Not long ago, technology leaders everywhere were scrambling to keep pace with the accelerating speed of digital business transformation. Then, Covid-19 came along and everything changed…

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased collaboration between the business and technology teams, and also accelerated digital transformation and adoption of emerging tech such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, IoT, and intelligent automation. Many companies are trying to boost their performance using digital technologies and approaches.

At this joint chamber webinar on November, 27^th  James O’Callaghan – Partner and Head of Technology Consulting at KPMG in Hong Kong, China- will share the key findings of the Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey 2020. It covers some of the issues that are most important to technology leaders: from board priorities to technology strategy, to career.

Together with Lucy Werner – Head of Cloud at Google Hong Kong- talk about the AI adoption and readiness in Hong Kong, as well as the highlights and recommendations set out in the latest “Smarter Digital City – AI for Everyone” whitepaper.

 

Topics to be covered:

• Top priorities of CIO/technology leaders after the pandemic: what’s changed, what remains constant, and what digital leaders are doing to outpace their rivals in this new reality
• The perception of AI that includes motivation and barriers for adoption from businesses
• Uncovered future opportunities to accelerate AI development in Hong Kong post-COVID-19
• AI use cases from the Cloud perspective in four key sectors: Finance, Retail, Travel & Logistics, and Technology & Innovation
• Examination of the current AI ecosystem in Hong Kong

 

Registration Deadline: Wednesday, 25 November 2020

Access link for the webinar will be sent to participants 1 day before the event.

This session will be conducted via Webex.

   

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

James O’Callaghan, Partner at KPMG China

James is a Partner in KPMG’s Advisory business. With more than 20 years of experience, James has worked across industries from banking and insurance to the public sector, education, telcos, and media. He specialises in digital and operational transformation but also has a strong grasp of the governance and controls needed to run these new economy business models. His experience is spread across the UK and Europe and for the past 14 years in Asia.

   

Lucy Werner, Head of Cloud at Google

Lucy Werner is responsible for leading Google Cloud’s business in Hong Kong focused on helping enterprise customers with their digital transformation strategies and accelerating innovation. Her prior role at Google was leading Finance and Travel strategies for Pan Asian clients based in Hong Kong.

Lucy joined Google in January 2015. Her career prior to Google included leadership roles at Kenshoo across the Asia Pacific and in the USA at Spruce Media where Lucy was the Chief Operating Officer (a Facebook PMD partner), and at AdBrite as Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development where she built the largest Independent Ad Exchange globally.

Lucy has also held several leadership roles in Finance at JP Morgan, Merill Lynch, and Deloitte.

Lucy holds an M.B.A from Harvard Business School a Bachelor of Commerce and CPA certification from the University of Cape Town.

   

Join the Retail Mixer, one of the best networking cocktails in town, and gather together with the retail players in Hong Kong.

On Monday, November 30th enjoy a unique cocktail inspired by Calabria – the homeland of turquoise waters and savory aromas and flavors- created with Amaro del Capo, the most well-known Calabrian liquor.

Discover the picturesque region of Calabria at Popinjays, meet with professionals working in the retail industry, and enjoying the breath-taking view over nighttime city lights.

  A limited number of seats are available.

*Please note that all the upcoming Chamber events will be subject to the latest Hong Kong Government safety and social distancing measures. We will keep our guests updated about the final arrangements following the indicated guidelines. Thank you for your kind understanding.

To support the Hong Kong Business Community, The Hong Kong Government has been sponsoring a number of subsidy projects under the Funding Scheme that has recently gained the interest of a larger number of enterprises, especially those facing serious challenges due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

On December 1st, with a roundtable in collaboration with Deloitte, the Incentives Chinese Team with the coordination of the Italian Desk of Deloitte AP ICE, will illustrate The BUD Fund, a dedicated Fund on “Branding, Upgrading and Domestic sales”.

Originally established in 2012 under the frame of the Mainland Scheme and the Free Trade Agreement Scheme, the Fund allows companies to be reimbursed for approved expenses incurred in projects aimed at boosting promotional sales activities undertaken in some APAC countries including Mainland China, Singapore and Macau. The reimbursement can amount up to HK$ 4,000,000 to cover costs such as advertisement, stores openings, social media advertisement and e-commerce platform set-up.

During the Round Table, the experts from Deloitte will give insight about the requirements needed for an application, how to tailor your project to your business needs and to maximize the chances of getting a favourable consideration from the approval authorities.

