Pascal Coppens

Keynote Speaker

Pascal Coppens's Biography

Pascal is one of the most sought-after experts about China. He is author of “China’s New Normal”, a management book that explains how China is setting the standard for innovation, and “Can We Trust China?” a book about international relations that provides a different view on China in a global context. Pascal is internationally known as influencer on YouTube with his most informative videos called “Pascal’s China Lens”.    

Bio: 

Pascal has an MA in Eastern languages and Cultures from University of Ghent and BA in business engineering from Free University of Brussels. From 1996 onwards, he lived and worked for more than 20 years in China and Silicon Valley as serial tech-entrepreneur. Pascal gas managed, cooperated and competed with hundreds of Chinese engineers and innovators.  

After a MBA-training in 1999 in Beijing organized by the European commission, Pascal started his career in the tech sector for Shanghai-Bell, a joint-venture of the telecom giant Alcatel. In 2022, he moved to San Francisco as global product marketing manager for the embedded software leader Wind River Systems. In 2004 he co-founded PolyCore Software in Silicon Valley. A year later, Pascal returned to Shanghai as independent representative of a handful of European high-tech companies to help them launch and support their products in the Asian markets. In 2010, he founded the start-up Letsface as the first offline digital community platform for premium global brands in China.   

In 2017, Pascal returned to Belgium after 20 years of international career for Sinnolabs – a growth accelerator in Shanghai for Belgium scale-ups to enter the Chinese market. Today, Pascal is a partner of the inspiration platform nexxworks and international keynote speaker about everything China, with deep expertise for Chinese innovation, digital and leadership.  

SHORT INTRO  

Pascal Coppens is the expert in all things innovation and Day After Tomorrow in China, rooted in his deep understanding of the country as a sinologist. He is an entrepreneur at heart with more than 20 years of experience in China and Silicon Valley. 

Pascal has employed, partnered and competed with hundreds of Chinese innovators. Armed with a degree in Business Engineering from Solvay Business School he started his career with Alcatel in Shanghai, and – after an intense period in Silicon Valley at Wind River Systems and Polycore Software (which he co- founded) – he returned to China and founded Letsface to build the first offline digital community platform for premium brands 

Currently, Pascal is an inspiring international keynote speaker, YouTube micro-influencer, partner at nexxworks and author of two books on China. 

WORKSHOPS

Sessions about China of 120 minutes each (minimum 2 sessions)

Innovation; 

Leadership; 

Customer Experience; 

Agility; 

Ecosystems; 

Artificial Intelligence; 

Geopolitics and Trust; 

Chinese Business Paradigms; 

China versus India