Wednesday, April 29 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Fromm Hall — Complex
China is a powerful nation, and at the same time fragile and wrought with hidden weaknesses and vulnerabilities. In this talk, Mr. Gibbs introduces his new book, offering a nuanced portrait of China and its complex relationship with the West through the lens of his long and colorful history working in Shanghai.
As an American of Chinese ancestry, his story begins with his family –– including an opium addict, an American codebreaker, and a Chinese revolutionary. As president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, he had extraordinary access to senior leaders in Washington and Beijing, giving him remarkable insight into why tensions between the US and China have escalated so sharply, and what that means for global commerce and stability.
Speaker bio:
Ker Gibbs has been an Executive in Residence at USF since 2022. He previously served as the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and spent more than two decades working across Asia. His career includes senior executive positions with Apple and Disney, as well as experience as an investment banker with HSBC. In the 1990s, as China was beginning to open up to the West, he worked for the Boston Consulting Group in Shanghai.
Mr. Gibbs is co-author of Selling to China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) and a regular op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post, and other publications.