Jean-Francois Lepine
Jean-François Lépine is an eminent journalist who is now Director of Québec Government offices in China. Before moving to Shanghai, he was an international analyst, speaker, and associate in communication and government affairs at Avistra International Inc.
Until November 2015, he was also chair of the Middle Eastern and North African Observatory (Observatoire sur le Moyen-Orient et l’Afrique du Nord/OMAN) at the Université du Québec à Montréal and a member of Montréal International’s Board of Directors. He was a foreign correspondent for CBC/Radio-Canada in Beijing, Paris, and Jerusalem from 1982 to 1990 and is recognized as an exceptional analyst and communicator.
From 1990 to 2013, he hosted several popular public affairs television programs on CBC/Radio-Canada, including Enjeux, Le Point, Zone libre, and the international magazine Une Heure Sur Terre, which also aired on TV5 Monde.
His work both as a reporter and TV show host has been recognized by numerous awards. In June 2012, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada. That same year, he also received the Raymond Charette Prize awarded by the Québec Superior Council of the French Language.
3 words to describe Nature?
Wealth. Fragile. Happiness
3 things Nature taught you?
Resilience
Fight to survive
Enjoy life
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Quebec's Laurentian forest
The Atlantic Ocean in Maine USA
The Amazon
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
The power of nature
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Protection, safety, life
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Life can be dangerous
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
The earth is so vulnerable and small
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Nature is not always peaceful
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Natural life is also sound
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
All!
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Fishing in a wild lake with my father, brothers, and sisters.
Wang Fang
Wang Fang, nicknamed "Crazy Fang" for her adventurous and dauntless spirit in winemaking by British Wine critic Jancis Robinson, is the founder and owner of Kanaan Winery, a powerhouse in China’s wine scene. Born in China, Fang lived in Germany for 12 years where she was fortunate enough to be exposed to wines from all over the world. Following in the footsteps of her father Wang Fengyu, a revered viticulturist, Wang Fang returned to China in 2011 and founded Kanaan Winery, at the east foothill of Helan Mountain in Ningxia where she was born and raised. With her affinity for Germany and her love for Riesling, she was the first person in China to plant Riesling. However, she is best known for her Cabernet and Merlot-based blends. Kanaan’s wines have received recognition not only in the Chinese market but also in foreign countries such as the UK, Australia, Canada, UAE, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Her 2013 Pretty Pony, a Bordeaux blend, won a top international wine award.
王方，德籍华人，因其大胆独树一帜的酿酒精神，被英国著名酒评家葡萄酒大师Jancis robinson 称为“魔方女士”。她的酿酒生涯要从对国产精品酒的憧憬与热情说起。12年的德国生活经历让王方女士接触到来自全国各地葡萄酒。而她的父亲是一位令人尊敬的葡萄酒栽培家，从1982年开始研究葡萄酒栽培，成为开拓中国精品酒的第一批人。受到她父亲的影响，王方对国产酒的未来充满信心。2011年，她选择回到中国并在养育她一生的家乡——宁夏贺兰山东麓产区建立了自己的酒庄“迦南美地”。自建立至今，迦南美地的葡萄酒因其出色的品质受到许多国际奖项。其酒款在中国大陆及香港澳门，以及许多国际市场认可：例如英国、澳大利亚、加拿大、德国、瑞士、阿拉伯联合酋长国等……于是，贴有“骏马”酒标的迦南美地中国葡萄酒骄傲地奔向全世界各地。哦对了，为什么是“骏马"？因为这就是宁夏贺兰山的象征!
3 words to describe Nature?
Sun. Soil. Water
3 things Nature taught you?
Respect humanity
Respect the environment
Put heart in nature
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Sunlight
Soil
Waterflow
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Worry
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Complex
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Never seen it
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Beautiful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Scared
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Lonely
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Mountain & Forest
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10+
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I live in a small city near the desert in the northwest. Every time I go to school there will be a sandstorm, and the sky will darken in an instant, and then the sand was dancing in the sky, and nothing could be seen clearly from one meter away.
Swan Sit
Swan Sit is an independent consultant specializing in digital, marketing and strategy. Having spent the past decade of her career accelerating digital into legacy companies, she held 2 key roles as a Vice President at Nike — overseeing Global Digital Marketing during the Emmy-winning “Dream Crazy” campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, and running Digital Operations, Product, Supply Chain and Service for a $3B e-commerce business during the Air Jordan 11 Concord launch, the largest in online history. She led digital at Revlon and Elizabeth Arden, using it to pull them out of a turnaround, and ran online strategy for Esteé Lauder, increasing their global footprint from 165 to 435 websites in 5 years. From modernizing 100-year-old brands and partnering with unexpected influencers like Chelsea Handler, Iris Apfel and Gigi Gorgeous, to launching augmented reality makeovers and driving double-digit growth, Swan has demonstrated both the left- and right-brain skills required for a marketer that drives revenue. She was selected as a Brand Innovators 40 under 40 and Marketing Woman to Watch, and took home both Best Social Campaign and Best in Show at the Glossy Awards. You might recognize her as one of the faces in Twitter’s national “She Inspires Me” campaign during the Oscars.
Prior to beauty, Swan was a management consultant at Bain, owned an ad agency focused on emotional branding, was a product manager at Newell (she launched a factory in China during SARS) and created infamous marketing campaigns at Trilogy Software during the dotcom boom. Swan graduated with a BA in Economics from Harvard and an MBA from Columbia.
