Akiko Miki has formerly worked as Chief and Senior curator, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2000 – 2014), Co–director, Yokohama Triennale 2017 and Artistic Director of its 2011 edition among others. As curator, she has curated many international exhibitions including 1998 Taipei Biennial and currently involved in curatorial team of Bangkok Art Biennale 2024. She also served as guest curator of many large–scaled group shows as well as solo projects of Japanese artists such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Takashi Murakami at major museums in Asia and Europe including Barbican Art Gallery (London), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), Yokohama Museum of Art, Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art and Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art. By having been involved in the project of Benesse Art Site Naoshima since its early period, she edited a book “Insular Insight – Where Art and Architecture Conspire with Nature” (Lars Müller, 2011) about the project, which received the DAM Architectural Book Award.

András Szántó advises museums, foundations, educational institutions, and corporations on cultural strategy and programme development, worldwide. He earned his PhD in sociology from Columbia University. A widely published author, his writings have appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, Artnet News, and The Art Newspaper, among other publications. As a consultant, he advises some of the world’s leading cultural institutions and corporate art programmes. He has lectured on art business at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art and has directed the National Arts Journalism Programme at Columbia University. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he helped launch and oversee the Global Museum Leaders Colloquium, a series of seminars for museum directors. He is a frequent moderator of the Art Basel Conversations series. Born in Budapest, he has curated exhibitions on Hungarian art of the 1960s and 70s. His most recent books are The Future of the Museum (2020) and Imagining the Future Museum (2022). He lives in Brooklyn.

Mr. Bertrand Lortholary became Ambassador of France to China in March 2023.

Bertrand Lortholary joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after graduating from the Institute of Political Science (Sciences-Po) in Paris, the University of Paris-Dauphine, the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO, studying Chinese), and from the National School of Administration (ENA, in the 1997 “Marc Bloch” graduation year).

He began his career at the Quai d’Orsay as a member of the Directorate for Africa and the Indian Ocean, where he mainly covered the conflict in the Great Lakes region in Central Africa. He later joined the Political Affairs General Director’s staff from 1998 to 2001.

His career led him, first to Washington, as an exchange diplomat at the State Department, then at the French Embassy, where he covered Asian and African political issues, between 2002 and 2005. After Washington, he served as senior counsellor for political affairs at the French Embassy in China from 2005 to 2008.

From 2008 to 2012, Bertrand Lortholary served as senior advisor for Asian and Pacific affairs to the President of the French Republic.

He was appointed Consul General of France in New York in 2012 and completed his mission in the United States in August 2016. He then served as French Ambassador to Vietnam from 2016 to 2019.

Before taking up his position as director for Asia and Oceania in October 2020, Bertrand Lortholary served as chief diplomatic advisor to the Prime Minister of the French Republic.

Mrs Betty Fung was appointed by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) Board as Chief Executive Officer of WKCDA with effect from 15 October 2021.

Mrs Fung joined the Administrative Service of the Hong Kong Government in 1986. Since then, she had served in various bureaux and departments, including as Press Secretary to Chief Secretary and Financial Secretary, Assistant Director of Trade, Deputy Government Chief Information Officer and Deputy Secretary for Education and Manpower.

In 2007, Mrs Fung was appointed Director of Information Services who was the Government’s chief advisor on public relations and publicity matters. She was appointed Director of Leisure and Cultural Services from 2009 to 2014 to oversee the development and management of cultural, sports and recreation facilities in Hong Kong including museums, public libraries and performing arts venues. As Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs from July 2014 to April 2018, she oversaw the formulation of culture, sports and district administration policies and was actively involved in the implementation of the West Kowloon Cultural District project including the Hong Kong Palace Museum project.

Mrs Fung was Head, Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office from April 2018 to November 2020 prior to her secondment to WKCDA as Acting CEO between December 2020 and June 2021.

Mrs Fung was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite in 2020 for her contributions towards fostering cultural cooperation and exchange between France and Hong Kong. She has been elected Executive Committee member of the Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres (2023 to 2025).

