On June 14th at 3pm CEST took part in an insightful discussion with China’s largest accelaration platform: TOJOY
The session, organised in collaboration with TOJOY, aimed to provide an insightful discussion on “The Role of Accelerators in the Chinese Entrepreneurial Ecosystem”. Interestingly, China was the only world power to register growth during the pandemic. With TOJOY, we discussed China’s post-COVID recovery and its latest trends, focusing on the 14th 5-year plan through which it aimed to become an innovation powerhouse and to boost technological and economic development. In particular, we will focus on the Greater Bay Area, which is considered the heart of Chinese innovation and as one of the most technologically and economic advanced regions on the planet.
TOJOY will also illustrate its business model and approach to incubation, comparing the Chinese start-up incubation and acceleration ecosystems with the Europe’s, and offer advice for international start-ups and early-stage companies looking to enter China.
Relator: Richard Burton and Scott Douglas Williams
TOJOY
A Franco-British national living in Paris, Richard has had a varied career in defence electronics, cable TV, computing, information services, stock exchanges, trade credit and political risk insurance. From 1999 to 2015 he was based in Hong Kong leading the Asian regional development for Coface. From 2016 to 2019 he set up and ran his own advisory business to help young technology related companies with their development and to raise funds and was also active in M&A between Europe and China as Senior Advisor in a boutique advisory firm in Hong Kong. Richard joined TOJOY Western Europe as CEO for EMEA West in September 2019 to develop the activities in this region. TOJOY is China’s largest business acceleration platform with at its core a network of over 700,000 investors and entrepreneurs. Richard is an active Angel Investor and board advisor with interests in fintech, video games, video clip apps and electric vehicle recharging stations amongst others. Richard is a former Chairman of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Hong Kong and of the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. He is Vice-president of the France-Hong Kong Business Association, based in Paris. He is married with three children and in his spare time enjoys long distance trail running.
Scott is resident of Greater China and North Asia for the past 25 years primarily in Japan and China. He is the senior director working on global development growth for TOJOY Capital Holdings and is based in Shanghai, China. He is also the founder of the US-China Investment Committee. Scott is a prior senior executive with FedEx, DHL, and Nokia and prior vice president at the prestigious American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. He was also the turnaround executive of late iconic pop legend Stan Lee’s POW (Purveyors of Wonder) Entertainment studio and his archives while based in Beverly Hills. Scott has a graduate degree from the Thunderbird American Graduate School graduate master program of international business and has a finance degree from the University of Oregon.