Swan does speaking engagements around the world on Marketing, Digital Transformation and Leadership in the Digital Age. She is a Board Director of a publicly-traded pharmaceuticals company, advises a variety of businesses and sits on the boards of industry and philanthropic organizations including AdWeek's Diversity and Inclusion Council, L2 Digital Think Tank, Women in Retail, Consumer Goods Technology Council, Impact Network, Foundation Rwanda and Worldview’s space think tank. Having traveled to 85+ countries, her favorites include Antarctica, North Korea, Mongolia, Rwanda, Bhutan, Myanmar and Tanzania for Kilimanjaro. She can often be found smashing a volleyball and chasing restaurant openings, or flying around on skis and horses - her two newest hobbies.
3 words to describe Nature?
Stilling. Wondrous. Challenging
3 things Nature taught you?
Self-reliance
Humility
Interconnectivity
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Any ocean or summit
Antarctica
Palawan
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Alive, calm, emotional
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Fresh, awake, adventurous
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Excited, nervous and... hot? :) I've ventured inside a (mostly) dormant one before
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Grateful, enchanted, like I should be grabbing my camera phone (though the pics never do it justice so we should just enjoy the show)
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Excited, full of anticipation, ready to dance
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Cozy, cuddly and craving a fireplace
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean, which is odd because I can't even swim! But it hasn't stopped me from scuba diving, snorkeling, wake boarding... basically I'm willing to do anything that has air or floatation, but surfing still evades me. The ocean makes me feel alive and whole; living by it is a life-long dream for me
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
8... not necessary in a constant daily state, but periodic ventures to a coast or the top of a mountain, or even the smell of nature or the ocean resets my soul
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was 4 years old, my father took me outside during a typhoon in Hong Kong. We didn't venture far - just out the front door - but I remember the howling wind and warm but slicing rain. And the indescribable smell of the storm I remember to this day. It was electric. I remember hanging onto my father's neck with both arms, my little body flapping in the raging wind. I was scared but also couldn't stop giggling. That's how I still feel going into all my adventures today.
John Wood
JOHN WOOD is the founder of Room to Read, an organization that believes World Change Starts with Educated Children. Room to Read envisions a world in which all children can pursue a quality education that enables them to reach their full potential and contribute to their communities and the world.
At age 35, John left his position as Director of Business Development for Microsoft’s Greater China region to found Room to Read.
John’s award-winning memoir, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children tells how he raised millions from a “standing start” to develop one of the fastest-growing nonprofits in history. The book was described by Publishers’ Weekly in a starred review as “an infectiously inspiring read.” Translated into 20 languages, it is popular with entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and educators alike, and was selected by Amazon.com as one of the Top Ten Business Narratives of 2006 and voted a Top Ten Nonfiction title of 2006 by Hudson Booksellers. The book was also featured during John’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show and the resulting “Oprah’s Book Drive” with Room to Read raised over $3 million from viewers.
John’s follow up book, Creating Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy, tells the story of how the organization successfully tackled the next steps of scaling beyond his wildest dreams while maintaining integrity and raising money in a collapsing economy.
John has been named by Goldman Sachs as one of the world’s 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs, has been a three-time speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative and is a five-time winner of Fast Company Magazine’s Social Capitalist Award. He has been honored by Time Magazine’s “Asian Heroes” Award, selected as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, is a Lifetime Achievement Honoree of the Tribeca Film Festival’s Disruptive Innovation Awards, and is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He was selected by Barron’s as one of the “25 Best Givers” in 2009 and 2010, ranking 11th and 9th on the list, respectively. In 2014, John won the World’s Children’s Honorary Award Laureate through the World’s Children’s Prize, the annual educational program for the rights of the child and democracy—often called the Children’s Nobel Prize. In recognition of his passion to open libraries for the most under-served populations, he was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “the Andrew Carnegie of the developing world.”
John also serves on the advisory board of the Clinton Global Initiative and New Story.
Since 2000, Room to Read has impacted the lives of ten million children across Asia and Africa through its programs in Literacy and Girls’ Education. It aims to reach 15 million children by 2020.
3 words to describe Nature?
Best. Thing. Ever.
3 things Nature taught you?
Take time from work to enjoy it.
Breathe deep
Stay in shape, stay young.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Annapurna Circuit of Nepal, because a hike there inspired the formation of Room to Read
Any hiking trail in my adopted home city of Hong Kong
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Grateful to live near it.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Like I need to put on my hiking or running shoes, grab my wife Amy, and get out there!
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Assuming it’s dormant, like climbing to the top. If active, then reminds me that I need to update my will ☺
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
I’m hugely nocturnal, so sunrises not happening for me. Sunset makes me do a reality check on whether I’ve accomplished all the work goals I’ve had that day, and if not, to get on it.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Like I need to grab a good book, lie on the sofa, and enjoy the warmth and security
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Like I should be out hiking
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
The latter 3, impossible to decide
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10. I globe-trot constantly for Room to Read, and in every city I always try to find Nature, and of course build my holidays in places like the Dolomites and Namibia and Nepal so that I can over-dose on it.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
The first time I skied in Colorado I knew that I needed to abandon dreams of university on the east coast, and so I ended up having four very happy years at the University of Colorado in Boulder.