Dr Chase F. Robinson has been director of the National Museum of Asian Art since December 2018. During his tenure, the museum has launched initiatives that have increased the number of visitors on–site and online, expanded the collections by over 5,400 works, built out its network of community– based and international partnerships, established itself at the forefront of provenance research, and nearly doubled the size of its board of trustees. A highly regarded scholar of Islamic history and culture, Robinson previously served as provost (2008 – 2013) and president (2013 – 2018) of the Graduate Center, the research campus of the City University of New York. Robinson has authored or edited nine books and more than forty articles that span the geographical and chronological breadth of the Islamic Middle East. They include A Medieval Islamic City Reconsidered: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Samarra (2001), Texts, Documents and Artefacts: Islamic Studies in Honour of D.S. Richards (2003), and the first volume of The New Cambridge History of Islam (2010). His book Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives: The First 1,000 Years (2016) was translated into several languages. Robinson received his doctorate from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

Mr Henry Tang is currently a Standing Committee Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Chairman of the Friends of Hong Kong Association, President of The Légion d’Honneur Club Hong Kong Chapter and Chairman of the Shanghai Tang Junyuan Education Foundation. Mr Tang served as a Member of the Legislative Council and the Provisional Legislative Council of Hong Kong for seven years from 1991, and was a Member of the Executive Council of the HKSAR from 1997 to 2011. In 2002, he was appointed Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology of the HKSAR Government. He was promoted to Financial Secretary in 2003, and later served as the Chief Secretary for Administration from 2007 to 2011. He was Chairman of the Board of WKCDA from 2008 to 2011. Before joining the HKSAR Government in 2002, Mr Tang was a leading industrialist in Hong Kong. He served as Chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries and as a General Committee Member of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce from 1995 to 2001.

In 1991, Mr Tang was appointed the Justice of the Peace. In 2000 he was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star by the HKSAR Government, and in 2009 he received Hong Kong’s highest honour, the Grand Bauhinia Medal.

Mr John Lee was born in 1957. He joined the Hong Kong Police Force in 1977 as a Probationary Inspector of Police and was promoted to Deputy Commissioner of Police in 2010. He served in a variety of posts in the Force, including Assistant Commissioner (Crime), Director of Crime and Security and Deputy Commissioner (Management). He holds a Master's degree of Public Policy and Administration from Charles Sturt University in Australia.

Mr Lee was appointed Under Secretary for Security in 2012 and Secretary for Security in 2017. During his service in the Security Bureau, he was responsible for the formulation of security policies covering law and order, immigration and customs control, fire and emergency rescue services, correctional services, government flying services and other areas. He also oversaw and coordinated the work of six disciplined services departments and two auxiliary forces under the Bureau.

Mr Lee was appointed Chief Secretary for Administration in 2021. Apart from assisting the Chief Executive in policy administration, Mr Lee was also responsible for supervising the work of nine policy bureaux, harmonising the work which straddled across different bureaux and departments, as well as promoting a good relationship between the Executive Authorities and the Legislature.

Mr Lee won the Chief Executive Election of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on 8 May 2022, and was appointed as the sixth-term Chief Executive by the Central People's Government on 20 May 2022. Mr Lee assumed office on 1 July 2022.

Katrina Sedgwick is the inaugural Director and CEO of Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation (MAP Co), established to harness the collective creativity of the Melbourne Arts Precinct and delivering Australia’s largest ever cultural infrastructure project. The $1.7 billion transformation of the Melbourne Arts Precinct encompasses The Fox NGV Contemporary, upgrades to Arts Centre Melbourne and an 18,000sqm urban garden. MAP Co also oversees the management of Federation Square, and leads the amplification of a single continuous arts, civic, and cultural precinct stretching from Federation Square through Southbank.

Prior to MAP Co, Katrina was Director and CEO of the national museum of screen culture ACMI, Head of Arts for ABC TV, founding Director / CEO of the biennial Adelaide Film Festival and the multi award winning slate of the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund, producer for the Adelaide Festival of Arts (1996, 1998 and 2000) and the artistic director of Come Out ‘99 and Adelaide Fringe 2002. She has held many committee and board roles with a wide range of creative industry and arts organisations.

