and so on. Each conversation will involve two experts from different backgrounds with a focus on innovation, resiliency, and entrepreneurship. It is a unique way to experience a variety of conversations and gain a breadth of expertise in a short period of time.
It is an honor for San Francisco to host APEC this historic year, and Asia Society Northern California is excited to curate high-level conversations for APEC attendees.
Unable to attend APEC 2023? Join us on Nov 30th to view a recap of our APEC Nov 15 & 16 program during our APEC After Event! We will host an exclusive showing of our APEC program and celebrate with food, drinks, networking, and interactive experiences! Details here.
SPEAKERS:

Cooper Abbott is Chief Executive Officer at Matthews. Prior to joining Matthews in 2022, Cooper served as President and Chairman at Carillon Tower Advisors where he founded and built a global multi-boutique asset management company providing equity, fixed income and multi-asset class solutions for institutional and retail investors. Previously, he was Executive Vice President, Investments and Co-Chief Operating Officer at Eagle Asset Management. Cooper has more than two decades of senior investment management experience that has focused on delivering creative solutions and investment outcomes that meet client needs. He has established growth platforms for a diverse range of investment management businesses that includes public and private markets, institutional and wealth channels, all with a focus on building scale and global reach. He earned his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. with honors from Brown University. Cooper is a Fulbright Fellowship recipient.

Ian Bremmer is a political scientist who helps business leaders, policy makers, and the general public make sense of the world around them. He is president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. Ian is an independent voice on critical issues around the globe, offering clearheaded insights through speeches, written commentary, and even satirical puppets (really!).
A prolific writer, Ian is the author of eleven books, including the New York Times bestsellers, “Us vs Them: The Failure of Globalism” which examines the rise of populism across the world, and his latest book “The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats—and Our Response—Will Change the World” which covers a trio of looming global crises (health emergencies, climate change, and technological revolution) and outlines how these crises create global prosperity and opportunity.
He serves as a member of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, as well as the foreign affairs columnist and editor at large for Time magazine, and is the host of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, which airs weekly on US national public television. Ian is also a frequent guest on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and many others globally.
Ian also teaches at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and previously was a professor at New York University.
Find him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and regularly tweeting from @IanBremmer.

Camille Dawson assumed the role of Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in September 2021 with responsibility for public diplomacy as well as regional and security policy. Prior to this, she served briefly as the Public Diplomacy Fellow and Faculty Advisor at the George Washington University. From 2019 to 2021, she was Director of the Office of Public Diplomacy for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In previous assignments she served as Counselor for Public Affairs at U.S. Embassy Singapore where she also held the role of Acting Deputy Chief of Mission for one year (2016-2019); Africa Regional Media Hub Director in Johannesburg, South Africa (2013-2016); Outreach Unit Chief in Shanghai, China (2009-2013); Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in Beijing, China (2005-2009); Deputy Spokesperson in Beijing, China (2003-2005); and Consular and Political Officer in Manila, Philippines (2000-2002). Camille serves as a Board Member of Executive Women at State.
Camille received her Bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Texas and a Master of International Affairs degree with a focus on International Security Policy from Columbia University. She speaks Mandarin Chinese and has studied Japanese, Tagalog, French, and Spanish. She is a mother of two, an advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility and an avid reader, traveler, and sports enthusiast.

