Over the years, The International Forum grew beyond its origins and is today an active global network of leaders in business supported by experts in many other fields and disciplines from around the world. While helping executives to understand business in Asia, Europe and North America, by bringing them face to face with people they don't usually meet, he discovered active encounters with leaders in other, sometimes very different fields to be a rich learning experience. What emerged are the creative programs of The International Forum that involve learning by doing and integrating business with art, history, society, science and technology, music and culture. His career experiences, when considered at face value, hardly seem to prepare him for this kind of work. 

He started as an accountant. Finding it difficult to make any set of accounts balance, he sought ways to avoid such embarrassments and became Director of the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) in the United States from 1978 to 1982 and Executive Partner at Touche Ross International during the 1980's where he was responsible for worldwide services in Accounting, Auditing, taxation and Management Consulting. During the late 1980's he tried his hand at international investment banking. His earlier career was mixed with experiences in computers, operations research, organizational development, and strategic planning. He wrote a book on Inflation Accounting and in 1976, the Government of Ontario, Canada, appointed him Chairman of a Royal Commission to study the effects of inflation on taxation, business, the capital markets, and the economy. Never the stereotype accountant, in 1969 he attempted to reform the accounting profession in Canada by forming Task Force 2000 and led a group of 200 young professionals from across Canada in a year long examination of the role of their profession and its future. While this did not change the accounting profession it was a useful learning experience. During the 1970's he led an innovative research group that developed accounting for social costs, the environment, and human resources, completing contracts for the US government and several corporations. 

His efforts to be a painter were not impressive and his musical abilities enabled him to play the piano accordion poorly and privately. But he is actively involved in building the Stowe International Music School which brings leading musicians as faculty and students from Asia, Europe, and North America together with youth from Vermont. The School and Festival is now in its fourth year. 

He travels the world extensively, meeting members of The International Forum community while dreaming up new ideas for yet another kind of learning experience for leaders in business. While at home in Stowe, Vermont, USA, he is difficult to reach in the mornings when he is usually downhill skiing, playing ice hockey or, in summer, hiking up a mountain with his two dogs.

In his last years as an investment banker, he discovered the International Forum and later welcomed the opportunity to become a Director and part of the faculty at numerous forums in various parts of the world. Whereas finance, corporate governance and human resource policy are the most visible areas of expertise for Bob, his interests in culture and people relationships, whether in the purchase of an old carpet or the negotiation of a large transaction, hold the most interest for him. 

Bob operates from an office in Connecticut. He works as an independent director for several publicly owned companies, invests in and helps with the management of some others, is an overseer of a museum, and collects and studies ancient art, particularly Asian art. 

He and his wife Lois travel a great deal to many of the less developed countries where they spend time collecting textiles, art and try to better understand the people of today as well as those of the ancient world. For example, in 2000, they spent time at the Mongolian National History Museum in Ulaanbaatar where they were named “honorary consultants”, working on a project entitled Democracy in Mongolia. Bob is an overseer of the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Chairman of their development committee. This is a world-renowned museum and center of fieldwork in anthropology and archaeology. He is also a member of the advisory council of the Economics Department of Princeton University. He attended Princeton University for his bachelor of arts in economics and got an MBA from Harvard but seems to spend more time at the University of Pennsylvania now, either at the Museum or concerned with The International Forum at Wharton. On the business side, Bob works with a group of public companies and then a group of small companies including a Tibetan import company. The public companies include New York Life Insurance, Host Marriott Corporation (a hotel investor), Covance, Inc. (a contract drug research organization), Gildan Activewear, Inc. (a garment manufacturer from Canada but manufacturing in a number of other countries), and PartnerRe, Ltd. (a reinsurance company headquartered in Bermuda and Zurich). He is also an independent director of Credit Suisse First Boston USA, Inc. which is the shell that was DLJ and still has public securities outstanding. Bob and Lois have a motorboat called “Free Spirit” which they use to explore the East Coast of the American hemisphere from Canada down to Honduras. Bob used to publish articles on portfolio strategy (he is a chartered financial analyst) and corporate stockholder relations, but he now uses his spare time to explore new horizons.

He held public office over the previous eleven years, first as the first Director General of Telecommunications from 1984, and more recently as Director General of Fair Trade. Sir Bryan qualified as a Chartered Accountant and became a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in 1960. Between 1969-81, Sir Bryan was Professor of the Department of Accounting and Business Finance at the University of Manchester. He was the Dean of its Faculty of Economic and Social Studies from 1977-78; and he was the Arthur Andersen Professor of Accounting of the London School of Economics from 1981-84. In 1974, he was a visiting professor at the University of California (Berkeley). From 1978-81, he was Assistant Director for the US Financial Accounting Standards Board. Sir Bryan was a member of the UK Accounting Standards Board from 1990-94, and was its Deputy Chairman between 1990-92. In May 1988, Sir Bryan was presented with the Chartered Accountants Founding Society’s Centenary Award in recognition of his services to society through his work at OFTEL (Office of Telecommunications). He was knighted in January 1989. In December 1992, Sir Bryan was presented with the Bleau Award for his work in the field of telecommunications. Sir Bryan is the author or co-author of eleven publications on accounting, economics and finance. He was educated at Berkhamsted School and the London School of Economics (LSE) and gained his MSc (Economics) with distinction through part time study at LSE in 1967. Sir Bryan’s interests include running, theater, opera and music.