In 2020, Katrina was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her services to performing arts, screen industries and visual arts administration.

Laurent Salomé was the Deputy Director of the Museum of Grenoble from 1990 to 1995, the Director of the Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes from 1995 to 2001, the Director of the Museums of Rouen from 2001 to 2011 and the Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais, where he was in charge of the exhibition programme of the Grand Palais and the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris from 2011 to 2016.

In 2016, he was appointed Director of the National Museum of the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon, where he pursued a firm policy of refurbishing the palaces, expanding the programming and enriching the collections.

He has organised over a hundred exhibitions including “A City for Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro and Gauguin in Rouen”, as well as many retrospectives at the Grand Palais in Paris devoted to major artists such as Hopper, Braque, Saint–Phalle, Velazquez and Hokusai. He has also been involved in many contemporary art projects, including most recently the exhibition of Claude and François–Xavier Lalanne in the gardens of Trianon.

Salomé is a graduate of the ESCP Business School in Paris and of the Ecole du Louvre. He also holds a degree from French National Institute of Cultural Heritage after he won first place in the competition for Curator of the Museums of France.

Louis Ng has been the inaugural Museum Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum since August 2019, overseeing the planning and construction of the museum which opened to the public in July 2022. He is currently responsible for the overall management and operation of the museum, supervising the development of its strategic vision and the delivery of its exhibition, research, collection, programming and education initiatives. He has also championed a number of international partnership initiatives, positioning the museum as a platform for dialogue among cultures around the world.

Throughout his career in the field of arts and culture, he had held research, curatorial and managerial positions at various museums. He served as the founding Director of the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence, which opened in 2000, and held the position of Executive Secretary of the Antiquities and Monument Office in Hong Kong from 2002 to 2006. Before joining the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, he served as Deputy Director of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, HKSAR Government, where he oversaw the department’s culture–related institutions, including museums, performing arts venues and libraries. He earned his PhD degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, with a focus on Hong Kong history.

Born in 1975 and graduated from Yale University in 2002, Ma Yansong founded MAD Architects in 2004. It is committed to developing futuristic, organic, technologically advanced designs that embody a contemporary interpretation of the Eastern affinity for nature. With a vision for the city of the future based in the spiritual and emotional needs of residents, MAD endeavours to create a balance between humanity, the city, and the environment. Their culturally rich architecture has gained widespread attention globally. Notable works include the Harbin Opera House, Quzhou Sports Park, Jiaxing Train Station, Yuecheng Courtyard Kindergarten, and the "Marilyn Monroe" Towers in Mississauga, Canada. Their ongoing public projects encompass the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, Fenix Museum of Migration in Rotterdam, and the Shenzhen Bay Cultural Park.

His recent exhibitions and art pieces include “Momentum” (Milan Design Week, 2023), “Universe” (Bi–City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture, 2022), "Light" (Art in Fuliang, China, 2021), "MAD X" (Centre Pompidou, France, 2019); "Tunnel of Light" (Echigo–Tsumari Art Triennale, Japan, 2018); "Fifth Ring" (Milan Design Week, Italy, 2018); "Micro Garden" (Venice Architecture Biennale, Italy, 2016); "verso Est., Towards a Chinese Architectural Landscape" (MAXXI Museum, Italy, 2011); "Living" (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, 2011); "Feelings Are Facts: Olafur Eliasson and Ma Yansong" (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, China, 2010); "China Design Now" (Victoria and Albert Museum, UK, 2008) and more.

Maholo Uchida specialised in the combined field of art, technology, and design, worked at the Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, and curated several exhibitions. She has participated in various museums, and awards as co–curator, jury, and advisor such as MoMA, Barbican Centre, and Good Design Award.

Makoto Fujiwara joined the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture in 1982, which became the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in 2001. He also became the first Counsellor to serve in the Cabinet Secretariat of the Cabinet Affairs Office as a member of the MEXT that same year. He held various key positions in the MEXT as the Director of the Finance Division, Director–General of the Private Education Institution Department, Director–General of the Minister’s Secretariat, and Director–General of the Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau. In 2018, Fujiwara was appointed the Vice Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, leading the operations in many fields such as education, culture, sports, and scientific technology. He was then appointed the 29th Executive Director of the Tokyo National Museum in 2022.

