News & Highlights

  • January 2025
  • EVENT

8th Annual HBS Women’s Leadership Forum: “Leading with Strength Through Uncertainty”

On June 22nd, Harvard Center Shanghai and HBS Club of Shanghai - supported by HBS Race, Gender & Equity Initiative- successfully hosted the 8th Annual HBS Women’s Leadership Forum. Centered on the theme “Leading with Strength Through Uncertainty,” the forum convened prominent female leaders and over 100 alumni and guests for a dynamic discussion. The forum explored how women leaders are navigating a world defined by constant disruption and the rise of AI—not by resisting change, but by grounding their leadership in enduring values such as trust, responsibility, and intentionality, while also seizing opportunities aligned with long-term trends and driven by their passions and strengths.
  • MAY 2025
  • ALUMNI EVENT

Dinner Discussion with Kosmo Kalliarekos: Private Equity in Asia

On May 28, 2025, the HBS Club of Shanghai invited Kosmo Kalliarekos (MBA Class of 1991 and HBS Asia-Pacific Advisory Board member) to share his insights about two decades of Private Equity in Asia. Mr. Kalliarekos is the Chairman of North Asia and Partner in the EQT Private Capital Asia. During the insightful dinner discussion, Mr. Kalliarekos traced the origins and evolution of private equity in the US, explored the unique opportunities for PE firms across Asia, and discussed the critical importance of global managerial and operational talents for successful investment execution. In addition, the participants also discussed actionable ways the broader HBS community should contribute value and navigate challenges amid the current turbulent global landscape. The evening was marked by engaging personal anecdotes and deep insights drawn from diverse industry perspectives and backgrounds.
  • MAY 2025
  • EVENT

Democratizing Wall Street: An Evening with Professor Joseph Pacelli

In May 2025, Professor Joseph Pacelli delivered talks in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore under the theme “Democratizing Wall Street”. The talks were organized by the HBS Club of Shanghai, the HBS Association of Hong Kong, and the HBS Club of Singapore, respectively. During the talk, he explained the sources of misinformation that investors faced in capital markets, discussed the origins of conflicts of interest, and analyzed the efficacy of new intermediaries, such as social media and technology (e.g., Robo-Analysts), in leveling the playing field between retail investors and institutional investors. In addition, he also explored the implications of misinformation for managers and discussed ways in which managers could play a more proactive role in improving their information environment with participants.
  • March 2025
  • EVENT

2025 New Venture Competition Asia-Pacific Regional Final

On March 9, at the 2025 New Venture Competition Alumni Track Asia-Pacific Regional Final, eight teams from China, Australia, Indonesia, and India presented their innovative business ideas. Noolie, which focuses on empowering children throughout Southeast Asia with nutrient-rich treats, received the Best Investment Award and will represent APAC at the Global Finale. Turmerik and VoxPop AI were honored with the Best Innovation and Best Social Impact Awards, respectively.
  • February 2025
  • ALUMNI EVENT

HBSAHK Signature Conference 2025

On February 22, 2025, the HBS Alumni Club of Hong Kong (HBSAHK) celebrated its 45th anniversary with the 9th Signature Conference at Cloud 39, The Henderson. Centered on “Leadership in an Era of Change”, the event featured keynote speaker Eddie Yue (MBA 1998), Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, alongside panels on AI, global supply chains, and education. Speakers included HBS alumni such as Dr. Victor Fung (PHD 1971), Dr. John Quelch (DBA 1977), Mr. Sebastian Man (MBA 1985), Mr. Joe Ngai (MBA 2000), and Ms. Jolie Chow (MBA 2010). With 300+ attendees, including HBS alumni and business leaders, the conference sparked engaging discussions and even “cold calls” from the audience. A dynamic exchange of ideas left participants inspired to lead with resilience in a rapidly evolving world.

