He is also CEO-China Operations of First Light’s parent company, Global EduTech Management Group (GEM,) an educational investment holding and management group dedicated to developing private education ventures in China and Southeast Asia. The investors of the group comprise of professionals and owners of public companies from China and Southeast Asia.

The mission of GEM is to cultivate, train, and employ managers, leaders, engineers and professionals with capabilities to modernize and invent new jobs in response to the rapidly changing economic structure of Asia and China. The region is in need of a university that can train innovative and entrepreneurial human resources to better respond to the changing needs of industry and society. With its first venture, GEM has established the first, independent, non-governmental university in China.

A proponent of coupling Chinese education reform with private enterprise, Chen was educated in China and earned his Ph.D. in economics and finance from Columbia University. An economist focusing on international finance, exchange rate systems, the economics of the European Union, financial and emerging markets, particularly in China and Southeast Asia, he was previously with the International Monetary Fund. He also worked as an economist and currency analyst at JP Morgan Chase in New York.

Chen began his career as a naval architect in China, and an economic researcher with the municipal government of Guangzhou. At the London School of Economics for three years, he was the Jean Monnet Lecturer in the Economics of the EU. He is a research affiliate of the Center for Economic Policy Research and an associate of the LSE Financial Markets Group.

Chen is an adviser and contributor to Oxford Analytica, founder and Director of Institute of Contemporary Finance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, founder and Co-director of the Center for the New Economy at Sun Yat-sen University. A fellow of National Center of Economic Research at Tsinghua University, he is also Managing Editor of the International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance, and is published widely in the fields of international finance, capital markets, and macroeconomic policy.

Business, International Business, Economy Finance,