Management
David L. James is president of BSI. He is the co-author, with Rajeev Merchant, of The New Asia: Business Strategies for the Economic Region That Is Shaking Up the World (Praeger Books, 2013) and author of The Executive Guide To Asia-Pacific Communications (Kodansha International, 1995), Doing Business In Asia (Betterway Books, 1993), and numerous articles on technology issues. He also co-taught the seminar “Law and Society in Asia” at Stanford Law School. Mr. James served as an executive of three international corporations active in the region: Dillingham Corporation, Crown Zellerbach Corporation, and Texasgulf Inc. He was chairman of business programs at the East-West Center, Honolulu, honorary consul of Malaysia in Hawaii, and a senior partner of Arnstein & Lehr, a prominent Chicago-based law firm. He is a graduate of Harvard University, the University of Chicago Law School, and Stanford Business School’s Executive Program. In 2021-2022, he served as president of the Harvard Club of San Francisco.
Rajeev Merchant is head of Asia operations for BSI. He is the co-author of The New Asia: Business Strategies for the Economic Region That Is Shaking Up the World. He is also the founder and managing director of the Asia Advisory Group, which specializes in emerging economies in Asia, and of Technoscenti, a business management, technology, and research consultancy specializing in emerging economies and frontier markets. He has served on the board of directors of the Singapore India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI), and as an advisor to Ashoka’s Fellows on social entrepreneurship. He holds a B.A. degree in economics from the University of Bombay, Mumbai, India; and an M.B.A. degree in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Glendale, Arizona.
Associate Advisors
R. Sean Randolph is senior director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, San Francisco. Dr. Randolph also served as director of California’s Office of Export Development and as international director general of the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC), and previously held senior positions at the U.S. Congress, White House, and the Departments of State and Energy. He is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Georgetown University Law Center, and the London School of Economics.
George Cheung is vice president of Asia Pacific & Business Development, Innovusion LiDAR, Sunnyvale, California. His work focuses on Automotive OEM, Tier-1, Smart Cities, Intelligent Transport Systems Networks (Highways, Rail, Traffic Intersections) in APAC and US. He is a scholar in the American Chamber of Commerce Global Leadership Academy, Australia, and he has served as a senior vice president, COO, and director of IBM Asia Pacific, Nortel Asia Pacific, Novell Asia, and Avid North Asia. He is a graduate of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; the University of Technology, Sydney; and the Stanford Business School, Palo Alto, California.
Karl Moskowitz is founder and president of KSA Ltd, a business development and consulting company in Seoul, Korea, with special expertise in new technology markets in Korea and Japan, and The Numbahana Company LLC in Honolulu, Hawaii. Prior to launching KSA Ltd in 1984, Dr. Moskowitz was a member of the faculty of Harvard University, where he taught courses on modern Korean history and economic development and served as the first executive director of the Korea Institute. Dr. Moskowitz holds an A.B. in East Asian Languages from Indiana University, an A.M. in Regional Studies – East Asia and a Ph.D. in History & East Languages from Harvard University.
Joyce Zhang Gray is the co-founder and CEO of Alariss, a Silicon Valley-based global talent marketplace that reverses brain drain and promotes brain gain by matching knowledge workers in the US with opportunities in Asia. She was previously a VP at Human Interest, a fintech company, at Microsoft Asia-Pacific in Singapore, and a regional manager for Groupon China (JV with Tencent). In the public sector, Zhang worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation in Nairobi, Kenya. She received her BA from Harvard University, MPA from the Princeton Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Nirav Modi is co-founder and director of business development of eLogic Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad, India. He is also CEO and president of eLogicTech Solutions, Inc., a U.S. company that provides computer-assisted design services and software products to the architectural, engineering and construction industry worldwide. In addition, he is CEO of Fortune Automobiles Pvt. Ltd., a Ford Motors dealership in Hyderabad, and a director or partner of several other Indian businesses. He holds a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering and a masters degree in business administration from The Indian Institute of Management.
Steve Frambes is a Managing Director of Jackson Consulting Group, San Diego, California, where he provides financing counsel and strategic and corporate finance advice to operating and venture companies with respect to North American, European and Caribbean stock exchanges, focusing on the industrial and specialty retail sectors. He has originated and executed financing and research engagements for companies, hedge funds, and private equity and venture capital firms in the United States, Europe, India and China. His specialties include investment banking, competitive analysis, strategy consulting, and venture capital and special situations research. He is a graduate of Clemson University, BI Norwegian School of Management, and Stanford Business School’s Executive Program.