NOTE: This invitation is personal and non-transferrable. In order to guarantee a safe environment, the attendance to this event will be limited to 12 guests, assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

The high-profile celebrations of the 40^th anniversary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in October served as a reminder of the tremendous achievements of the city to date. President Xi Jinping unveiled further autonomy for the city, emphasizing Shenzhen to be the new engine driving China’s economic growth.

At the same time, Hong Kong will serve as a dual engine with Shenzhen in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) development, implying that opportunities will continue to emerge for Hong Kong businesses.

However, both individuals and corporates should be aware of the recent changes in the regulatory framework in the GBA. The GBA cities have been updating their regulations to attract talent and investment from overseas (including Hong Kong), so interested investors should keep up to date with all the latest developments in areas from dispute resolution to income tax before setting up operations in the GBA.

To learn more about the regulatory framework in the GBA, the Chambers have invited some legal and tax experts to share with members their insights on the following topics:

• corporate set up in the GBA and relevant legal procedures;
• Taxation planning of corporations and individuals in the GBA;
• Employment issues involving Hong Kong residents working in the GBA;
• Resolution of commercial disputes, and enforcement of judgments or arbitral awards in the GBA;
• Asset protection, wealth management, and family office set-up for high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in the GBA.

   

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Victor Yang – Managing Partner, Yang Chan & Jamison LLP

Victor Yang has decades of legal experience focused on corporate and commercial, mergers and acquisitions, securities and public listings, and private wealth areas. He has acted for clients in many large cross-border M&A transactions in the hospitality, media, property, food, and restaurant businesses and assisted initial public offering of business in the shipping, container manufacturing, logistics, hotels, and telecommunication industries.

Prior to joining Yang Chan & Jamison., he was until 2017 the Managing Partner of a leading law firm in Hong Kong and a Director Emeritus of TerraLex, a global network of independent law firms. He was a founding Partner of the Canadian law firm Boughton Peterson Yang Anderson, the first Canadian law firm approved by the China Ministry of Justice in 1992 to be licensed as a foreign law firm in China, and was the Chief Representative of the firm’s representative office in Shanghai.

Yang had served as a director in 13 companies listed publically on stock exchanges in the United States of America, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

 

Peter Guang Chen – Partner, International Tax Services, Deloitte China

Peter Chen is both a certified public accountant and an attorney with more than 20 years of experience in tax advisory and planning. He has advised China, Hong Kong and the US, and other multinational corporations and high net worth individuals on their inbound and outbound transactions, China and international tax issues, investment structuring, regulatory, and business issues; mergers, acquisitions; and the reorganizations of multinationals in China and the Asia Pacific region; structuring of trusts, foundations, estate planning and asset preservation for individuals. He has represented companies and individuals to resolve tax disputes with tax authorities in China and the US.

Recently, Chen has been engaged by the Ministry of Finance of a Southeast Asian nation to draft the country’s tax regulations and to provide consulting on international tax matters.

Previously, Chen was with a major economic consulting firm and also was a tax partner at Deloitte US, where he was responsible for the China Desk in New York, and served as China leader at the firm’s International Centre of Excellence.

 

Winnie Chiu – Partner, Yang Chan & Jamison LLP

Winnie Chiu has extensive experience in Succession Planning, Will, Trust, and Probate related matters. She also handles disputes between beneficiaries; beneficiaries and the executor/administrator/trustee.

Chiu is a frequent speaker at seminars in Hong Kong, PRC, and overseas in relation to succession planning for trustee companies, bankers, investment advisors, accountants, lawyers, and high net worth individuals.

Chiu also has solid experience in handling contentious and non-contentious employment matters as well as anti-discriminations, sexual harassment, and personal data privacy related issues arising from recruitment, merger & acquisition, restructuring, and/or post-termination restrictive covenants. She regularly conducts seminars and training sessions for HR directors, professionals, and management of international companies.

Prior to joining Yang Chan & Jamison, Chiu had acted as a partner of various leading law firms, and she had also worked as an in-house lawyer for an international trustee company in Hong Kong.

 

Valarie Fung – Partner, Yang Chan & Jamison LLP

Valarie Fung is a highly experienced lawyer in dispute resolution. She has been providing legal services and advice to financial institutions, listed companies, multinational corporations, liquidators, trustees-in-bankruptcy, receivers, and high net worth individuals for many years. Fung specializes in handling:

• litigation and arbitration (including but not limited to commercial and contractual disputes, shareholders disputes, banking-related disputes, and probate disputes);
• regulatory investigations by the Securities and Futures Commission, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and the Independent Commission against Corruption, involving market misconduct in the securities market, anti-money laundering and anti-bribery;
• insolvency, bankruptcy, and receivership; and
• employment and restraint of trade.

