Full-time Staff

Jamie Allen
Secretary General

Jamie Allen (艾哲明) is responsible for overall management of the association, as well as directing ACGA’s research, advocacy and educational work in 12 Asia-Pacific markets.

He is a published author and has more than 30 years’ experience as a writer, editor and analyst covering the economies of Greater China and East Asia from Hong Kong. Prior to the establishment of ACGA in mid-1999, he ran his own consulting firm and carried out customised economic research on mainly finance-related topics, including corporate governance, for multinational clients in Asia. From 1992 to 1995, he worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) as editor of Business Asia, a regional management newsletter, and was a contributor to The Economist from 1994 to 1996. Mr Allen began his journalistic career in the late 1980s as a reporter for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.

From 2001 to 2007, Mr Allen was a member of the Public Shareholders Group, a committee formed by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission to advise it on shareholder rights and corporate governance matters in Hong Kong. He served on the Listing Committee of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK) from 2006 to 2010.

From  2013-2019, Mr Allen served on the Operations Oversight Committee (OOC) of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in Hong Kong. The FRC, a statutory body, has responsibility for investigating auditing irregularities in the accounts of Hong Kong listed companies. The OOC reviews and approves the FRC’s audit investigation work.

In July 2017, the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) awarded Mr Allen an “ICGN Lifetime Achievement Award 2017”, in recognition of his dedication to implementing effective corporate governance practices and promoting shareholder rights throughout Asia.

In March 2022, Mr Allen received the Market Reform Award from IFLR Asia-Pacific, in recognition of his work in developing market frameworks to improve the investment landscape.

He is a graduate of the Australian National University, Canberra where he received a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Political Science and Chinese language. He studied Mandarin for two years in Taiwan during 1983 and 1984.

Ida Chan
Executive PA to the Secretary General

Ida Chan (陳詩茵) joined ACGA in 2018 as the Executive PA to the Secretary General. She graduated from Queensland University of Technology in Australia with a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Accountancy. Prior to ACGA, she worked with Hang Seng Bank and a Japanese trading hub in Hong Kong.

Jovy Chan
Accountant

Jovy Chan (陳鈺清) joined ACGA in February 2022 as an Accountant. She graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance. She is a certified public accountant with over 10 years’ working experience in accounting and auditing. Prior to joining ACGA, Jovy worked in different business entities, including CPA firm, engineering consultancy, trading and design companies

Amar Gill
Secretary General Designate

Amar Gill (喬昇安) is Secretary General Designate, and will be responsible for directing research, advocacy and educational work in 12 Asia-Pacific markets, as well as for overall management of the association.

Amar has been a passionate advocate of good governance in the region for over 20 years, and was an ACGA council member from 2005 to 2008. From 1995 to 2018, he was with CLSA, a Hong Kong-based regional securities company, where he was responsible for thematic research. Amar was coauthor of the CLSA-ACGA CG Watch reports from 2001 to 2014. He won equity research awards from publications including Asiamoney, Euromoney and Institutional Investor, and rose to become Head of Asia Research. Before joining CLSA, he held positions at Chemical Bank in Singapore as well as Southern Bank and Rashid Hussain Berhad in Malaysia.

Amar joined BlackRock in 2018. He was Head of Investment Stewardship for APAC, leading BlackRock’s largest regional stewardship team and overseeing engagement and voting in the region. In 2023, Amar led the team that produced a report entitled Board Independence in Asia Pacific: A stewardship perspective, highlighting the significant governance issues in markets characterized by dominant controlled companies. He has been a member of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission’s Public Shareholder Group since 2020.

Amar graduated with a first class degree in philosophy, politics and economics, and completed a master’s thesis in ethics at Oxford University, UK.

Mikky Li
Office and Event Manager

Mikky Li (李詠敏) joined ACGA in June 2017 and is responsible for ACGA's daily office management and administration, as well as managing the logistics for ACGA member events, conferences, and Council meetings.

Mikky honed her administration skills during her time as Centre Manager of Compass Office, one of the biggest serviced office providers in Hong Kong, where she lead a team handling the administrative and secretarial needs of more than 100 clients and senior management.

She comes from a strong hospitality background, earning her bachelor’s degree in Hotel Management from the Les Roches, School of Hotel Management in Switzerland. Her hotel experience includes stints with the Kowloon Shangri-La and the Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore.

