Lisa Xia was appointed to General Manager Shanghai branch in May 2010. Lisa is also in charge of BMO Global Trade & Banking business development in Greater China.

Over the past couple of decades, Lisa has had wide-ranging banking experience in both North America and China in such diverse areas as investment and corporate banking, trade finance, project finance, credit risk management and correspondent banking.

Lisa joined BMO in 2000 when she resided in Toronto. Lisa started her banking career with ABN AMRO Bank in 1996 as a Credit Analyst. Later she was transferred to Structured Finance Unit as a deal specialist, extensively working on non-traditional lending on project finance basis, including deal structuring, pricing, documentation and execution.

Lisa holds the MBA degree from Asia's top tier business School - China Europe International Business School (CEIBS).

Weldon Epp joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 1996 as a foreign service officer, working first with the China and Mongolia Division and the Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Division. In Ottawa, Mr. Epp has also served in the Assignments Division and as director of the Policy Research Division. Abroad, he served in Beijing as second secretary and vice-consul, in Taipei as director (political/economic), in Jakarta as counsellor (political/economic) and, on short assignments, in Geneva, Islamabad and Phnom Penh. Most recently, Mr. Epp was consul general in Guangzhou. He is completing a professional master of public administration degree at Queen’s University. Mr. Epp is married to Kristi Dyck, and they have three children: Erin, Ian and Graeme.

Simon joined The Economist as Asia economics editor in 2014, primarily focused on Chinese economics and finance. Prior to that he was a correspondent with the Financial Times in Beijing and Shanghai from 2011-14. He started as a reporter with Reuters in London and arrived in China in 2007 to cover the economy, but also had a brief stint as a table-tennis specialist during the Beijing Olympics. Simon has been interviewed on BBC World Service and NPR amongst others.

French-Canadian Marie-Lucie Spoke is the founder and Managing Director of Community Roots China (CRC), and holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration. After a short career in the Canadian foreign service, she has dedicated more than 25 years of her life to charity, caring for those who are less fortunate in various countries. Marie-Lucie first fell in love with China in 1987 when her husband worked at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. Having worked in the foreign service, Marie-Lucie is highly aware of the development of a country. And as a mother of three children, she cares deeply about the education and advancement of children. In 2003, as her husband returned to China to work in the private sector, Marie-Lucie began to volunteer in the community with left-behind children, and founded CRC in 2011 to better meet their needs. Working with community-minded corporations and compassionate individuals, CRC started the One Heart Gift Bag program to provide books, shoes, clothes, and other necessities to left-behind children in far flung rural areas. Over a period of 5 years, CRC provided 42,500 gift bags to some 20,000 children. CRC subsequently found that many rural students were unable to afford high school, and began to focus on Education Sponsorships in 2016 to support the education of these impoverished students.

Marie-Lucie's love for and dedication to the children of China, and the impactful work of CRC, have been recognized by several international organizations, including being recipient of the Governor General of Canada Award (2013), Expat Professional Women Society Award for Societal Contribution (2014), and Rotary Club Individual Leadership Award (2015). CRC now partners with Shanghai Rende Charity Foundation and a number of multinational corporations, small businesses, organizations and individuals to continue the important work of enabling rural children’s education, thereby shaping the prosperous future of China.

Helene Larochelle is from northern Quebec and has lived and worked internationally for the past 10 years in Japan and China. She is a graduate of Temple University and holds an MBA in International Corporate Strategy from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.

After a career in marketing in Montreal, Helene moved to Asia and worked for a number of Japanese companies including Sony as country localization manager, and FANCL as an international business development manager. She was also involved in several CSR programs including promoting social business with Uniqlo and Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.

Most recently Helene was a Governor of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan (CCCJ), where she worked extensively on promoting the CCCJ’s interests and membership. Helene speaks French, English, Japanese and basic Mandarin.