2013 SAUPO Atlanta

The 2013 Symposium on ASIA-USA Partnership Opportunities (SAUPO) was successfully held at St. Regis Hotel on Friday April 19, 2013! We had about 350 people attending, and over ten media agencies covering SAUPO. More than sixty speakers and attendees came from Asia, Africa and all over the U.S. and Canada to Atlanta for SAUPO. Among them, we had keynote speaker Mr. Farooq Kathwari, the Chairman of Ethan Allen Global, and a Commissioner of The White House Initiative on AAPIs. Business leaders, scholars, policy makers, NGO members, and diplomats came together exchanged information, established networks and created opportunities for each other.

 

  • Ms. Jenni Adams, International Relationship Manager, HSBC Bank (Shanghai, China)

    Mr. Nicholas Albergo, President & CEO of HSA Engineers & Scientists

    Mr. John Ceallach, Hollywood Writer/Producer/Actor, CEO/COO, RETRIBUTION PICTURES

    Mr. Bin Chung, Vice President of Technology, MAXXIS International

    Mr. Sandeep Dadlani, VP, Infosys

    Ms. Robin Davis, Executive Director, Global Health Action

    Mr. Scott Ellyson, CEO, East West Manufacturing

    Ms. Lida Fitts, Country Manager for East Asia, U.S. Trade and Development Agency

    Mr. Rowan Gibbs, Cartoon Network Game Studio, Turner Broadcasting

    Ms. LaTanya Harris, Head of HR, Carrier USA BG, Huawei Technologies

    Mr. Reynold Jennings, President & CEO, WellStar Health System

    Honorable Mr. Farooq Kathwari, the Chairman, President and CEO of Ethan Allen Global , Commissioner from The White House AAPI Initiatives (SAUPO Keynote Speaker)

    Ms. Alison Kelly, Chief, CDC Center for Global Health Workforce Management Office; Formerly Deputy Country Director, CDC China Office

    Mr. David Kirk, President & CEO, Murata Electronics North America

    Dr. Ganapathy Krishnan, President, Apollo Telemedicine Network Foundation (India)

    Mr. Randy Knott, Senior Vice President, AMEC

    Honorable Ajit Kumar, Consul-General of India, Atlanta, GA

    Ms. Lucy Lu, Partner, Lucy Lu & Associates LLC

    Mr. Kyle Milliken, PMP, Enercon Services, Inc.

    Honorable Mr. Donald Nay, U.S. Department of Commerce

    Mr. Satya Natesan, Head of Strategic Client Relationships for Banking, Wipro

    Ms. Lucie Neely, DVP-HR, ADP

    Mr. Roger Neuenschwander, President, tvsdesign

    Mr. William (Bill) Philbrick, CARE

    Mr. Charles A. Pinkham III, Vice President, Development, Portman Holdings

    Ms. Shelly Riera, AT&T Director of Advertising

    Mr. Amit Shukla, Wipro

    Mr. Brad Taylor, Vice President for Customer Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company

    Kok-Chi Tsim, Managing Director, International Banking, J.P. Morgan (Chicago)

    Mr. Henry Yu, Managing Director, Fifth Third Bank

  • May, Thank you very much for the invitation to such a wonderful and powerful event. From the very first speaker to the closing executive from The Coca-Cola Company, everyone was just amazing and so informative! Your students are beyond amazing and certainly have raised the bar on the next generation of corporate human capital. I met some wonderful people and have begun to build relationships with colleagues across the globe that I would not have otherwise met or had exposure to without SAUPO! You put on a fantastic event and well worth my “extended” stay in the Houston Airport! I’ve already connected on linkedin with a few of your students and look forward to building a great mentoring relationship. I will ensure that my manager, President of Huawei Technologies, USA is aware of my positive praise on this event. Thank you again, and please let’s keep in touch!

    LaTanya Harris, Head of HR, Huawei Technologies USA Inc.


    I want to say thanks for including us in your conference. It was well planned, well ran and had a lot of great topics and information. Of course, the networking was awesome, as well.

    Jim McGee, Senior Director Government Relations, Huawei Technologies USA, Inc


    May, Thank you for your invitation to participate in SAUPO and congratulations to you for staging this impressive event. We look forward to supporting next year's SAUPO in any way that we can.

    Donald Nay, Director, Atlanta Export Assistance Center, U.S. Commercial Service


    On behalf of the new Consulate General of India in Atlanta, I would like to congratulate for organizing and hosting the SAUPO Conference.

    It was an excellent conference. It really showed importance and enhanced our understanding of Asia-USA Partnership in several fields. The speakers and the panelists were also impressive.

    Ajit Kumar, Consul-General of India


    Dr. Gao, I would like to again thank you for inviting me to attend this year’s SAUPO conference. The setting was very impressive, and the dedication you gave to organizing the event was evident. I enjoyed hearing from Mr. Donald Nay from the U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade. His insight on government planning for export shipping, and his experiences showed me a side of my industry I did not know much about. I also enjoyed hearing from Mr. Farooq Kathwari. His story of starting as a street merchant to becoming the CEO of Ethan Allen was inspiring. Thank you so much for your time! Hope to attend another SAUPO event.

