Jan 10^th, the School of Finance, Renmin University of China (SFRUC) and RUC North America Alumni Association (NAAA) successfully co-hosted the “Investment and Entrepreneurship in Today’s World” Alumni Webinar. This event invited prominent RUC alumni worldwide with finance and entrepreneurship background sharing their insights and stories, including Mr. Abiral Khatri (MSF Alumni 2018) as the panel moderator, and Ms. Ning Guan (Alumni of Industrial Economics, 1991), Mr. David Qi Tang (Alumni of International Economics, 1997) , Dr. Xiaobo He ( SFRUC alumni, 2020), and Mr. Jorge Qiao (MSF Alumni 2019) as the panelists. The Webinar was hosted by Ms. Yuanyuan Song, Director of the Center for International Programs, SFRUC.

First of all, Ms. Song expressed her thanks for all the guests and talked about the importance of organizing such an alumni webinar under today’s environment. She pointed out that the global pandemic COVID-19 has caused dramatic losses of our human lives worldwide and the economic recession and social disruption is devastating. Looking back, year 2020 has also taught us to embrace uncertainties, looking ahead into 2021 and beyond, the road will still be difficult. “But we should not feel discouraged,” she added, “through learning, engaging and gaining experiences will make a difference. The world’s biggest problems are also the biggest opportunities.” She said in the hope that these alumni’s sharing can help everyone make a better decision in the career development or entrepreneurial journey.

Then Ms. Song welcomed Prof. Zongxin Qian, Director of the MS_Finance (MSF) and MS_FinTech Program for International Students to deliver a welcome speech. Prof.Qian expressed his gratitude for co-organizer, RUCNAAA and president Mr. Wu Yafeng (SFRUC EMBA Alumni, 2013) for putting this event together and then introduced the history and development of SFRUC and the achievements the MSF program has made. He highlighted that the MSF program will be upgraded to MS_FinTech in 2021 as a very pioneering international program in China.

Next, Mr. Abiral Khatri, Lecturer and research assistant at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and Ambassador of the Global Network for Advanced Management moderated the panel session. “I feel happy to be back to RUC and gather with alumni virtually and it is also an honour to moderate this webinar.” he said.

Then Ms. Ning Guan, Founding Partner & Chief Investment Officer of San Francisco-based asset management firm, Quant Scape made her theme speech “Post Covid-19, Looking Beyond 2021”. She revealed that the global economic recovery might be “W-shaped” and the pandemic has significant impacts on people’s daily life and economic activity, such as reshuffling the supply chain, moving online, going green and embracing robotics.

Mr. David Qi Tang, Senior Vice President, portfolio manager with NeubergerBerman introduced several types of evolving financial technology applied in institutional asset management, including automating information processing, financial instrument modeling and risk monitoring, Processing alternative data to gain information advantage and others. He believes that FinTech including AI, big data will be applied in a broader range but human is still needed in the field of investment and asset management.

Dr. Xiaobo He, Senior Dealer at Bank of China, CNH Trading Center reviewed foreign exchange rate reform of China and explained reasons for the appreciation of RMB in recent months. He pointed out the effect of controlling the Covid-19 epidemic, the trend of the dollar index and Interest rate spread between RMB and USD are the three main factors affecting the trend of RMB in 2020. He predicted the global economy will be repaired in the second half of the year as the vaccine put into use and the US-China interest rate gap will narrow but still higher than the long-term average.

Mr. Jorge Qiao, Founder and CEO of FAVO shared his experience studying in SFRUC and starting up business in China. He offered practical tips on how to set up a company and obtain financial aid and other resources from the local government. He also introduced his own company FAVO which focuses on connecting Chinese factories to the global supply chain, especially in Latin America through live streaming.

Mr. Khatri then led to the Q&A session. Many participants are RUC’s alumni and current student and they raised all kinds of questions from macro economic issues to specific financial career advice. As Ms. Guan emphasized, the young generation should take a long-term vision in the pursuit of life values and personal growth.

Ms. Song concluded in the end that the alumni panelists today were born in different generations, across from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. She commented that every generation has its unique characters, challenges and opportunities. What we should do in today’s situation, is learning lessons and experiences from the past, always keep open-minded, be willing to cooperate and prepare for an uncertain future with skills that last a lifetime.