PAGE 32 CHINA DAILY EUROPEAN WEEKLY JULY 13-19, 2012 STRATEGIST, BANKER AND AUTHOR HAS INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF CHINA — AND ITS LEADERS By ANDREW MOODY andrewmoody @chinadaily.com.cn BIO sd obert Lawrence Kuhn says r - the West often doesn’t 7 . ROBERT LAWRENCE understand the Chinese KU H N leadership’s key priorities . . for China. The 67-year-old American : = International corporate strategist, is seen by many as one of the few J ) . [am *) investment banker, senior adviser figures outside the world’s second- ! ' to multinational corporations and largest economy who actually does. a ' author He is regarded as a knowledgeable ( p' Age: 67 insider, having been an adviser to Yi i ae Be: a number of leading Chinese bod- : ‘ Education: ies since the late-1980s and knowing ‘ . * Bachelor's degree in human biology, many of the country’s top political e =_ Johns Hopkins University, 1964 figures personally. Ss + PhD in anatomy and brain research, “There is rarely alignment between =_— University of California at Los Angeles, what topics China’s leaders think are = q 1968 important about China and what P = + Master of sciences in management, the world thinks,” says Kuhn, also a MIT Sloan School of Management, an international corporate strate- i ’ ' 1980 gist and investment banker. “Under- r Career: standing China requires knowing the ia * President and co-owner of The Ge- difference.” ra neva Companies, a US leading mergers He was speaking recently in the ff and acquisitions company (sold to five-star Grand Hyatt hotel in central ff Citigroup in 2001) Beijing, which is his home for 90 days fo y * Chairman, The Kuhn Foundation, a year. The rest of the time he divides i A which produces documentaries on between his three homes in the Unit- (a ff ii , scientific and philosophical questions ed States and traveling elsewhere. | - ff as well as on China issues “They treat me very well here. ‘> # fe + Author of The Man Who Changed Even when I travel around China, I Le f Chin