    Jonathan Palmer, Export Customer Service, Hapag-Lloyd (America) Inc.


    May, I heard wonderful things about the event last week, thanks so much for all of your hard work to make it such a success!

    Samantha Peterson, Sales and Marketing Associate, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank


    Dear May! Writing this mail with droopy eyes sitting in Delhi. In spite of the jet lag, the wonderful memories of SAUPO are keeping me up and awake. Thanks a lot for the excellent arrangement and your hospitality. Would love to reciprocate same as and when you manage to come down to our part of the world.

    Dr. Mausumi Bhattacharyya, Associate Professor, Centre for Journalism & Mass Communication, Visva-Bharati University, India


    May and all, Thank you for inviting me for the meeting. The conference was well organized and informative.

    Dr. Ganapathy Krishnan, President, Apollo Telemedicine Network Foundation (India)


    Hi May, I really enjoyed SAUPO. You certainly know how to select the right speakers, especially the keynote speech by Mr. Kathwari was very interesting and stimulating.

    Ramzan Karimi, President, M2Z2 Company, Inc.


    May, Guichun, Rifka, Leila, and Heeman, SAUPO was well organized and it was substantive in content. The atmosphere was friendly and the setting elegant. The food was delicious. Your planning, hard work and foresight brought this about. Congratulations and thank you.

    Tony Grooms, MFA, Professor of Creative Writing and, Interdisciplinary Studies Department, Kennesaw State University


    May & Heeman, Congratulations on another outstanding SAUPO conference. The conference's organizational structure, PR impact, and media outcomes were excellent. The speakers and topics were impressive. Additionally, the level of both undergraduate and graduate student participation was inspiring.

    Audrey Allison, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Communication, KSU


    Dr. Gao, SAUPO was awesome. I hope KSU will be upgraded by this conference!

    Hye-Ryeong Kim, KSU Student Volunteer for SAUPO


    Hi May, Congratulations for the wonderful success. The pictures are beautiful. I found the conference very interesting and I was able to have meaningful dialogues with several participants. I already look forward to the next!


    Stefano Mazzotta, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Finance, KSU


    May, I wanted to say thanks again for making SAUPO possible. It was a wonderful experience, and even better than last year! I really have already used some of the information I heard last week in class.

    Deanna Womack, Ph.D., Professor of Communication, Kennesaw State University


    Dr. Gao, I want to thank you once again for making it possible for me to attend the SAUPO Conference. It was very successful and very well organized. Everyone I met had good things to say about the conference, congratulations! It was an honor to speak at the SAUPO conference along side the great speakers. My panel went very well as each member of the panel was very well knowledgeable about our topics. The moderator, Dr. Zong did a great job and we had wonderful question and answers session. It was an overall success.

    Olubukola Oshadare, from Nigeria, SAUPO speaker


    May/Heeman, Congratulations on the success of the conference! Great job indeed.

    Sutham Cobkit, Director, Master of Science in Criminal Justice Program
    Professor of Criminal Justice, KSU


    Hi May, Congratulations to you and all those who worked on the conference. It was very impressive and I heard many positive comments in the bi-ways of the gathering.

    Sabbaye McGriff, Communications Professional, University Relations, KSU


    It was a nice event and pleasant day had by all!
    Dr. Jake McNeill, Department of Communication, KSU
    Hi Dr. Gao, I just wanted to thank you for letting me attend the SAUPO conference. It was a great conference. The information provided was very good and very useful. Thank you again!!

    Elizabeth Davis, Office of the Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, KSU


    Dr. Gao, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be a part of the SAUPO. It was a very well organized event and it exceeded all my (I believe others, too) expectations.

    Sairagul Matikeeva, doctoral student, KSU


    I want to congratulate all of you on a wonderful conference. As a guest of the event, I found everything to be well organized and polished. I believe that you truly showed the best of Atlanta to an international group of people an event with a little Southern hospitality. I also believe that KSU benefited from all of your hard work. I talked with an attendee from Georgia State who was very impressed with SAUPO. I am proud to have been a small part of what you all put together.

    Brett Fielder, SAUPO Webmaster, Kennesaw State University


    Dear SAUPO Planning Team, I want to extend my personal thank you. I met some incredibly talented and passionate people while working on the recent SAUPO 2013 event and I'm honored.

    Cherie Miller, Program Administrator, Interdisciplinary Studies Department, Kennesaw State University


    Dr. Gao, Thank you so much for allowing me, and the rest of SOAS to be a part of SAUPO. I hope you will allow us the honor of being a part of it next year as well!

    Caitlin Syfrett, President, Student Organization of Asian Studies (SOAS), KSU


    Dear Dr. Gao, Thank you for your outstanding leadership and control in SAUPO. This was a very valuable conference to us, and all KSA members and volunteers had very good time and experience. We really appreciate you giving us this great opportunity and we hope we can assist you more in the future.

    Sangwook Ham, President, Korean Student Association (KSA), KSU


    Thank you for giving me an opportunity to volunteer at the conference. It was a great experience.

    Sumi Moon, a student at KSU

 

 

©