Xiao Geng

Why organisations work with Xiao Geng

• Sustained insider access to Chinese policy and regulatory thinking, built across roles at the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong, HSBC Bank China, and senior positions at Brookings, Fung Global Institute, and Columbia Global Centers East Asia.
• A live, monthly published view on the US-China economic relationship through more than a decade of Project Syndicate commentary co-authored with Andrew Sheng.
• Founding leadership of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, one of the few institutional bridges between Western policy research and Chinese government economic thinking.
• Research depth across the technical questions that drive China exposure for foreign capital: exchange rate policy, capital market reform, enterprise productivity, and urbanisation.
• A working position inside the Greater Bay Area policy network through CUHK Shenzhen and the Shenzhen Finance Institute, giving leaders a sightline into where China’s innovation and finance corridors are heading.

Biography highlights

• President of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance.
• Professor of Practice at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Director of the Institute of Policy and Practice at the Shenzhen Finance Institute.
• Director of the Research Institute of Maritime Silk-Road at Peking University HSBC Business School.
• Founding Director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy and former Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
• Former Vice President for China at the Fung Global Institute and Director of Columbia Global Centers East Asia.
• Project Syndicate columnist since 2012, with more than 140 published commentaries on China and the global economy.

Biography

Most foreign boards still treat China as a single risk vector. The economy is more fragmented than that, and the policy logic shaping it does not move on the cycles Western investors are used to reading. A serious view of capital allocation in Asia depends on understanding how monetary policy, financial reform, and political economy interact inside Beijing’s system, not just what is announced.

Xiao Geng has spent his career sitting inside that system. He is President of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance and Professor of Practice at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, where he directs the Institute of Policy and Practice at the Shenzhen Finance Institute. He also leads the Research Institute of Maritime Silk-Road at Peking University HSBC Business School.

His earlier roles built the institutional reach. He was Founding Director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Vice President for China at the Fung Global Institute, and Director of Columbia Global Centers East Asia. Inside the Hong Kong system he served as Head of Research at the Securities and Futures Commission. He has advised HSBC Bank China, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme.

Since 2012 he has written a monthly Project Syndicate column with Andrew Sheng, covering Chinese monetary policy, technology competition, energy transition, and the financial architecture of the US-China relationship. The column is one of the few sustained English-language readings of Chinese economic policy written from inside it.

Key speaking topics

• China’s macroeconomic outlook
• US-China economic and financial relations
• Chinese financial sector reform and regulation
• Capital markets and exchange rate policy in Asia
• Urbanisation, enterprise productivity, and the Greater Bay Area
• Geopolitical risk for foreign investors in China

Ideal for

• Boards and investment committees with material China or Asia exposure
• CFOs, treasurers, and heads of corporate strategy reviewing supply chain or capital allocation in Asia
• Financial services leadership briefings on regulatory and macro direction
• Government, multilateral, and policy audiences working on US-China economic questions

Audience outcomes

• A clearer read of where Chinese monetary, fiscal, and financial reform is actually heading, not what headlines suggest
• A working framework for the structural drivers of US-China economic tension and where they sit on the cycle
• Specific signals to watch on capital flows, exchange rate policy, and Chinese capital market opening
• A more accurate map of the policy actors and institutions that shape China’s economic decisions
• An informed basis for stress-testing investment, supply chain, and partnership decisions tied to Greater China