Prior to joining Yang, Chan & Jamison LLP, Fung was Of Counsel at an international law firm ranked top ten in the world, before serving as Senior Counsel in the Litigation Unit of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

 

Ellen Tong – Director, Global Employer Services, Deloitte China

Ellen Tong has worked for Deloitte in the US and Hong Kong. As a Tax Director in the Hong Kong office, Tong leads the U.S. Individual tax practice. Tong is also a specialist in China’s individual income tax, Hong Kong’s individual income tax, and mobility management. She has extensive experience in providing personal tax advisory and compliance services, advising on remuneration structure, equity rewards, tax equalization/ employee’s tax assistance programs, retirement benefits planning, policy design, implementation, review, mobility management, and immigration solutions to clients in different industries with a widespread and diversified workforce. Tong is experienced in handling cross-border issues and providing practical solutions in the deployment of resources for risk and control management.

Tong has in-depth experience in advising private and public companies on reward strategy and executive remuneration from design, implementation, manage to employee communications.

Tong also provides high-touch personal tax advice to senior executives and high net-worth individuals and acts as a trusted tax and business advisor to their family offices.

Tong is a Certified Public Account in the U.S. She is a member of both the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the California Board of Accountancy. Tong has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

Stephanie Xue Bai – Senior Associate, Shanghai Qin Li Law Firm (Guangzhou office)

Stephanie Bai is admitted to practice law in both mainland China and the State of New York of USA. Before joining Qinli, Bai worked for an international law firm, a local boutique firm specializing in labor law, and a red Circle firm. She has nearly 9 years of legal service experience.

Bai’s legal practice focuses on corporate, private wealth, cross-border investment, labor law, and dispute resolution.

In the field of private wealth, Bai has gained practical experience in cross-border asset protection and inheritance, she has led several offshore family trust structure design and projects setup for Chinese HNW clients, among them several clients were Chinese Forbes listed families. In the field of labor and employment law, Bai has provided HR management legal risk prevention, labor dispute resolution, labor contract, and employee handbook review, working hour system consultation, and other related services to many large FIEs, private enterprises, and SOEs. Bai is a STEP Affiliate.

It is almost a decade that we hear about the impact of new technologies in our way of working and in what is called “human-augmentation” which is how our physical and mental abilities can be further enhanced through technological devices. Though, resistance to change and other dilemmas in the organization stopped this revolution from happening since the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

As for remote working, many companies have accelerated to adapt to the use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) to ensure business continuity, as for technical teams is complicated to travel in different global sites for installation of new production lines, upgrade of existing lines, or maintenance and assistance during the pandemic.

Forced by this background, many companies have already realized that this is not just contingent but it will last as a new way of working, improved in speed and efficiency while contributing to reducing companies’ carbon footprint.

 

This webinar is part of a digital journey promoted by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and Macao, the Italian Chamber of Commerce in China, and I&T WG with the purpose of introducing all members of the Chambers to new technologies through theoretical contents and practical demonstration to improve companies’ performance and to generate cross-innovation and collaboration between the members.

The webinar is tailored for a diverse audience of Multinational, Big, and SMEs Corporate C-levels (e.g., CEOs, CTOs, COO etc.), and Senior Managers in different functional areas including Production, Business Development, Human Resources, ICT, Product/Service Developments, Sales and After-Sales.

 

It will cover the following topics:

• Automation and Work- Brief introduction of this new trend
• The main differences between AR and VR
• Case Studies of practical applications of this technology, with a focus on reasons to adopt it, and how it benefited the companies and their customers.

MODERATORS

• Maria Santonastaso, General Manager, Dedalus S.p.A. – China
• Ivan D’Onghia, CTO Digital/Robotics, Danieli Tongchuang Information Technology

SPEAKERS

• Rosanna Terminio, Managing Partner of AsecorpChina Business Consulting and PhD Candidate at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)
• Cristian Sala, Executive Sales Manager, Cama Group

As the digital transition has largely spread in almost every industry, data management and cybersecurity have attracted the interests of regulators across the globe.

