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Michiel Bierkens
Consul General at The Kingdom of the Netherlands in GuangzhouMichiel Bierkens is the Consul General at the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Guangzhou. He took up his appointment as HM Consul General on 19 August 2019. He leads the Dutch Government's engagement in the four provinces of the South China region: Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi and Hainan. Prior to that, Mr Bierkens was the Counsellor of Economic and Commercial Affairs at the Embassy of the Netherlands in New Delhi from 2014 to 2019.
Annemieke Ruigrok
Consul General at The Kingdom of the Netherlands in Hong Kong and MacauAnnemieke Ruigrok took up her post as Consul General to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on 22 August 2016. She also serves as Consul General of the Netherlands to the Macao Special Administrative Region. Annemieke studied History, International Law, and Russian at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and joined the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1986.
Arthur Tideman
Co-Founder of Orange Creatives/Ask 4 MeAfter studying automotive engineering and industrial engineering, Arthur decided to make the leap to China in 2005, where he was involved with a start up with a few of his study mates in Eindhoven to set up a factory in Wuxi China to manufacture greeting cards, toys and stationary with interesting electronic features like sound light and motion. The factory grew in 2 years to over a 1000 employees, before experiencing a hard cut back in the 2008 economic crisis.
Arthur quickly discovered that the China he lived in at the time gave a lot of freedom and opportunity for entrepreneurialism and as a first hobby project he founded HAVANA café-bar-lounge with two fellow expats in Wuxi.
Soon after, he joined forces with his former colleague Boukje Koch to form A4M Orange Creatives. Within the latter he is working with start-ups, scale ups and established corporations to create success through design.
Rob Van eck
Managing Director of Smart Brands InternationalRob van Eck has been in China since 2005. Coming from a family background of food and hospitality, his focus was always going to be on creating customer value and satisfaction. After finishing his MBA and Msc studies at Nyenrode University, he moved to Ireland to work for Oracle, as a consultant for the private and public sector. The next step in his career turned out to be a more exotic one. His former classmate and director of one of the largest family owned trading companies in The Netherlands asked him to take charge of the company’s new project in China. After a few days spent in Shenzhen, Rob decided to become shareholder and director of the newly formed Shenzhen Intra Industry which has turned into a trading group dealing with general merchandise products for retailers worldwide. The company is handling over 20.000 products of which a good part are under license of famous brands such as, Goodyear, Dunlop, Disney, Grundig, Black & Decker, Stanley, Duracell amongst others. The company has built up a large network among suppliers and retail partners such as Walmart, Carrefour, K-Mart, Costco and the likes all over the world. For over 3 years the company is also involved in technology related projects for which it established Join Ventures for Smart Home and Smart Retail products that make use of AI (Artificial intelligence) and other latest technologies available in the market.
Smart Brands International is the Hong Kong office of one of the largest European importer and trading organization for general merchandise.
Loretta Fong
Partner at PWC ChinaLeveraging her strong international background, Loretta has extensive experience in providing accounting, audit and transaction advisory services to private and publicly listed entities in Hong Kong and the United States. Her key clients are primarily engaged in the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector.
She has assisted a number of companies in completing their initial public offerings in both Hong Kong and the United States, and led numerous substantial transactions including acquisitions, disposals and privatisation for her clients. Loretta is a frequent speaker at various organisations on accounting, auditing, IPOs as well as mergers and acquisitions related topics. She has also been making use of her knowledge in driving excellency of the accounting profession in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, and in serving the society by taking on a number of government appointments. She is currently the Vice President of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA), Treasurer & Council Member of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Board Member of Ocean Park as well as a member of the General Committee of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries.
Guido Leenknegt
Regional Manager Asia at Madern Asia LtdCurrently responsible for sales and business development of Madern group in South East Asia, PR China, S-Korea, Japan and Australian markets. Madern Group is a manufacturer of systems and rotary dies solutions for the paperboard packaging converting industries for FMCG in segments of tobacco -, liquid packaging and general folding carton. He arrived at Hong Kong end of 1999, and moved to Singapore in 2008 to set up regional office for Madern, then returned back to Hong Kong in 2009. His footprints has been over Asia region for past 20 years.
His past experience includes co-owner of trading company in the Netherlands for International Development projects, offering consultancy services and supplies to set up Vocational Training projects worldwide funded by UN agencies, NGO’s and local governments. Afterwards, his Asia professional journey began as Regional manager for Dutch mould manufacturer Axxicon in 1999 in Hong Kong. Apart from his expertise in sales- and business development field, he also assisted a joint venture project for Madern Group in Shenzhen and managed its operations.