Stephanie Lin
Research Manager, China & Korea

Stephanie Lin (林依云) joined ACGA in October 2021 as Research Manager to support ACGA’s ongoing research into corporate governance and ESG development in 12 markets across Asia-Pacific, with a special focus on Korea and the Philippines.

Previously, Stephanie worked in the consulting and financial industry for five years. As a business consultant, Stephanie advised multinational investment and corporate clients on regulatory, legal and reputational risks.

Stephanie was born in China and grew up in California, US. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Master of Arts in International Relations from New York University.

Irina Medukha
Chief Operating Officer

Irina Medukha (馬愷麗) joined ACGA in March 2021 as our new Chief Operating Officer. Irina manages all aspects of the finance and operations of ACGA. She assists in business development, including membership marketing and sponsorship, and provides input to strategic planning and oversees the management of ACGA events and conferences.

Irina comes from the international trade and consumer goods sector and worked for listed and private companies in China and Hong Kong, including a sizeable private equity portfolio company. She has been based in Asia for over 15 years and brings a wealth of experience in business and market development, launching services, events and projects for international clients, including companies listed on the Fortune 500 as well as from emerging markets, engaging with industry bodies and managing cross-functional teams and working across borders.

A native of Russia, Irina holds a Bachelor degree in Regional Management and Cross-Cultural Communications from the Far Eastern Federal University of Vladivostok and an MBA from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She studied Mandarin at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, achieving advanced HSK Level 7, and completed partial MBA coursework at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the US.

Jane Moir
Head of Research

Jane Moir is Head of Research at the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) where she coordinates our diverse mix of research reports, bulletins and commentary which identify and analyse core CG trends, issues and themes within the 12 markets we cover.

Before joining ACGA, Jane worked as a financial journalist in Japan and Hong Kong and enjoyed a legal career as a barrister in the civil and criminal courts of Hong Kong. During this time, she was also a writer on securities law, corporate crime, and money laundering.

As a journalist, Jane spent 11 years at the South China Morning Post covering legal issues, financial regulation, corporate governance and market misconduct. She also freelanced for global media, including the Financial Times, Singapore Business Times, and the International Herald Tribune.

Jane has also worked as a political and economic risk consultant with a focus on corporate malfeasance and corruption in the Asia Pacific. She was admitted as a barrister in 2012.

Lake Wang
Research Manager

Lake Wang (王湖) joined ACGA in October 2023 as Research Manager. He supports ACGA’s research on corporate governance and ESG development in 12 Asia-Pacific markets, with a focus on Hong Kong.

Before joining ACGA, Lake worked for an equity hedge fund for over five years. Additionally, he conducted research at global professional services firms and in academia.

Lake has an MPhil in sociology from the University of Cambridge (Distinction), an MPhil in communication from Hong Kong Baptist University, and a Bachelor of Arts in advertising from Sichuan University, China.

Regional and Specialist Staff

Melissa Brown
Specialist Advisor

Melissa Brown (白朗莹) is a partner at Daobridge Capital, a China-focussed advisory firm and a specialist consultant for ACGA. She has analysed Asian investments for more than 25 years, initially as a sell-side equity analyst and research director for Barclays Capital, JPMorgan, and Citigroup, and later led research into ESG as executive director of the Association for Sustainable & Responsible Investment in Asia from 2003 to 2008. Melissa is an experienced power sector analyst and currently works with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), focussing on Asia’s transition to clean energy.

In addition, she currently serves as a director of Sustainalytics, a global ESG research provider and is a government-appointed council member of the Hong Kong Institute of CPAs and a member of the Securities and Futures Commission Takeovers Panel. She was previously an elected member of the UNPRI Advisory Council and also served on the Listing Committee of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) for six years from 2006 to 2012.

Melissa has collaborated with ACGA on a number of projects including its regulatory submissions on IPO due diligence, ESG reporting standards, and weighted voting rights.

Lucy Colback
Research Editor

Lucy Colback spent two decades working in the finance industry as a specialist in Asian equities investment before returning to school to take a Masters in Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. After graduating, she worked in Hong Kong as the Financial Times' Asia Lex Editor for two-and-a-half years. She left that role to write a book about the experiences of World War Two survivors, spending three years travelling around the world for interviews. Apart from editing ACGA's Asia Regional Briefing, she is a report writer and Editorial Director for the Financial Times' Forums.