Rahm Emanuel was confirmed in a bipartisan vote as the 31st United States Ambassador to Japan on December 18, 2021.
Previously, Ambassador Emanuel was the 55th Mayor of the City of Chicago, a position he held until May 2019. During that time, he made the critical choices necessary to secure Chicago’s future as a global capital.
As Mayor, the Ambassador added four years to a student’s education. He increased the school day by 75 minutes and added more than 200 hours to the school year, marking the largest single increase in educational time by any city and taking Chicago from having the least educational time of any large school district in the country to being on par with its peers. He implemented universal pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten for every Chicago child, and made Chicago the first city in America to provide free community college.
The Mayor’s comprehensive public safety strategy focused on expanded prevention programs for at-risk youth, smarter policing strategies, and empowering parents and communities to reduce violence. The Ambassador made it a priority to bring global companies to the city, helping Chicago to lead the U.S. in corporate relocations and foreign direct investment for seven consecutive years. His administration invested in infrastructure, public transportation, open space, and cultural attractions. From the $8.5 billion O’Hare International Airport modernization program that is cementing Chicago’s status as a global leader in travel, tourism, and trade to the development of the iconic 1.25-mile Chicago Riverwalk, the City’s investments are creating thousands of good-paying jobs and making Chicago a better place to live, work, and play.
Prior to becoming Mayor, from November 2008 until October 2010, Ambassador Emanuel served as President Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff. In addition to being the President’s top advisor, the Ambassador helped the Obama administration secure the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Ambassador Emanuel was elected four times as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois’s 5th Congressional District (2002-2008). As Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Emanuel helped pass legislation to raise the minimum wage and authored the Great Lakes Restoration Act.
From 1993 to 1998, Ambassador Emanuel was a key member of President Bill Clinton’s administration, rising to serve as Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Politics. During this time, Emanuel served as a legislative liaison to Congress and spearheaded efforts to pass several of President Clinton’s signature achievements, most notably the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, and the historic Balanced Budget Act, which created the Children’s Health Insurance Program that expanded health care coverage to 10 million children. The Ambassador also worked closely with President Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a U.S. Senator, to shepherd the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 through Congress.
As a former Senior Counselor at Centerview Partners and former Managing Director at Wasserstein Perella & Co., Emanuel brings a depth of financial experience to the post.
Ambassador Emanuel graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1981 and received a Master’s Degree in Speech and Communication from Northwestern University in 1985. He is married to Amy Rule, and they have three children.

Hafimi Abdul Haadii is from a 3rd generation business family in Brunei Darussalam and currently Executive Director of LVK Group of Companies. Her formative years were spent in Brunei, New Zealand and Australia. She is the Chairperson of Competition Commission of Brunei Darussalam since 2018 and a former Member of the Legislative of Brunei Darussalam from 2017-2022. She is a founding member of the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Brunei (YEAB) in 2000, and its President from 2012-2013 and Advisory Member since 2018.
In 2013 Hafimi was appointed to the APEC Business Advisory Council as a Member for Brunei Darussalam and had several active roles as a Woking Group Chair (2019- 2020) & Co-Chair (2017-2018) for ABAC’s Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Working Group and Co-Chair (2015) for Sustainable Development Working Group. She is currently the Chair for ABAC’s Inclusion Task Force (2023). She is an appointed member of the Asia Business Leaders Advisory Council since 2019 and its current Co-Chair 2023-2024.
Hafimi is a member of Brunei’s Digital Economy Council and currently holds Board positions in companies under the family group as well as Chair of the Advisory Board for TOQQA Global; Director of International Affairs for Swisstec Investment Holdings in Australia and International Advisor to Abodoo in Ireland. She previously held board, council and committee positions with Brunei Economic Development Board, Darussalam Enterprise, Bank Usahawan Berhad, Universiti Brunei Darussalam Council and UBD Corp Sdn Bhd in Brunei Darussalam.
Within the community, Hafimi is a Trustee of the Yayasan Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Foundation’s Pusat Pengajian Kesenian & Kaligraphy Islam and former Chair of the Committee on Social Enterprise Strategy, initiating a living incubation project called “Ristaan Abadi di Kg Bolkiah.” She is an Old Geelong Grammarian and an alumnus of Deakin University holding a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Architecture (Honours) and in 2019 was awarded the medal of P.S.B.( The Most Blessed Order of Setia Negara Brunei-4th Class) by His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di Pertuan Negara Brunei Darussalam.

James Higa has had a long and storied career in Silicon Valley. He reported directly to Steve Jobs at Apple, working together over decades to change the face of technology and entire consumer industries. He is embedded in the fabric of Silicon Valley as Managing Partner of Offline Ventures. He is an early stage investor in companies like Slack, Notion, and Blue Bottle Coffee, and advised iconic brands like UNIQLO, Airbnb, Lawsons, Robinhood, and the Walt Disney Family Museum. James serves on the boards of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Stanford University Libraries, Okinawa Institute for Science and Technology, and has served on the GRAMMY Foundation MusiCares and the Stanford Alumni Association boards

Eunice Kim was named Chief Product Officer in October 2023. She previously led the company’s global Consumer Product Innovation team. Eunice joined Netflix in early 2021 after having spent 10 years in product leadership roles at Google Play and YouTube. Prior to Google, she worked at several tech startups as well as PepsiCo and Adobe Systems. Eunice holds a B.A. from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She serves on the Board of Directors for Cure CMD.

