Executive Committee
The governance of the Association is the responsibility of the Executive Committee with the support from its Advisory Board. Below are the profiles of CAFE UK's Executive Committee and Advisory Board members.
Dr. Frank Mao
Chairman
Frank is the Chairman of CAFE UK. PhD from UCL. Currently a director in Credit Risk Methodology at Bank of America. Dr Mao has worked in a number of well-known investment banks for more than 20 years, specialising in derivative pricing, risk management, regulatory capital charge etc. Furthermore, he holds a patent and co-authored a book (Equity Derivative Theory and Application by John Wiley). He has been invited to give presentations worldwide including UK, China, USA, Spain and Singapore.
Nick Ye
President
Nick is the President of CAFE UK. He is the current Head of Corporation Tax at Nationwide Building Society where he oversees the group's overall corporation tax matters. Nick is a Chartered Tax Adviser specialised in Banking and Investment Management and has been working in the financial services sector in London for over 12 years. He has profound insight into banking and investment management sector through a tax lens and has extensive experience in the areas of UK and international tax management, corporate acquisitions and group restrucutring for both UK and foreign banks. Prior to Nationwide, Nick held similar tax management roles at Houlihan Lokey and State Street. Nick holds a MA degree in Modern Languages from University of Leeds.
Jianchao Wu
Vice President
Jianchao Wu joined RCM UK in October 2015 before becoming an Investment Officer in June 2020. Prior to that, he worked at the Rokos Family Office (2014-2015) and began his career at Citadel in global macro (2010-2014). Jian holds a MSc in Finance from LSE and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge.
Dr. Jerry Wu
Vice President
Jerry’s career journey led him to venture capital from being a principal scientist. He brings 27+ years of experience in innovative research & development, and venture capital investment covering life sciences, biopharmaceutical, healthcare, and deep technologies.
Jerry is the Managing Director at LongRiver Investments, a global venture capital fund, closed its debut fund at USD$385M in July 2024. Before joining LongRiver, Jerry was the Head of Investment at TusPark Holdings UK, a VC & PE group in Cambridge. Previously Jerry worked at AstraZeneca/Medimmune, EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, BBSRC, and UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.
Jerry holds a PhD in Computer Science. He is a Fellow at Homerton College of University of Cambridge, an Associate at Cambridge Judge Business School and a Senior Advisor at Schwarzman College.
Dr. Yuan Gao
Vice President
Dr. Yuan Gao is the Founder & CIO of N0S.Tech, with over 10 years’ investment and trading experience in the City of London spanning both buy-side and sell-side institutions including Swiss Re, Fidelity and CICC. She leads Fundraising and Business Development and the proprietary adaptive complex AI agent system for investment strategies, alpha generation for N0S.Tech.
Yuan has extensive experience with non-profit organizations. She is Vice President of Chinese Association of Financial Executives in the UK, a Freeman of the City of London, Secretary-General of the UK Tsinghua Association, and a founding board member of AGI Odyssey.
Yuan earned her Ph.D. degree in Engineering from a collaboration project between Cambridge University and Newcastle University. She also holds a Master’s degree from Newcastle University, an MBA from the U.S. and a Bachelor's degree in Engineering from Tsinghua University.
Christina Zheng
Secretary General
Christina is currently the Director of Business Development and Operations at OxValue.AI, a technology spinout from the University of Oxford. She also serves as the Secretary-General of CAFE UK. With over a decade of professional experience in technology transfer, innovation, and incubator/accelerator management in both China and the UK, she has been invited to mentor high-tech startups at various universities and government institutions, focusing on the commercialisation of advanced technologies. Additionally, as a co-founder, she played a key role in establishing a high-tech spinout from the University of Exeter.
Christina actively promotes business, technology, and cultural collaboration between China and the UK. She founded and served as the CEO of the Wuhan Britain Business Association and previously led international economic and technological cooperation projects for the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission of China’s Ministry of Water Resources and Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Development Zone. Furthermore, she has experience in retail management in Singapore and fundraising for charities in the UK. She holds an Advanced
Technology Transfer Management Certificate and has obtained an MPhil in Management from the University of Exeter, an MSc in Economics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and a BA in English Literature from Wuhan University.
Fiona Liu
Director
Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), MSc in Accounting and Finance from the University of Edinburgh, and Bachelor in Finance from Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, China. She brings 14 years of extensive experience in the finance services and consulting industry in the UK.
Currently, Fiona is a Senior Manager in Deloitte's Risk Advisory, where she provides consulting services to major global financial institutions, such as Citi and HSBC. She has successfully led and executed numerous strategic restructuring projects for global banking groups, supporting executives and boards in achieving their business objectives.Prior to joining Deloitte, Fiona was a Risk Manager HSBC Global Banking and Markets. Alongside her work with global financial institutions, she specialises in providing financial support and consulting services to Chinese companies expanding their operations globally. Fiona oversees the UK Risk Advisory activities of Deloitte's Global Chinese Services Group. During her tenure at HSBC, she held the role of Director of Internal Affairs for HSBC China Connect. Fiona has been invited to mentor master's and doctoral students at several universities in the UK and China. She collaborates with academic advisors to guide students in completing their theses, enhancing their employability, and fostering stronger connections between industry and academic research.
Klaus Wang
Associate Director
Klaus is a quantitative trader at BlueCrest Capital Management, where he specialises in high-frequency and systematic trading of liquid products across all asset classes. Prior to that, he worked at similar roles at various investment banks, and financial technology firms. Klaus holds a MSc in Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing from University of Oxford and BA in Mathematics from University from Cambridge. Klaus is a member of the London Mathematical Society and the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.