New Research on the Region

  • 2025
  • Working Paper

Public Displays of Alignment: Firm Speech in Autocratic Regimes

By: Joris Mueller, Jaya Y. Wen and Cheryl Wu

Political speech by firms is increasingly common around the world. This paper examines the government as an important, yet understudied, audience for such speech, focusing on how Chinese firms rhetorically align with the state. We introduce novel, general, and replicable quantitative measures of rhetorical alignment, using which we establish several empirical facts: (i) rhetorical alignment is prevalent but not universal; (ii) it has increased significantly over time; (iii) it is more pronounced in state-owned and strategic sectors; and (iv) it is negatively correlated with profitability and positively correlated with performance on political and social objectives. Exploiting two natural experiments, we further show that (v) rhetorically aligned firms experience larger stock price declines following events damaging the Party’s reputation, and (vi) firms increase rhetorical alignment after regulatory inspections. Guided by these findings, we propose a conceptual framework wherein rhetorical alignment serves as a commitment device: firms commit to supporting Party interests, and the Party commits to refraining from expropriation. Additional predictions of the framework are tested and supported by the data.

  • June 2025
  • Case

TagHive: Edtech Pricing and Distributor Decisions

By: Isamar Troncoso, Frank V. Cespedes and Stacy Straaberg

Education technology (edtech) company TagHive, founded in 2017, used a direct sales team and third-party distributors to sell its Class Saathi hardware and software solution to 300 clients, mainly primary and secondary schools in India. The product aimed to improve student engagement and performance, reduce the time it took teachers to develop and grade learning assessments, enable administrators to better track data, and provide parents more insight into their children’s learning. Founder and CEO Pankaj Agarwal initially priced Class Saathi using a one-time fee, or perpetual licensing, model. However, in 2023, the company began piloting a recurring subscription fee model to ensure steadier revenue. To support the new pricing structure, TagHive enhanced its software with artificial intelligence and expanded its customer support team and their responsibilities to subscription fee customers. By December 2024, TagHive was cash flow positive and planning to scale. Pankaj and his leadership team were considering whether to extend the pilot to all customers and what the effects on other parts of the organization might be. For example, the pilot had prompted TagHive to increase the capacity and responsibilities of its customer support team. If all clients were under the subscription fee model, could the company afford to continue expanding the team or should it rely on its distributors to provide post-sale customer support? Distributors were responsible for half of sales, but outsourcing customer engagement and support could put customer satisfaction and TagHive’s reputation at risk.

  • June 2025
  • Case

Vail Resorts: Responding to Activist Pressure (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer

On January 27, 2025, the head of a relatively small hedge fund named Late Apex Partners sent a highly critical letter to the board of directors of Vail Resorts, the world’s largest ski resort operator. In his letter, and the 88-slide presentation that accompanied his letter, the activist investor criticized the firm’s strategy, leadership, and financial performance. In fact, he was calling for fundamental change: replacing the CEO, CFO, and board chair; changing the firm’s capital allocation strategy; and focusing more attention on customers and employees to fix the company’s damaged reputation. On the day the letter became public, Vail’s stock price jumped 6%, representing an increase in almost $350 million of market value. With the stock price down more than 50% in the past few years, Vail’s relatively new CEO (Kirsten Lynch) and the board chairman (Rob Katz, the former CEO), had to decide whether to respond to the letter and, if so, how. What made this decision difficult was that several relatively small and unknown activist investors had won important victories against large corporations in recent years. Examples of this kind of “David vs. Goliath” battle included BlueBell Capital successfully removing Danone’s CEO in March 2021 and Engine No. 1 winning three board seats at ExxonMobil in May 2021.

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Shanghai Staff

Nancy Dai
Managing Director and Executive Director, Harvard Center Shanghai; Executive Director, Asia-Pacific Research Center
Brian Fu
Researcher
Crystal Gu
Program Coordinator
Shu Lin
Senior Researcher
Cindy Liu
Senior Program Coordinator
Tracy Qin
Manager for Administration

Singapore Staff

Adina Wong
Assistant Director, Research
Harold Zhu
Researcher

Hong Kong Staff

Billy Chan
Senior Researcher
Kitty Chow
Executive Secretary
Connie Yeung
Assistant Director, Administration