Back in a suit

After a wonderful year and four months of persuading monks to wear bunny ear muffs while overlooking Mount Everest, blowing on beer bottle tops as part of a music ensemble, teaching 600 students English by singing ‘I will survive!’ on a Saturday afternoon in rural Yunnan, inadvertently biking through military training exercises in a patch of forest behind downtown Beijing, staring at a perfectly flat plain with no trees for two days on the cross Australian railroad, and drinking a lot of green tea, I am now back in a suit and working full time in Beijing.

As for two Monday’s ago, I am working for a consulting and investment advisory firm called Kamsky Associates Inc (which we call “Kai” which means “Open” in Chinese; http://www.kamsky.com), which has one office here in Beijing and another in New York. The firm advises (mainly US) multinational corporations and funds on all things China: how to enter the China market, what Chinese firms or enterprises to partner with, how to navigate government relations, how to identify attractive investment targets and market opportunities, how to turn around a struggling business model — you get the idea. I really love the dozen or so people in the firm, and the projects are really interesting — they definitely have me hitting the ground running! So while New York will always be home, it looks like I’m going to be in Beijing at least two to three years!

Now to answer the question “what happened to your interest in clean energy?”: that’s still very much something I’m passionate about and involved in, so keep me informed about any events or news you hear about any energy or environment!

Lastly, I really have enjoyed spending time with everybody who’s made it to China and I’d love to have you all come and visit, especially since I’m not sure when I’ll get back to New York next (though I’m 95% sure I’m going to the Stanford reunion in October, so hope to see some of you there!). Logistically, I think the best way would be to arrange one 10-day or so group trip for all of you who want to come see China, either November or next Spring. Just planting the seed of an idea for you to consider; no need to get back to me any time soon.

I’ll keep this short as I have to some shirts to pick up from the tailor, shoes to polish, suits to dry clean, bananas to buy… Please be patient with me in replying to emails as for some odd reason I seem to have a lot less time that my 16 month “vacation” is over! 🙂

Happy 4th of July!

Liz

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