About the Speakers

David J. Firestein is the inaugural president and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations and a member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. He is based in Austin, Texas. Prior to this, he was the inaugural executive director of The University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) China Public Policy Center (CPPC) and a clinical professor at UT’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. As CPPC chief, Mr. Firestein led UT’s institutional engagement with China and oversaw innovative interdisciplinary research on China-related domestic and foreign policy topics.

Before joining UT, Mr. Firestein served as senior vice president and Perot Fellow at the EastWest Institute; there, he led the Institute’s work in the areas of U.S.-China relations, East Asian security and U.S.-Russia relations.

A decorated career U.S. diplomat from 1992–2010, Mr. Firestein specialized primarily in China and U.S.-China relations. He is the author or co-author of three books on China, including two China-published Chinese-language best-sellers. Mr. Firestein speaks Chinese at the near-native level.

Throughout his career, Mr. Firestein has played an active role advancing U.S.-China and U.S.-Asia trade. He has also produced path-breaking thought leadership, scholarship and Capitol Hill testimony on a range of topics, including U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, U.S.-China infrastructure investment cooperation and the role of national exceptionalism as a driver of major international conflict today. He was also a principal architect of the U.S.-China High-Level Political Party Leaders Dialogue.

Mr. Firestein currently serves on the boards of directors/advisors of about a dozen Texas-focused, China-focused, foreign affairs-focused and business-focused U.S. non-profit entities. Of particular note, he is a founding director of the United States China Heartland Association (USHCA); an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Texas Association of Business (TAB) – Texas’ powerful chamber of commerce – where Firestein is the Board-level leader responsible for TAB’s China initiatives; and a member of the UT LBJ School of Public Affairs’ Dean’s Advisory Council.

Since 2006, Mr. Firestein has served as a member of the graduate faculty of the University of Texas at Austin for a total of four years, most recently, during the 2017-2019 academic years. A native of Austin, Firestein holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and two master’s degrees from The University of Texas.

With more than 25 years in corporate America, Vani Rao is a mindset coach helping individuals to align their purpose with their career. She has worked in the energy industry with roles in projects & engineering, continuous improvement, planning and capability. She specializes in helping companies increase profitability through their diversity and inclusion programs and by empowering underrepresented groups to use their voices.

Vani received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Austin College and MBA from Columbia University. She is certified in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), hypnosis, Mental and Emotional Release (MERTM), project management (PMP) and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

With a lifelong love for Indian performing arts and political economy, Vani is a classically trained dancer in Kuchipudi and has been actively involved with the National Model United Nations. She is also a 2012 APAWLI (Asian Pacific American Women’s Leadership Institute) Fellow, a signature leadership program for APA women. She serves on the advisory board for Asia Society Texas Center’s Women’sLeadership Series. Her current passion is supporting charitable organizations in the U.S. and India focused on providing educational opportunities for children.

Gordon Shen is an Assistant Professor of Health Care Management at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health. He is a member of the Management, Policy, and Community Health Department and an affiliate faculty of the George McMillan Fleming Center of Healthcare Management. Prior to joining UTHealth in 2019, Dr. Shen was an Assistant Professor at City University of New York (Brooklyn College, 2015-2016; Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, 2016-2018). His research agenda is broadly focused on managerial innovations, particularly ones that are introduced to health care organizations located in low- and middle-income countries. This entails a deep understanding of customization, culture, and context. His empirical examinations include deinstitutionalization of mental health care globally, hospital management in China, and kaizen adoption by the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation. Across cases, he offers theoretical explanations drawn from organizational theory and international development. Dr. Shen holds a B.S. in psychobiology and public health (2005, University of California, Los Angeles), a S.M. in epidemiology (2007, Harvard T.H.  Chan School of Public Health), and a Ph.D. in health services and policy analysis (2013, University of California, Berkeley). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Public Health in 2014.  

Chris Tomlinson is a Business Columnist with The Houston Chronicle, where he has written commentary on business, energy, and economics since 2014. Before joining the Chronicle, he spent 20 years with The Associated Press reporting on politics, conflicts, and economics from more than 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Tomlinson Hill, and he produced the award-winning documentary film by the same name. Both examine the history and consequences of race, politics, and economics in Texas.