During his first year at the Tokyo National Museum, it was a milestone year for the Museum as it celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding. He oversaw the special exhibition “Tokyo National Museum: Its History and National Treasures”, which was the first time the Museum displayed all of the National Treasures in its collection. The exhibition welcomed more than 350,000 visitors, and other anniversary events were held with great success. Recently, Fujiwara has been seeking ways to bolster strategic international exchange, under the slogan “Tokyo National Museum for the World”. He aims to strengthen the foundation of museum operations by securing increased support from public and private sectors. He continues to seek new opportunities that will pave the way towards another 150 years at the Museum.

Marcella Lista is an art historian and curator. Since 2016, she is the Head Curator of the New Media Collection at Musée National d'Art Moderne – Centre Pompidou. Since 2020, her mission in this institution also covers researching and collecting in the Asia–Pacific region. Marcella Lista holds a PhD in Art History from Université Paris 1 Panthéon–Sorbonne. She has recently curated exhibitions with artists Ryoji Ikeda (2018), Hito Steyerl (2021), Hassan Khan (2022) and Saodat Ismailova (2023). She has conducted research and conservation projects related to Chris Marker's early computer–based installations as well as to the landmark postmodern exhibition "Les Immatériaux", originally held at Centre Pompidou in 1985. In 2023, Marcella Lista was responsible for the acquisition and exhibition of 18 art works related to the blockchain technology at the Centre Pompidou, in collaboration with curator Philippe Bettinelli.

Maria Mok joined the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1996, and is currently its Museum Director. She has extensive museum experience, previously curator in charge of different departments, including China Trade Art, Chinese Antiquities, Modern and Hong Kong Art, Education and Extension Services, and has curated and led a vast number of exhibitions and programmes. She is a specialist in China trade painting with a research focus on dating and authentication, and authored an extensive collection of published works with particular interest in the artistic interaction of global trade that includes Images of the Canton Factories 1760 – 1822: Reading History in Art (HKU Press: 2015) co–authored with Paul A. Van Dyke. Maria has a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts Studies, a Master's degree in Chinese Historical Studies on Guangdong decorative arts of the Qing dynasty, a Doctoral degree on China trade painting, and a graduate diploma in Museum Studies.

María Wills Londoño is an independent curator working and living in Bogotá, Columbia. She was previously Director and curator at large of the Banco de la República art museums in Bogotá (Museo de Arte Miguel Urrutia, Museo Botero, and Museo Casa de Moneda). Her main curatorial interests relate to the instability of the contemporary image and the revision of official historical accounts in art. Her curatorial project “The Life of Things” led to her selection as curator of the 2019 MOMENTA Biennial of the Image in Canada. In this endeavour, she critiqued categories that define cultural objects as exotic or “non–Western,” as well as other aspects of creativity in the crisis of consumer society. With her essay “The Centenary of The Bauhaus: Of Conveniences and Connections” (El centenario de la Bauhaus: de conveniencias y conexiones), she won the Simón Bolívar Prize for Journalism in 2019. In that text, she addressed the relationships between the critical foundations of the Bauhaus, contemporary art, and handicrafts. Londoño’s curatorial projects have been exhibited in such renowned institutions as the International Center of Photography, New York; the Jeu de Paume, Paris; the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris; the Photographers Gallery, London; the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid (PHotoESPAÑA); the Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; the Miguel Urrutia Art Museum of Banco de la República, Bogotá; the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art; and the Medellín Museum of Modern Art, among others. Londoño is currently working on a revision of the Museum collection based on countermodernities and more inclusive approaches to the definition of art.

Michael John Gorman is Founding Director of BIOTOPIA, a new museum of life sciences and environment in development in Munich, and University Professor (Chair) in Life Sciences in Society at Ludwig–Maximilians–University Munich. In summer 2024 he will start as Director of the MIT Museum. Previously Michael John was Founding Director of Science Gallery in Dublin, dedicated to igniting creativity and discovery where science and art collide. In 2012 he founded Science Gallery International with the goal of bringing Science Gallery experiences to a global audience, with Science Gallery spaces now being established in London, Melbourne, Bangalore, Atlanta, Monterey and other cities. Prior to founding Science Gallery, Michael John was Lecturer in Science, Technology and Society at Stanford University and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University, Stanford University and MIT.