Dr. Jingwen Shi
Associate Director
Dr. Jingwen Shi, CFA and FRM charterholder, holds a PhD in Finance (Quantitative Finance and Econometrics) from Warwick Business School. Currently working at State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) in the Active Quantitative Equity team, she specializes in alpha generation and portfolio optimization, particularly in AI/ML/NLP financial innovation and style/ESG/climate investment solutions. She serves as a guest lecturer for the master's program at the University of Bristol Business School. Previously at S&P Global, she led the development of quantitative index/ETF products and strategies. Her research spans financial econometrics, predictive modeling, and cross-disciplinary applications of AI/ML/NLP. She has published research on AI-powered decision systems in operations research journals and delivered financial econometric presentations at international conferences and institutions. She holds the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing and Professional Certificate in Large Language Models, an MPhil in Financial Engineering, and a BSc in Mathematics and Statistics.
Advisory Board
Dr. Charlie Wang
Honorary Chairman
Honorary Chairman of CAFE UK. Ph.D from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently chairman of Grand Future Investments LTD, formerly Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Global Head of Equity Quantitative Group. Prior to Merrill Lynch, Charlie held senior positions Goldman Sachs. Aside of his formal job, Charlie also serves as deputy president of Zhejiang International Hedge fund Talents Association and committee member of China Quantitative Club.
Dr. Yanmin Li
Honorary Chairman
Honorary Chairman of CAFE UK. Currently Head of Product Development at MUFG, responsible for product design, pricing and risk management of derivative products such as rates, stocks, fx and credit. Dr. Li used to work at Imperial Colleague of London as a senior research analyst at its quantitative finance research department.
Dr. Kai Chen
BSc Department of Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University; PhD of Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Birmingham University. Dr. Chen has over 20 years of quantitative research and trading experience. He is the founder of cutting edge quantitative trading and asset management company Asperatus Capital and acts as CEO and CIO. He previously worked at Credit Suisse as a Managing Director, founded and acted as Global Head of Electronic Arbitrage Trading desk, specializing in high performance high speed quantitative proprietary trading business. Prior to Credit Suisse he worked at UBS as an Executive Director, started and managed a successful pioneering quant prop trading team.
Wei Xue
BSc in Commerce from Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo. Ms. Xue has nearly 20 years of experience in financial marketing. Since 2010, she has become a partner of the quantitative hedge fund Asperatus Capital and is currently COO and CFO of the firm. Previously she worked at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities (MUFJ), served as senior manager for both the Derivative Solution Group and Structuring Business Group. She was responsible for marketing and origination of a wide range of financial derivatives products as well as international bonds/MTN and structured products. Ms. Xue started her career as Assistant Manager at Corporate Banking in Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, she dealt with varieties of Banking and money market services, including Treasury & Derivative products.
Dr. Fred Hao
Dr. Hao obtained PhD degree in Physics from University of Southampton. Currently he is the portfolio manager at KC Capital Management in Beijing. Dr. Hao used to work at Stantander Global Banking and Markets Exotic Rates trading division.
Dr. Cong Yi
Bachelor of Mathematics at Fudan University, PHD of Mathematical Finance from Imperial Colleague of London. Founding partner at KAICONG (Beijing) Investment Management Ltd, part-time associate Professor at Xiamen University. Dr. Yi used to work as portfolio manager at Liquid Capital and Aspirates Capital in London.
Dr. Changliang Xu
Bachelor degree from Peking University，PhD from Oxford University Maths institute, Stochastic analysis group, focussing on Probability theory and financial application research. His supervisor in Oxford is F.R.S. Terry Lyons, who was also the director of Man-Oxford quantitative finance institute from 2011 to 2015. Dr Xu is the founder of Zhuhai Tangfeng Capital Management Co., Ltd. He is vice president of youth committee of Beijing Overseas Talents Associations (BOTA). Dr. Xu founded a consulting company focusing on cross border M&A and syndicate investment while he worked in London. He used to be a partner of Kaicong (Beijing）Capital Management Co., Ltd.
Dr. George Li
George Li has a PhD from Cambridge University in computer science. He is now a partner and CTO at Shanghai TIMA Technology. He was director and head of group derivatives technology at UBS IB London and worked for RBS and Lloyds Bank in the finance technology fields.
Dr. John Zhu
Currently working as a Head of Risk Analytics and Modelling in Intercontinental Exchange’s Clearing Risk Management in London. Over more than 20 years of senior management roles and quantitative risk management expertise in City with various Global Investment Banks and CCP, Dr John Zhu has made great deals of working experience in ANZ Bank, Dresdner Klenwort Benson, UBS and Natixis Investment Banks.
Ping Huang
Ms. Huang is currently President of Zhejiang UK Association. She is also project manager (China Collaboration) at Data Science Institute, Imperial Colleague London.
Sophia Wang
Sophia is currently a Managing Director at Bank of America’s FICC department in London. She earns MBA degree from London Business School and is a Harvard Business School Alumnus. She is CFA charter holder and registered FRM(Financial Risk Manager)
Thomas Zhang
Thomas has about 20 years' experience with global-renowned media organizations, most of it was gained in London with BBC World Service and the Financial Times. He worked a few years in Beijing and Singapore too, which gives him a truly global perspective and scope. He was also the Head of Europe for Wind Information (China's largest financial market data provider) for a few years, starting its London office from scratch and led its institutional sales and business development. Outside his daily work, Thomas also guest lectured at a number of top universities in China, focusing on topics such as the British Economy and Western financial media.