Governance Committee

Dr. Heinz J. Hockmann is a member of the Advisory Council of Lovell Minnick Partners LLC, a private equity company and buyout manager focusing on financial services and business services.

Heinz was an executive officer at Commerzbank AG in Germany for nearly twenty years and was a Member of the Management Board of the Bank with responsibilities for asset management, private banking, and investment banking. Earlier in his career at Commerzbank, he formed its asset management business for international institutional clients and later built the bank’s global asset management platform. Afterwards, he ran the Management Board of Westfalenbank AG, a midsize bank for corporate and private clients, investment banking, and asset management. He then joined Fortis Investments and expanded its asset management business in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe.

In 2008, Heinz co-founded Silk Invest, an investment management company specialized in frontier markets and became its Non-Executive Chairman. He serves on the boards of several German companies in the financial services sector including WWK, a major German insurance company, Ökoworld, a pioneer in the field of ecological and ethical investments, as well as GET Capital, a quantitative asset management company with a focus on artificial intelligence.

Heinz holds a master’s degree from Bochum University, where he also received his PhD in 1983. He became Professor for Banking and Finance at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen in 2017.

Mei Gao joined IDG Capital, a preeminent China-focused alternative asset management firm with over USD 30 billion of assets under management (AUM), as a Partner in 2016 to focus on cross-border investments. From 2003-2016, Mei held various leadership roles, including President and Head of Portfolio Management, at Fore Research & Management, a New York City-based hedge fund with over USD 3 billion of peak AUM, and gained extensive investment experience. In 2013, she was listed as one of “the 25 Most Powerful Women on Wall Street” by bussinessinsider.com. Mei started her career in finance at TD Securities where she spent five years managing the bank’s convertible arbitrage portfolio.

Mei currently serves on the board and investment committee of Cavamont Investment Advisors. She is a director of Generation Asia Acquisition Limited. She was also a board member of TCFA (The Chinese Finance Association) from 2004-2006.

Mei is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University (MBA) and Shantou University (BA). She is also a CFA charterholder.

Geoffrey Ng, CFA, is a director at Fortress Capital Asset Management, a Pan-Asian investment management company. He has over two decades of investment management and leadership experience. Previously, Mr. Ng served as chief executive officer and executive director at Hong Leong Asset Management; senior vice president, global emerging markets, at Dubai Investment Group; and chief investment officer at Pacific Mutual Fund. Mr. Ng is the independent non-executive chairman of Kronologi Asia Berhad, where he previously served as an independent non-executive director and is a member of the Audit, Nomination, Remuneration, and Share Grant Plan Committees. He holds the Certified Financial Planner designation and earned the Fintech: Future Commerce certification from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a CFA Institute Investment Foundations Certificate. Geoffrey has served on the Education Advisory Committee (vice chair and chair of the Practice Analysis subcommittee) and Council of Examiners, as well as vice president and treasurer for CFA Society Malaysia. Mr. Ng earned a Bachelor of Commerce (high honors) with a double major in accounting and finance from the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University. He is a CFA charterholder, holds a CFP certification, and has completed the MIT Fintech: Future Commerce program by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.