Pascal Coppens
Most Western boards make capital allocation and supply chain decisions about China using mental models that are a decade out of date. The country has moved from copying Western products to setting the innovation standard in whole categories, while its political and economic logic remains opaque. The result is a steady stream of strategic misjudgements at the moment when getting China right matters most.
Pascal Coppens helps Western boards make better decisions about China, drawing on two decades as a sinologist and technology entrepreneur who built companies in Shanghai and Silicon Valley and competed against Chinese innovators.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Pascal Coppens
- Twenty years living and working in China, eleven of them building his own companies in Shanghai. Coppens co-founded Polycore Software in Silicon Valley, founded Letsface in Shanghai, and created Sinnolabs, a growth accelerator preparing Belgian companies for China entry.
- Three books, one continuous argument: China’s New Normal (2019), Can We Trust China? (2022) and China’s Next Miracle (2026) follow China from copycat to standard-setter to intellectual property creator.
- In 2019 he named ten sectors where China would set the global innovation standard by 2025. Huawei, TikTok, TEMU, Ant, BYD, DJI, and BGI have since made the case for him.
- The eight circles of trust framework in Can We Trust China? gives Western leaders analytical ground on a polarised question, neither cheerleading China nor reducing it to threat.
Biography highlights
- Author of three books on modern China: China’s New Normal (2019), Can We Trust China? (2022), and China’s Next Miracle (2026).
- Master’s in Eastern Languages and Cultures from Ghent University and Business Engineering degree from Solvay Business School (Free University of Brussels).
- Twenty years living and working in Shanghai and Beijing, with several years in San Francisco; founder of Letsface, co-founder of Polycore Software, creator of Sinnolabs.
- Partner at nexxworks; delivers close to 100 keynotes a year for clients including Mastercard, Microsoft, Salesforce, Huawei, Walmart, P&G, S.W.I.F.T., Rabobank, EY, and PWC, and teaches at CEDEP (INSEAD) and London Business School.
- YouTube channel Pascal’s China Lens with 65,000+ subscribers and 4 million views; regular guest on Belgian public broadcaster VRT; co-host of the Radar podcast with Peter Hinssen and Steven Van Belleghem.
Biography
Chinese companies now lead in electric vehicles, mobile payments, social commerce, drone manufacturing, and consumer AI. The country has moved past the cheap-factory phase that shaped Western mental models. Western executives are now competing against or partnering with companies whose innovation logic they were not trained to read.
Coppens has spent two decades operating on both sides of that gap. He began at the Alcatel joint venture Shanghai Bell in 2000, moved to San Francisco with Wind River Systems, and co-founded Polycore Software in Silicon Valley in 2004. He returned to Shanghai in 2005 and later founded Letsface, an offline community platform for premium global brands. His primary sources were the hundreds of Chinese innovators he employed and competed against.
Three books trace a developing argument. China’s New Normal (2019) mapped ten sectors where Chinese companies would set the innovation standard by 2025, with predictions on Huawei, BYD, DJI, TikTok, and Ant largely borne out. Can We Trust China? (2022) tackled the trust deficit fuelling Western fear, building an eight circles of trust framework as an analytical handle on a polarising question. China’s Next Miracle (2026) tracks the shift from market innovation to intellectual property creation, and China’s geostrategic alignment with the Global South.
Coppens delivers close to 100 keynotes a year for Fortune 500 audiences and advises boards and management teams on China. He runs the Pascal’s China Lens YouTube channel for 65,000 subscribers and co-hosts the Radar podcast with Peter Hinssen and Steven Van Belleghem. Beijing has set 2030 as its target for global innovation leadership, which on his reading leaves Western companies about five years to prepare.
Key speaking topics
- China’s innovation model
- Geopolitical risk and US-China-EU dynamics
- China’s economic transition
- Chinese business ecosystems
- Supply chain de-risking
- Generative AI in China
- Cross-cultural business with Chinese partners
- The multipolar world order
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees facing strategic decisions on China exposure
- CSOs, transformation leads, and innovation heads benchmarking against Chinese competitors
- COOs and procurement leaders rethinking supply chain after the end of cheap globalisation
- Senior leadership teams in industries where Chinese companies are moving from supplier to direct competitor (automotive, consumer electronics, retail, pharmaceuticals)
Audience outcomes
- A clearer reading of China’s current strategic intent, separated from both the threat narrative and the market opportunity narrative
- The specific mechanics behind Chinese ecosystem speed and scale, drawn from the WeChat superapp, Alibaba’s platforms, Haier’s micro-enterprises, and the state-built EV supply chain
- A view of which Chinese competitors and partners are most relevant to their sector, and which are noise
- Sharper questions for their China strategy: whether to de-risk, where to compete, where to partner, where to learn from
- A current map of China’s AI position relative to the US and Europe, including the policy and infrastructure context
Talks
Reads China’s move from self-sufficiency to a national master plan for scientific and industrial leadership, set against a full-blown technology and trade war with the US.
Key takeaways:
- Why Washington now treats China as its primary strategic adversary, and where that leaves a divided EU
- The systemic, social, political, and economic pressures China still faces at home
- How China’s alignment with the Global South is shaping the next phase of reglobalisation
Maps the ten sectors where Chinese companies now set the global innovation standard, and the operating logic that got them there.
Key takeaways:
- Where China leads by sector, with the companies driving each shift: Huawei, TikTok, TEMU, Ant, BYD, DJI, and BGI
- The fifteen-year arc from copycat to innovator, and what it says about pace
- China’s pivot beyond market and service innovation towards becoming an intellectual property powerhouse
Works through eight circles of trust to give Western leaders an analytical handle on a country whose internal logic is usually misread.
Key takeaways:
- How the Chinese think about their own system, and why they trust their future more than the West trusts its own
- Where Western fear of China comes from, including reporting on its ambitions, leadership, military strength, and value system
- How China views the West today, and where the real tensions between the two sit
Reads modern China as an operating environment, covering the generations of Chinese business leaders and the China, US, and EU geopolitical context they sit within.
Key takeaways:
- The distinct strengths and weaknesses of each generation of Chinese business leaders
- Common Western misunderstandings and myths about doing business with Chinese companies
- How rapid adaptation, scalability, and intense competition shape what it takes to partner or compete