Miguel Falomir Faus was named the Chief of the Italian and French Paint Department at the Museo Nacional Del Prado in 1997, then became the Deputy Director of Preservation and Research in 2015, a position that he had held until he became the Director of the museum in March 2017.

Falomir has curated many of the Prado’s exhibitions including, “Titian” (2003), “Tintoretto” (2007), “The Renaissance Portrait” (2008), “The Furies: Political Allegory and Artistic Challenge” (2014), “Lorenzo Lotto. Portraits” (2018) and “Mithological Passions” (2021) among many others. He has also been involved in the restoration of important works by Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and Raphael.

Falomir graduated in Art History from Valencia University with an Extraordinary Prize. From 1990 to 1993 he was a FPI fellow for the Education and Science Spanish Ministry at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). In 1993, he obtained a PhD degree in Art History from Valencia University, and subsequently served as a professor at the university from 1994 to 1995, when he also received a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. From 2008 to 2010, he was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts of the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC).

He is a member of the Comitato Scientifico de la Fondazione Tiziano in Pieve di Cadore (Italy) and has been an invited professor in Údine University (Italy) and UCLA (USA). In 2018, he was awarded Harvard’s I Tatti Mongan Prize in recognition of his outstanding findings in the preservation area.

Refik Anadol is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the Director of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and Lecturer in UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts. Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Taking the data that surrounds us as primary material, and the neural network of a computerised mind as a collaborator, Anadol offers us radical visualisations of our digitised memories and expands the possibilities of interdisciplinary arts. Anadol’s site–specific data paintings and sculptures, live audio / visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, collective experiences, public art, decentralised networks, and the creative potential of AI. Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou–Metz, Art Basel, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Ars Electronica, Istanbul Modern, and ZKM | Center for Art and New Media. Anadol has received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award.

Shaika Al–Nassr is the Director of the Museum of Islamic Art Doha (MIA), Al–Nassr has held several positions at the museum and most recently the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, where she is tasked to oversee the Museum’s relaunch in 2022. Before this role, Al–Nassr was Head of Exhibitions, a position she held since 2007. Al–Nassr has managed numerous exhibitions and projects and has also contributed to the MIA publications Unseen Treasures (Doha, 2010) and Reading Quranic Manuscripts (Doha, 2011).

After graduating from Qatar University, earning a bachelor’s in English Literature, her interests moved towards Islamic art and museology, which, through her experiences at MIA, led her to pursue a postgraduate degree in Islamic Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), in London in 2008 and in Museum Studies from University College London (UCL) in 2011.

In addition to her academic pursuits, Al–Nassr presented multiple academic papers internationally in the USA, Italy, Bosnia, and Japan.

Suhanya Raffel is the Museum Director of M+ in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District since her appointment in 2016. She leads M+ and oversees all museum activities, including acquisitions, programming, collections care, development, research, institutional collaborations, and museum operations. Since joining M+, Raffel has led the museum’s mission, broadening its international reach and championing its deep connection with its local community. In less than two years since M+ opened to public in November 2021, it has welcomed over 4.5 million visitors through its doors even with a three–and–a–half month closure due to COVID.

Previously, Raffel was the Director of Collections and then Deputy Director at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney, Australia (2013 – 2016), and held many senior curatorial positions, including Deputy Director of Curatorial and Collection Development from 2010 and Acting Director in 2012 at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (1994 – 2013), where she was instrumental in building the contemporary Asia Pacific collection and led its Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.

Raffel has been appointed as the President of CIMAM, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (2023 – 2025), and has served on the CIMAM Board since 2016. She is also a member of the Bizot Group (2021 – ongoing) and is a Trustee of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust and the Lunuganga Trust, Sri Lanka (1994 ongoing). She was awarded the title of Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2020 and the 2022 Sydney University Alumni Achievement Awardee for Cultural Contribution.