In this webinar, our experts from Deacons law firm will cover the evolution and recent interpretations from authorities of China’s Data Protection and Cybersecurity regulations. Panelists from Control Risks and 7Cento HK will outline risks faced by businesses that operate under the new legislation in China as well as the basics of data protection and infrastructure security from a tech perspective.

This seminar will highlight the different kinds of risks a company is facing while operating in China, and will guide the attendees through the process of identifying the different digital vulnerabilities, monitor endpoints, and secure the company’s cyber perimeters.

Our guests will learn about the risks of managing the digital sovereignty in China and take in the necessary tools and knowledge to prevent data breaches and leaks, on discerning valuable data and how to properly store it.

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

 

Neal Beatty – Partner & General Manager, Control Risks, Hong Kong & South China 

Neal Beatty is a Partner and General Manager of Control Risks’ Hong Kong office. In this role, he is responsible for client relationships in Hong Kong, developing new business with multinational clients, and advising on areas of business risk that impact their operations in Hong Kong, Greater China, and the Asia Pacific region. Neal is also Chair of the China Committee at the British Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong. Before moving to Hong Kong Neal was based in Control Risks’ Shanghai office. During that time, he was the Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce Shanghai (April 2013 – May 2015)) and has spent most of the last 25 years living and working in Greater China. Before joining Control Risks, Neal worked as head of security in China for a large US financial institution, based in Beijing. Prior to this, Neal worked in Shanghai as a manager for a risk management consulting firm and in Taiwan for the Swiss group Société Générale de Surveillance. Neal holds a Master’s degree in Chinese Studies from the University of Leeds and a BSc in chemistry from Warwick University, both in the UK.

 

Alessandra Lombardi – Business Development Manager, 7Cento HK Limited

Alessandra leads the business development activities for 7Cento HK in Hong Kong and East Asia and co-operates with the company’s cybersecurity analysts team for alerts investigation in Italy. Before joining 7Cento HK, Alessandra has been in charge of digital marketing, CRM development, and fintech projects. In 2017, she graduated in Information Systems Management at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

 

Catherine Zheng – Partner of China IP Group, Head of Patents & Designs, Deacons

Catherine is triple qualified in Canada, New York, and Hong Kong. She is a native Chinese from Shanghai where she studied law at Fudan University. She holds an LLB degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University in Canada, and a Bachelor of Science degree (Hons) in chemistry from Dalhousie University, Canada.

Catherine is a co-chair of the Asian Patent Attorneys Association and a Committee Member of The International Trademark Association and Asian Patent Attorneys Association.

The Honourable Mrs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, will deliver her Policy Address to the Legislative Council in October.

Every year, the Hong Kong business community hosts a luncheon for over 1 000 executives to hear the Chief Executive elaborate on the Policy Address. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, this is not possible this year. However, we are deeply honoured that Mrs Lam has accepted our invitation to speak to the Hong Kong business community via Zoom on December 10th. Attendees will be able to hear Mrs Lam explain the priorities of her latest Policy Address, and learn more about her initiatives to support the economy and people’s livelihoods during this challenging time.

*Please note that this event is for members only

The Italian Chamber of Commerce is delighted to invite you for an exclusive shopping night at Calzedonia and Intimissimi stores in Central. Join us on December 10th  and find the perfect Christmas gift by Intimissimi – the Must-Have Italian lingerie brand, and by Calzedonia – the most well-known Italian legwear label! Our guests will enjoy an incredible discount of 20% on all regular-priced items an exclusive Pre-sale Offer of 50% off on selected items in both stores. Upon purchase in both stores, you will receive a set of amazing presents:

• Intimissimi large tote bag
• Calzedonia special panda socks

RSVP now to enjoy this wonderful offer on your favorite Italian brands!   Please note that the participants will be asked to wear a mask inside the stores during the event.

The Italian Chamber of Commerce is pleased to present an exclusive and unique event to gather together the business community in Hong Kong during the Holiday season, by recreating a cheerful Christmas atmosphere inside the beautiful location of Tai Kwun, The Statement.

We would like to express our gratitude for the support received throughout the year by giving the chance to our guests to enjoy a sumptuous dinner and a night of Italian class and glamour.

On December 19th 2020 come dressed in your elegant attire and enjoy the magical atmosphere of the event!

*Please note that all the upcoming Chamber events will be subject to the latest Hong Kong Government safety and social distancing measures. We will keep our guests updated about the final arrangements following the indicated guidelines. Thank you for your kind understanding