JGCARLSON.COM --- CARLSON & ASSOCIATES --- GLOBAL SOLUTIONS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Carlson • Koepp & Associates

Your partners for unique access to unique markets

Carlson-Koepp is a partnership formed to bring the highest quality strategic management, market and consulting services to US firms wishing to enter the Chinese market and to Chinese companies seeking to access markets in the US.

Examples of C-K’s China services include:

Fundamental market research and investment due diligence—for ascertaining pertinent macro- and micro-economic conditions and analyzing current and future market trends to size the potential for your product, service, or investment target in China.

Identification of market positioning opportunities—determining preferable tactical and strategic positions for your offering in China.

Evaluation of and solutions for government regulatory issues and political risks—our analysis of relevant PRC regulations and political risks is accompanied by recommended solutions to address any relevant challenges.

Prequalification of potential partners—C-K goes beyond mere “guanxi-based” introductions to assist you in evaluating and verifying the credentials and personal backgrounds of potential partners that can enhance your ability to enter and sustain a presence in China.

On-going strategic advisory services—C-K aims to establish enduring relationships whereby we not only provide in-depth understanding of the Chinese market but work as part of our client’s executive team to implement the knowledge and insights we offer.

Principals

John Carlson. John has more than thirty years of domestic and international experience in full-time and consulting-based service to government and private industry. The White House Assistant Press Secretary under President Nixon and Deputy Press Secretary under President Ford, John was an integral part of the team that established diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Subsequent to his White House service, he has held key positions with Fortune 500 companies, including Summa Corporation (Howard Hughes conglomerate) and Kilroy Realty, and variety of mid-sized and multinational corporations in the areas of management and administration, domestic and international marketing and sales, with emphasis on Asia and Latin America.

Serving as Assistant Press Secretary to President Richard Nixon and Deputy Press Secretary to President Gerald Ford, John played a critical operational role while in the White House in the normalization of US-China relations and the stabilization of US foreign policy in Asia in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. His duties included briefing the White House Press Corps on a daily basis, traveling with and attending virtually all major meetings in the U.S. with the President and handling major preparation work for the President’s press conferences. John also worked with George H. W. Bush when he served as the US representative to China during the Nixon and Ford administrations. After his White House government service, John stayed involved in furthering US government-based business relations with China. In the mid-80’s, at the suggestion of George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, he did exploratory work in China for the US developer, John Kilroy.

In the mid 1990s, John returned for a time to national government service by serving first as the Campaign Manager for the successful bid of Jack Metcalf (R, Washington State) to the US Congress and then by serving as Metcalf’s Chief of Staff in Washington, D.C. In this role he was the Congressman’s key strategist and handled a variety of government and commercial matters from issues affecting The Boeing Company to Indian Gaming matters.

Among his positions in senior management, John created and implemented a strategy for all governmental relations at the international, federal, state and local levels for Texas Air Corporation as its Vice President of Corporate Relations. In this role, John’s accomplishments included leading the start-up of New York Air and managing White House approval of Texas Air’s acquisition of Continental Airlines. Prior to joining Texas Air Corp., John was Regional Vice President for Hughes Airwest, where he increased sales and cut costs for the Northwest region, which encompassed over one-quarter of the airline, with 1000 employees, 14 cities and more than $110 million in annual revenues.

With Kilroy Industries, John served as the company’s Vice President of Marketing & Corporate Affairs for Kilroy’s extensive real estate holdings and new developments. He also initiated and managed Kilroy’s exploratory market investigations into China in the mid 1980s.

A native of Washington State, John received his BA in Business Administration from Washington State University (Pullman) and attended the University of Washington (Seattle) for his MBA. He served as a Lieutenant in the US military where he was an Army Airborne Ranger and led a 200-man unit as its Company Commander.

Rob Koepp. With a career spanning the worlds of thought leadership and execution in business, economics, and finance, Rob consults and writes about a variety of organizations and industries. His first book compared models for innovation and entrepreneurship found in California’s Silicon Valley and Europe’s Silicon Fen; his latest book looks at China’s rise as a financial power in the global economy.

Rob has particular expertise in the dynamics of creative and knowledge-intensive enterprises. He authored the book Clusters of Creativity: Enduring Lessons on Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Silicon Valley and Europe’s Silicon Fen (John Wiley, 2002), which looks at the underpinning dynamics and key mechanisms of IT and life-science clusters from a global perspective, detailing how high-tech regions and their constituent companies are financed, managed, and generate wealth. Following the success of Clusters, Rob was selected by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology as a report leader in a series of World Bank-sponsored studies on China’s technology park system and reform of China’s national technology industrialization policies.

Rob is currently at work on a new book titled Funded in China: How China Outperforms the West in Financing the Future. Drawing on years of experience, with this latest book he argues that “Made in China” has become “Funded in China.” The world has awoken to the PRC’s might as a manufacturing powerhouse and dominance as a consumer of everything from natural resources to advanced technology. Yet we hardly hear anything about what is fueling China’s growth, especially the high-risk venture capital and private equity finance that feeds the entrepreneurship and innovation that is positioning China at the forefront of tomorrow’s industries. Funded in China fills in this missing story.

As a consultant and financial advisor, Rob works with Western and Asian companies on their market development, fundraising, and investment strategies. These range from small ($<5 MM) to large ($100 MM +) transactions and involve companies operating in mass as well as niche markets. Recent projects involve helping spin off a medical device subsidiary from a leading Japanese pharmaceutical company through a leveraged management buyout, devising a unique partnering strategy in China for a major Hollywood animation studio, and raising Series B capital for a specialized FDA-certified organic ingredients manufacturer.

Rob previously served as Managing Director of Beijing-based CITIC Rising Star (an entertainment and leisure real estate development subsidiary of China’s largest financial conglomerate, the CITIC Group). He also worked with world-renowned financier Michael Milken as a Research Fellow at the non-profit economic think tank, the Milken Institute. At the University of Southern California Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, as an Adjunct Professor he has taught undergraduate and MBA courses on technical entrepreneurship and global entrepreneurship. He remains a member of USC’s US-China Institute.

Rob’s written and spoken opinions and analyses appear in the Los Angeles Times, The Economist publication Business Asia, the Chicago Tribune, Singapore’s Business Times, and Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shinbun, among others. Rob completed an English translation of a best-selling Japanese illustrated manga biography on George Soros (John Wiley, 2005). He also has written on China’s growing R&D capacity in high tech industries and on reform of China’s financial system.

Rob holds a BA in Asian Studies from Pomona College and MBA from the University of Cambridge. A Truman Scholar, he was also awarded a Fellowship from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation for post-graduate fieldwork in China, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia on the history and evolution of Chinese-based calligraphies. Rob is fluent in English, Chinese, and Japanese.

Rob Koepp

robkoepp@gmail.com

+86.1391.011.5534

With a career spanning the worlds of thought leadership and execution in business, economics, and finance, Rob consults and writes about a variety of organizations and industries. His first book compared models for innovation and entrepreneurship found in California’s Silicon Valley and Europe’s Silicon Fen; his latest book looks at China’s rise as a financial power in the global economy.