Serving for over a decade as Director and CEO of two major US art museums – the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2009 – 2017, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco since 2018 – Thomas P. Campbell has dedicated his life to the preservation, study, and promotion of art as a gateway to human understanding.

Since joining the Fine Arts Museums in 2018, he has worked together with staff to strengthen the institution’s ties to local communities through an ongoing Free Saturdays programme, through key acquisitions and partnerships, and through an open invitational exhibition that celebrates creativity in the Bay Area. As part of the institution’s strategic plan, Campbell has centred Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Access as core values.

A distinguished art historian, he was educated at Oxford and the Courtauld Institute of Art, and joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s curatorial ranks in 1995. Following his appointment as Director, Campbell led a revitalisation and modernisation programme embodied in award–winning exhibitions and publications, major capital projects, and historic donations of works of art. During his tenure, attendance grew from 4.5 to 7 million visitors a year.

Tim Reeve has been Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the world's leading museum of art, design and performance, since 2013. Taking a strategic and operational overview of all museum activities, Reeve is also leading the creation of V&A East in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, East London, which will see a new research and collections centre alongside a major new gallery and exhibition space. He also leads the V&A's international strategy and oversaw the opening of the V&A Gallery at Design Society in Shenzhen in 2017.

Before joining the V&A, Reeve was Director of Historic Properties at English Heritage. He is a graduate in Ancient History from Royal Holloway, University of London, and studied at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and INSEAD on its International Executive Programme. He is the V&A’s nominated director on the board of V&A Dundee, a trustee of the Canal and River Trust, a member of the Hunterian Strategic development Board, chair of the East Bank Board and was previously co–chair of the Exhibition Road Cultural Group.

Wang Chunfa, PhD in Economics from the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He graduated from Lanzhou University with a master’s degree in economics and a bachelor’s degree in history. He was qualified as a Research Fellow in 2000. He once worked at the China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as a teacher and researcher. He was a visiting scholar to George Washington University, USA. Currently, he is Director of the National Museum of China, Chair of the museum’s Academic Committee, and Editor–in–Chief of Journal of National Museum of China.

As a long–time researcher in world economic history and science and technology policy, Wang is the author of numerous books, including Technology Innovation Policies: Theory and Instrument, National Innovation System and Prospects of Economic Growth in East Asia, etc. He co–authored The Modernization of Agriculture in Western Countries and Socialized Agricultural Service System in the United States: An Introduction to Agricultural Cooperatives. He is also the author of more than 100 papers such as FDI and Endogenous of Technological Capability Growth. He was a participant in the drafting of the Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium– and Long–Term Science and Technology Development (2006 – 2020).

Wang is the translator of The Growth of the International Economy: 1820 – 1990 and presided over the translation of numerous academic works. He held positions like Vice Chairperson of the Executive Council of the Chinese Association for Science of Science and S&T Policy, Vice President of the China Written Works Copyright Society.

Wang Xudong graduated from Lanzhou University’s College of Earth and Environmental Sciences with a PhD in Geological Engineering. Prior to his tenure as the Director of the Palace Museum, Dr Wang served consecutively as the Deputy Director, Executive Deputy Director and Director of the Dunhuang Academy. His research work has focused primarily on the conservation of caves, ancient mural paintings, and earthen sites, as well as cultural heritage monitoring and early warning systems and preventive conservation. Since 1991, when he began his career in heritage conservation, he has presided over sixty conservation projects at nationally protected key cultural heritage sites, undertaken nearly twenty national, provincial, or ministerial level projects, and presided over or participated as a key member in over ten international collaborative projects with cultural heritage protection and management institutions in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries. As primary author, he has published over thirty academic papers and six monographs, including Key Earthen Site Conservation Technology Research and Normative Research on Ancient Mural Paintings. He has also received over ten national, provincial or ministerial–level science and technology awards, as well as the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation’s Science and Technology Innovation Award. Dr Wang has obtained more than twenty technical patents and led the compilation of five National and Industry Technology Standards. He has been merited with numerous awards, including “Nationwide Outstanding Scientific and Technological Worker”, “Top Innovative Talent in the Publicity and Culture System”, “Gansu Province May 1st Labor Medal”, “Excellent Ministry of Culture Expert”, “Outstanding Gansu Province Expert”, and “Gansu Province Advanced Worker”. He was selected as a fellow of the National Hundred–Thousand–Ten Thousand Talents Project and Gansu Province’s Leading Talents Project.