Dr. Hoesung Lee is Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), elected since October 2015, and Endowed Chair Professor at Korea University Graduate School of Energy and Environment, Seoul, Korea. His research encompasses the economics of climate change, energy and sustainable development. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Korean Academy of Environmental Sciences, and chair of the Asian Development Bank President’s Advisory Board on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. Lee was the founding president of the Korea Energy Economics Institute — a government agency for national energy policy development. He was Distinguished Research Fellow at the Korea Environment Institute, senior adviser to the Minister of Energy and Resources and the Minister of Environment, senior fellow at the Korea Development Institute and economist at Exxon Company USA. He served as the president of the International Association for Energy Economics, president of the Korea Resources Economics Association, member of the International Advisory Board of the Battelle-Pacific Northwest National Lab, USA, the Board of Directors of Hyundai Corporation and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan, and council member of the Global Green Growth Institute. He was Co-Chair of the IPCC Working Group III (the socio-economic dimensions of climate change) for the Second Assessment which provided a scientific basis for the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol. He served as Vice-Chair of IPCC 2008-2015, and lead author and review editor for the various IPCC assessments. He has served on many national and international committees addressing climate change and energy. He received his B.A. from Seoul National University and Ph.D. in economics from Rutgers University, USA. He was named to the 2019 TIME 100 Most Influential People in the world.

Dr. Tammy Ma is the Lead for the Inertial Fusion Energy Initiative at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she leads the team to develop a clean, limitless, safe energy source of the future by recreating stars in the laboratory. She is the recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE) and currently sits on the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC), providing advice to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science on complex scientific and technological issues related to fusion energy and plasma research. She was a member of the team that achieved fusion ignition in December 2022 at the National Ignition Facility, demonstrating more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it, for the first time in history.

President Biden appointed Sara Minkara as the Special Advisor on International Disability Rights. In this role, Special Advisor Minkara leads the U.S. Department of State’s comprehensive strategy to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities internationally. Prior to joining the Department of State, she founded and served as CEO of Sara Minkara, LLC, which promotes authentic leadership and value-based inclusion. She also established Empowerment Through Integration (ETI), a nonprofit organization committed to developing a more inclusive global society and transforming social and cultural stigmas against disability. Special Advisor Minkara is a graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been recognized for her many contributions through appointments and awards, including honors from the Clinton Global Initiative, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Forbes 30 Under 30, Ashoka, Harvard, Halcyon, and the Vital Voices “100 Women Using Their Power to Empower” retrospective. Internationally, Special Advisor Minkara has promoted disability rights, diversity, access, and inclusion in a range of countries including Lebanon, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. She speaks Arabic.

Dee Dee Myers is Senior Advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom and Director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. She brings more than three decades of experience in strategic communications, public affairs, corporate governance and social responsibility in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, she served as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Corporate Communications and Public Affairs for Warner Bros. She was a member of the company’s executive committee and advised the CEO on a wide range of issues. Prior to joining Warner Bros., Ms. Myers served as Managing Director of the Glover Park Group. Ms. Myers served as White House Press Secretary during President Bill Clinton’s first term and was the first woman to hold the position. After leaving the White House, she worked as a political analyst, commentator and writer as well as a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. She is the author of The New York Times best-selling book “Why Women Should Rule the World” and served as a consultant on the Emmy Award-winning drama series “The West Wing.” Before joining the Clinton presidential campaign in 1991, Ms. Myers worked on a number of local, state and national campaigns. She served as press secretary for Dianne Feinstein in her 1990 bid for governor of California and worked on the presidential campaigns of Governor Michael S. Dukakis and Vice President Walter F. Mondale. She also worked on the staffs of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and California State Senator Art Torres.

