Kuno Gschwend was born and raised in Bern, Switzerland, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Applied Sciences of Bern. Throughout his career, he has held various positions at Swiss Railways, Swiss Telecom, Bern’s Electricity Provider, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Bernexpo.

After studying abroad in Guangzhou and Xiamen in 2014 and 2016, Kuno moved to Shanghai in 2019 and assumed the role of Deputy General Manager and later General Manager of Swiss Centers, a non-profit organization that supports Swiss small and medium enterprises in exporting and operations in China. Kuno is fluent in German, French, English, and Chinese. Since 2023, he acts as the Chief Investment Officer and Deputy Head of the Swiss Business Hub China.

Dr. Michael (Mingyan) Liu, a Chinese-French scholar, graduated from Dalian University of Technology in 1982 with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Mechanics. In 1984, he obtained a Master’s degree in Materials and Structural Dynamics from the École Supérieure des Matériaux et des Constructions Mécaniques in France, and in 1987, he earned a Ph.D. in Engineering Materials Mechanics from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers in Paris, France. Following his Ph.D., from 1987 to 1989, Dr. Liu completed postdoctoral research in CAD and computational mechanics at Peugeot in France and at Dalian University of Technology.

Between 1990 and 2010, Dr. Liu worked in product development and R&D management at a globally leading medical device company. He served as the Senior Director of International Orthopedic R&D and the Chief Scientist for Spine Orthopedics. In November 2010, he joined Sanyou Medical as Chairman and Chief Scientist. Under Dr. Liu’s leadership, the company has gradually established a robust R&D team centered around Totem Laboratory (the company’s R&D center), comprising Ph.D. and Master’s graduates as well as senior design engineers. This team, with a well-structured hierarchy and strong overall capabilities, includes researchers from prestigious institutions such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Their expertise spans various fields including mechanical engineering, engineering mechanics, and materials science, which forms the foundation for the company’s innovation as a technology-driven enterprise.

Dr. Liu has over 30 years of domestic and international experience in spine orthopedic product development and possesses exceptional R&D design and innovation skills. He is the inventor of multiple U.S. and international patents. He has led the development of more than ten series of spinal orthopedic products, including thoracolumbar interbody fusion cages, thoracolumbar anterior fixation plates, minimally invasive lumbar anterior retractors, cervical interbody fusion cages, cervical anterior stabilization devices, and lumbar disc prostheses. These products are widely sold in North America, Europe, China, and other regions globally.

In 2006, Dr. Liu was inducted into the Medtronic Bakken Society, the company’s most prestigious scientific committee, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to spinal orthopedic science, technology innovation, and business development. He has been awarded the title of Outstanding Manager in Advanced Manufacturing in Jiading District for 2016, 2017, and 2018. Additionally, he received the Second Prize of the Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award in 2018 and the Second Prize of the Tianjin Science and Technology Progress Award in 2022.

Laura has over 7 years of experience at Roche. She currently serves as the Global Operations APAC Localization Program Lead in China, a position she has held since March 2024. Before this role, she was Head of Elecsys Consumables and Network Lead for Molecular Systems. Laura has a background in physics and medical physics from the University of Zurich. She also worked as a Research Assistant in Magnetic Resonance Imaging at the University of Nottingham. Her experience includes project portfolio management and leadership, where she lead key initiatives and product portfolios.

Ze Xiong is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Wireless and Smart Bioelectronics (WiSe) Lab in the School of Biomedical Engineering at ShanghaiTech University. He received his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from The University of Hong Kong in 2017. After that, he worked as a Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore from 2018 to 2022. His research focuses on the development and application of wireless and smart bioelectronics to endow clinical and personalized healthcare procedures with digital intelligence. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, etc., which have been highlighted by media outlets such as Reuters, Scientific American, AAAS, AIChE, People’s Daily, XinhuaNet, and ChinaDaily, etc. He holds 5 patents (2 PCT and 1 US patent) and contributed to 1 book chapter. He has served as a reviewer for impactful journals like Science Advances, Advanced Materials, and Advanced Science, etc. He was awarded the Shanghai Overseas High-Level Talent, 2023 Emerging Investigator of China (Outstanding Achievement Award), MINE 2023 Young Scientist Award, Swissnex Fellow, etc.

In August 2022, Joël Saurina joined the Embassy of Switzerland in the People’s Republic of China in Beijing as Head of the Swiss Business Hub China (SBH China). SBH China represents Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), the official Swiss agency for export and investment promotion.

Joël is an international executive with over 20 years experience in the private sector. As such, he held a variety of senior management positions both in Switzerland and China, where he spent more than 12 years in the 1990’s and the 2000’s working mainly in the media, MICE and tourism industry. Before his current appointment, Joël was the co-founder and CEO of a Swiss SME active in the food industry where he led branding, sales, marketing and operations. He managed the company’s growth and development pipeline while maximizing operational excellence and delivering financial performance.

Born and raised in Fribourg, Joël earned, in 2019, an MBA from the University of Geneva in addition to his sinology and history academic background.

In this new role, and together with his teams in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, he will be responsible for supporting SMEs from Switzerland and Liechtenstein in their business development in China, as well as for promoting Switzerland as a business location. Back in Beijing after a decade in Europe, strongly motivated by a personal and professional interest in fields such as innovation and sustainability, he is eager to continue to facilitate business exchanges between Switzerland and China.

Anthony is a Swiss-Canadian bioengineer and CEO of PB&B SA, a Life Science startup focused on Medical Aesthetics. PB&B is developing a novel injectable drug delivery technology to remodel soft tissues in the face and body. Anthony is active in the startup communities in Europe and the US, and is an alumni member of StartX at Stanford and MassChallenge Boston. Prior to co-founding PB&B, Anthony worked as a scientific collaborator in clinical research at CHUV and at EPFL technology transfer office.