Sharmila Gopinath
Specialist Advisor, India

Sharmila Gopinath (高美娜) joined ACGA in 2005 and worked on a full-time basis until December 2012, when she moved to India. She continues to work for the Association on a part-time basis as our Research Director, India.

Sharmila is a former journalist with a background in business writing and editing. During her career she has worked in Hong Kong, New York and Singapore, covering topics such as information technology, general business and finance. From 2000-2001 she reported for the Computer Times in Singapore.

Sharmila began her journalistic career as a reporter for the Hong Kong Standard in the mid-80s. She holds a BA in English from the University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George.

Sharmila has been involved in numerous aspects of ACGA research, advocacy and events over the past decade and more. She has been the author of the India chapter in CG Watch since 2007, was a co-author of our White Paper on India in 2010, and has contributed to various submissions made by ACGA to government bodies and regulators in India. She helped to organise our annual conference in Mumbai in 2008 and member delegations to India in 2010 and 2014. During her time with ACGA, Sharmila has also worked on other markets, primarily Hong Kong and Malaysia, been a regular contributor to our Asia Regional Briefing newsletter, and spoken at numerous events around the region.

Christopher Leahy
Specialist Advisor, Southeast Asia

Christopher Leahy (利希圖) is a founder of Blackpeak, a leading investigative research and advisory firm founded in Asia and with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, New York, Washington DC and London. Prior to working in the investigative field, he was a journalist, holding positions as Asian Editor for Euromoney and a contributing editor for Asiamoney.

Chris began his career as a stockbroker, and later an investment banker, working in the UK and Asia with leading financial institutions such as Warburg Securities (now UBS), BNP Paribas Peregrine and Crosby. For the past 26 years, he has been based in Asia.

He began writing for ACGA in 2003, specialising on Southeast Asia and contributing to ACGA’s bimonthly members’ newsletter, Asia Regional Briefing. He has written the Indonesia and Philippines chapters in ACGA’s CG Watch report since 2007 and has contributed to other markets as well, including Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. He has spoken at numerous ACGA member events over the past decade and has represented ACGA as a speaker at many conferences around the region.

Nana Li
Specialist Consultant, China

Nana Li (李睿) is Head of Sustainability & Stewardship, Asia-Pacific at Impax Asset Management. Prior to joining Impax, Nana was Research and Project Director at ACGA and has worked with the Association from 2014. Her primary responsibilities at ACGA included researching corporate governance developments in Hong Kong and China. She was the primary author of the China chapter of CG Watch 2016-2020. Since 2018, Nana has been the Chair of ACGA’s China Working Group, a role she continues to fill today.

Besides her research work, Nana supported ACGA’s advocacy and educational work, giving presentations at events including the OECD, EMIA, GRI, CLSA, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, ICGN, AmCham Shanghai, BritCham Shanghai and the CFA Institute.

Nana sits on the Financial Capital Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network, the ESG Committee of the Women in Finance Asia and the Caixin China ESG30 Forum.

Nana has an MBA from the University of Chicago (Honors), a Master of Finance from the University of Hong Kong (Dean’s List), and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales (Distinction). She is a CFA charterholder and has finished the HKICPA Qualification Program.

Julia Mart
Conference Management

Julia Mart is Director of InterConnect Events and has worked with ACGA since 2001. She has enjoyed a successful career in event management spanning more than 30 years, starting in the music (A&M) and toy (Hasbro) industries. Since the late 1980s she has programmed and managed major CEO and heads-of-government gatherings around the world for clients including Forbes, Fortune, The Economist, the Family Business Network and Leaders' Quest.

Julia has worked and lived in the UK, France, Germany, Turkey and Hong Kong, before moving to the US in 2002, where she is now based. She founded Interaction Event Management in Hong Kong in 1992, and InterConnect Events in New York in 2008.

Julia is engaged by ACGA to manage the venue and logistics for our annual conference, held each Autumn in a different Asian city. She has worked on all ACGA conferences since 2001 and has been instrumental to the smooth running of each event. Julia's expertise has allowed ACGA to secure high-quality venues for our conferences and to manage them cost-effectively.