He has taught and researched on the faculties of Oxford, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities. Dr. Gong’s State Department assignments include serving as Special Assistant to two US Ambassadors at the American Embassy in Beijing. He was in China during the Tiananmen period. He also served as Special Assistant to the Senior Career Officer in the State Department, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Dr. Gong was also assigned for a year at the American Institute in Taiwan. Dr. Gong accompanied then-Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court Warren E. Burger as Personal Advisor on the Chief Justice’s official visit to the PRC. 

He serves as executive director for senior, bipartisan Congressional (both House and Senate) and private-sector delegations visiting Asia. Dr. Gong was executive officer for the state visit to China of then President and Mrs. George Bush. He writes, lectures and consults on a range of East Asian developments and issues in Europe, Asia and North America. Dr. Gong is a Rhodes Scholar with PhD and Master’s degrees from Oxford University in International Relations.

From 1984-96, he served as Music Director of the Shreveport Symphony. Mr. Leonard’s career began in 1974, when he was named Associate Conductor of the Greenwich Philharmonia. Four years later, he became Associate Conductor of the Long Island Symphony, a position he held until 1979. Mr. Leonard went on to become Principal Guest Conductor of the Long Island Symphony (1979-83), Music Director of the Bergen Philharmonic (1979-85), Principal Conductor of the Louisville Chamber Orchestra (1979-81), Conductor-in-Residence of the Louisville Orchestra (1979-81) and Music Director of the Youngstown Opera and Symphony (1981-86). 

Mr. Leonard has had numerous guest engagements with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Stadtisches Orchester Aachen and the Westdeutsche Sinfonia, and has made many musical recordings and television appearances. He received a BM and MM from the Juilliard School in New York.

He is a specialist on Asian management and especially on Chinese capitalism, and he spent 24 years based at the University of Hong Kong, where he established and was Director of the Business School and its sister organization in executive education, the Poon Kam Kai Institute of Management. He also has long-standing relationships in executive and MBA teaching at Stockholm School of Economics, Duke University Fuqua School, ANU Canberra, University of Southern California and The Wharton School. Dr. Redding’s research has focused on the understanding of Asian business systems comparatively and especially on the contrasts between Chinese, Korean and Japanese forms of capitalism. In addition, his work has included the implications for multi-nationals working in the region, and the operation problems of expatriate management. 

His main publications are ten books, including The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism, Management Development in Asia Pacific and International Cultural Differences, as well as approximately 100 academic articles. He is a consultant to large companies on matters connected with organizing for business in the Asian region and internationally.

He is frequently invited to address global conferences including the World Economic Forum, WEF Global Growth Companies Caucus, Nikkei Future of Asia Symposium, Europe’s 500 Congress, Euromoney Conference, International Management Symposium at St. Gallen University and the Annual World Bank/IMF Meeting. At home, he lectures on Entrepreneurship at the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Marketing Institute of Singapore and the Singapore National Employer’s Federation. In global bilateral relations, Dr. Wong is a founding member of the Japan Singapore Action Agenda Committee jointly established by Singapore PM Goh Chok Tong and former Japan PM Hashimoto and the US Singapore Consultative Committee initiated by Singapore President SR Nathan when he was Ambassador to the US. Dr. Wong has chaired seminars for futurologist Alvin Toffler, lateral thinking guru Edward de Bono, Kepner Tregoe Chairman Quinn Spitzer, Adversity Quotient Author Paul Stoltz, Omron Chairman, Vice-Chairman Keidanren, Noburo Tateisi and Asahi Breweries Chairman, Vice-Chairman Keidanren Hirataro Higuchi as well as Fidel Ramos, former President of the Republic of the Philippines. Dr. Wong is Honorary Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom. In the United States, Dr. Wong is a Board Member of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management at The Wharton School, and the Asia Society of New York. Dr. Wong was invited to the Dean’s Council at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and recently to the Advisory Council of Intellibridge in Washington. He is on the Advisory Board of the Fellows at Wharton in e-business. 

Dr. Wong is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School. He was conferred an Honorary Fellowship by the Marketing Institute of Singapore and a Doctorate by the University of Stirling in the UK. In Singapore, Dr. Wong is a Member of the Advisory Board at the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. He is the inaugural Singapore Chairman of the Pacific Basin Economic Council representing 1,200 companies with combined revenue of US$4 trillion and 10 million employees. He is a Trustee of the Singapore National Employers Federation and the Chairman of Ecquaria a Singapore software company engaged in e-transforming companies and e-Government. Dr. Wong has also served on various public boards including Chairman, Yeo Hiap Seng a major Asian food and beverage conglomerate, Board Member of Orchard Parade Holdings a real estate and hospitality group, Vice Chairman of National Full Gospel Rally and Honorary Treasurer of the CSL Children’s Home. Dr. Wong is married to Geok Choo, a homemaker, and they have three grown children.