PP Michael J. Furst
President
New Garden Management Company
Mike is President of New Garden Management Company which has two divisions – New Garden Education Company, developers of a group of Chinese market schools in Beijing and New Garden Consulting Company, which works with established Chinese companies to build investor & strategic relations with foreigners. He also is a Professor of Economics & Business at the Beijing Center for Chinese Studies.
He was the Associate Dean at the Beijing International MBA Programs at Peking University from 2003 until 2006. Mike has over twenty years experience as a manager, banker and consultant specializing in the areas of business in China, financial structure and strategy, debt financing, and capital markets, as well as managing organizational change, quality management, and managing non-profit organizations.
He was the 2006-2007 President of the Beijing Rotary Club.
Mike was Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in China from 1997 to 2003, during which time he helped make it one of the best-known and most influential chambers in East Asia. He was one of a small group of people who were key to the effort of bringing China into the WTO and extending to China Permanent Normal Trade Relations. He was an ex-officio member of the Board of AmCham from 1998-2003 and was elected as Vice-Chairman in 2005. Mike has been involved with China/US and Asia/US trade and investment issues since 1988.
Prior to AmCham he was the Mitsui Professor of Business at the Ministry of Commerce's University of International Business and Economics in Beijing and the Managing Director of Omega Management Limited, a Hong Kong based consultancy firm. From 1988 until 1993 he was a member of the board of the U.S.-China Peoples’ Friendship Association. He has also worked for Bank of America, Standard Chartered Bank and Tokai Bank.
Mike’s family first came to China in the 1930’s as refugees in Shanghai. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Santa Barbara, an MBA from the Drucker Management Center at Claremont Graduate University and a BA from the University of Vermont.