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Discussion Leaders Profiles:

Phil Kim
Managing Director, Asia Pacific
Jerde Partnership

Phil Kim is a Shareholder, Board Director and Managing Director Asia Pacific at the Jerde Partnership, Inc.

He focuses on Placemaking and formulation of complex urban projects that has helped rejuvenate key Asia and Australia cities.  He advises cities and developers on innovations in mixed-use design, retail, entertainment, urban revitalization, vertical cities and adaptive design.  Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, Langham Place Hong Kong and the Quay Quarters Sydney precinct are some of the notable projects and representative of a people-based design that draws over one billion visitors to Jerde projects around the world annually in twenty countries.

He is also an Urban Land Institute Governing Global Trustee, Hong Kong Executive Committee Member, and Co-Chair of the Urban Plan education program.

Dr. Esterina Nervino
Director
Retail in Asia

Esterina is currently the Director of Retail in Asia (part of Bluebell Group) and is in charge of the media brand operations from editorial to commercial strategy. Additionally, she is involved in communication and ESG projects for the group. She is also Chairman of the Retail Committee and Vice-Chairman of the Women’s Leadership Network of The Italian Chamber of Commerce.

Prior to Retail in Asia, she taught media and business communication at the university level, and worked for Italian companies in fashion and tourism. She is often invited to share her social semiotic perspectives on luxury and fashion branding in different public and private institutions. She holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where she is a member of the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English. She is also Junior Adjunct Professor of Intercultural Communication and Language Variation at the Department of Studies on Language and Culture of the Universita’ degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy. Her research interests include luxury and art, luxury and space, luxury and ESG, country of origin effect and language use, retail experience, intercultural communication. She  also holds a M.A. in Foreign Languages for Business Communication from the Universita’ degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Italy), a B.A. in Language Mediation from the Universita’ degli Studi della Calabria (Italy), an Executive Education Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship from INSEAD (Singapore).

Chris Wu
Group Chief Financial Officer
Chongbang Group

Chris has 20 years experience in the real estate development industry and has been working and living in Mainland China since 1999. Chris’s former employers include MGPA, Link REIT, Simon Property Group, Shui On and the Corporation of London. Chris graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and Accountancy and a Master of Science degree from City University Business School in London. He holds a Masters of Corporate Real Estate (M.C.R) from CoreNet, a Diploma (Dip.M.) from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and is a member of ULI and ICSC in China.