Andrew Ng is the Managing General Partner at AI Fund, Founder of DeepLearning.AI, and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. As a pioneer both in machine learning and online education, Dr. Ng has changed countless lives through his work in AI and has taught over 8 million people AI. He was the founding lead of the Google Brain team, which led Google’s drive to adopt modern AI, as well as the VP & Chief Scientist at Baidu. He is also Co-founder and Chairman of Coursera, a leading online education company. In 2023, he was named to the Time100 AI list of the most influential AI persons in the world. Dr. Ng now focuses his time primarily on his entrepreneurial ventures, looking for the best ways to accelerate responsible AI practices in the larger global economy. Dr. Ng has authored over 200 papers in AI and related fields, and holds a B.Sc. from CMU, M.Sc. from MIT and PhD from UC Berkeley. Follow Dr.Ng on Twitter (@AndrewYNg) and Linkedin.

Gary Rieschel has over 30 years of successful operating and investing experience as a senior executive, entrepreneur, investor, and global business strategist. He held executive positions at Intel, Sequent, and Cisco, and was the Founder of the Softbank Venture Capital group. He is Founding Managing Partner of Qiming, a firm with over $8B USD under management focused on early stage investments in China and one of China’s premier VC firms. Mr. Rieschel’s investment areas are Healthcare and Cleantech. He advised the China Greentech Initiative, and the Rocky Mountain Institute in its introduction to China. He actively supports the US China Clean Energy Forum, PERC (Property and Environmental Research), The Nature Conservancy, the Climate Leadership Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council, and the U.S. Olympic Foundation where he and his wife Yucca serve as Sports Ambassadors for mental health for the U.S. Olympic team. He served on the joint venture boards of Blackrock/Bank of China and Silicon Valley Bank/Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Gary holds a BA in Biology from Reed College in Portland, OR, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He lived in Japan for five years in the late 1980s and lived in Shanghai from 2005 through 2016. He now lives in Seattle, WA. He is the Chairman of the Asia Society Northern California Advisory Board and a Global Trustee.

Peter Schwartz is an internationally renowned futurist and business strategist, specializing in scenario planning and working with corporations, governments, and institutions to create alternative perspectives of the future and develop robust strategies for a changing and uncertain world. As Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning for Salesforce, he manages the organization’s ongoing strategic conversation.
Peter was co-founder and chairman of Global Business Network. He is the author of several works. His first book, The Art of the Long View, is considered a seminal publication on scenario planning. Peter has also served as a script consultant on the films "The Minority Report," "Deep Impact," "Sneakers," and "War Games." He received a B.S. in aeronautical engineering and astronautics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

Ken Wilcox currently serves as Emeritus Chairman of Silicon Valley Bank and was both President and Vice Chairman of SPD Silicon Valley Bank, Silicon Valley Bank’s joint-venture bank in Shanghai. Mr. Wilcox was previously the CEO of SVB Financial Group. In that role, he successfully pursued a strategy of expansion and diversification, while remaining focused on the group’s core niches of technology, life sciences, venture capital and premium wineries.
Mr. Wilcox was (until July of 2021) Chairman of the Board of the Asia Society of Northern California, Treasurer of the Asian Art Museum, and a member of the Advisory Board of the 21st Century China Center Advisory Board. Also, he is the Chief Credit Officer of Columbia Lake Venture Debt Fund. He is also an adjunct professor and member of International Advisory Board at Fudan University in Shanghai, and an advisor to a number of startups. Earlier in his career, Mr. Wilcox was a member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2006 to 2012.
Mr. Wilcox earned a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School, as well as a PhD in German studies Ohio State University. In January of 2020 he published “Leading Through Culture: How Real Leaders Create Cultures that Motivate People to Achieve Great Things.”

Mike Yeh is the Regional Vice President and Associate General Counsel responsible for Microsoft’s Corporate, External and Legal Affairs (CELA) team in Asia. He manages a team of more than 80 professionals who provide legal and government affairs support to Microsoft’s sales and business operations in the region – from India to Australia and New Zealand to China, Korea and Japan. He focuses on helping customers – both governments and the private sector – navigate novel legal, regulatory and policy issues at the intersection of technology and business. Mike joined Microsoft in 2003 and, most recently, led Microsoft’s CELA team in the Middle East and Africa based out of Dubai. Before that he was the Assistant General Counsel responsible for Microsoft’s Worldwide Public Sector and Industry team based out of Redmond, Washington. Mike has also covered Antitrust for Microsoft, out of Redmond, and was the Director of Regulatory Affairs for Asia from 2008-2012 based out of Beijing.
Event Details
3rd Floor Exhibition Hall, Moscone West, APEC CEO Summit