One Bed, Two Dreams: Why Joint Ventures So Often Fail in China

Please join us for an on-campus lecture and discussion led by author Kenneth Wilcox and moderated by SCCEI Senior Research Fellow Chenggang Xu.

Light refreshments will be served.

Ken Wilcox is the author of “The China Business Conundrum: Ensure that Win-Win Doesn’t Mean Western Companies Lose Twice” (Wiley, November 2024) and “Leading Through Culture” (Waterside, 2020).

Ken was the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) from 2001 to 2011, then the CEO of SVB’s joint venture with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB-SVB) in Shanghai until 2015, followed by four years as its Vice Chairman. He currently serves on the boards of the Asia Society of Northern California, the Asian Art Museum, and UC San Diego’s 21st Century China Center, as well as Columbia Lake Partners, a European venture-debt fund. He is on the Board of Advisors of the Fudan University School of Management in Shanghai and teaches as an Adjunct Professor at U.C. Berkeley.

Ken holds a PhD in German from Ohio State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a former member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He has given numerous speeches in both English and Chinese, published a variety of articles in the banking press, and recently wrote the management book “Leading Through Culture: How Real Leaders Create Cultures That Motivate People to Achieve Great Things” (Waterside Productions, 2020) and its accompanying workbook, “How About You?” (Waterside Productions, 2023). The father of two sons, he lives in San Francisco with his wife, Ruth, and several antique cars.