Wang Xudong graduated from Lanzhou University’s College of Earth and Environmental Sciences with a PhD in Geological Engineering. Prior to his tenure as the Director of the Palace Museum, Dr Wang served consecutively as the Deputy Director, Executive Deputy Director and Director of the Dunhuang Academy. His research work has focused primarily on the conservation of caves, ancient mural paintings, and earthen sites, as well as cultural heritage monitoring and early warning systems and preventive conservation. Since 1991, when he began his career in heritage conservation, he has presided over sixty conservation projects at nationally protected key cultural heritage sites, undertaken nearly twenty national, provincial, or ministerial level projects, and presided over or participated as a key member in over ten international collaborative projects with cultural heritage protection and management institutions in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries. As primary author, he has published over thirty academic papers and six monographs, including Key Earthen Site Conservation Technology Research and Normative Research on Ancient Mural Paintings. He has also received over ten national, provincial or ministerial–level science and technology awards, as well as the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation’s Science and Technology Innovation Award. Dr Wang has obtained more than twenty technical patents and led the compilation of five National and Industry Technology Standards. He has been merited with numerous awards, including “Nationwide Outstanding Scientific and Technological Worker”, “Top Innovative Talent in the Publicity and Culture System”, “Gansu Province May 1st Labor Medal”, “Excellent Ministry of Culture Expert”, “Outstanding Gansu Province Expert”, and “Gansu Province Advanced Worker”. He was selected as a fellow of the National Hundred–Thousand–Ten Thousand Talents Project and Gansu Province’s Leading Talents Project.

Yannick Lintz began her career as the Director of the Musée des Beaux–Arts in Agen. Between 2000 and 2002, she was advisor for museums and heritage to Jack Lang, then Minister of Education. She then joined the Louvre Museum in 2003, where she was appointed Head of the Islamic Art Department in 2013, a position she held until her appointment as President of the Guimet–National Museum of Asian Arts, in 2022 by the President of the French Republic, Mr Emmanuel Macron.

She has curated numerous international exhibitions such as “Medieval Morocco”, and “The Splendours of Uzbekistan's Oases” at the Louvre Museum and abroad.

Her involvement in major cultural diplomacy initiatives translated into several large scale and ground–breaking projects with Arab countries, Central Asia and Iran, where she presented “Le Louvre à Téhéran” in 2018. In 2020, she organised a nation–wide event, deployed in 18 French cities, named “Islamic Art: A Past for a Present”. She has also developed an international expertise on Islamic Art Museums advising on their policies, narratives, and educational challenges.

As Guest Professor at the Sorbonne University (Paris, France) and at Senghor University (Alexandria, Egypt), she has taught courses on Museum Management and Heritage Education. She has extensive experience on Endangered Heritage through her previous position as Vice–Chairman of ICOM France from 2000 through 2009.

Dr Lintz is a Knight of the French Order of Merit and of the Legion of Honor as well as an Officer of Arts and Letters. She holds a PhD in Achaemenid History from the Sorbonne University and graduated as General Curator of Heritage.

Veteran technology entrepreneur / investor Yat Siu is a major figure in the open metaverse and blockchain gaming. He is the co–founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, a global leader in blockchain and gaming that is working to provide property rights for virtual assets via NFTs and related technologies. Yat began his career at Atari Germany in 1990. In 1995 he established Hong Kong Cybercity / Freenation, the first free web page and email provider in Asia. In 1998 he set up Outblaze, an award–winning pioneer of multilingual white label web services. In 2009, he sold Outblaze’s messaging unit to IBM, and pivoted Outblaze to become an incubator of projects and companies to develop digital entertainment services and products. One of those incubated projects is Animoca Brands, created in 2014.

Since 2018, Yat has been an advocate for the use of blockchain and NFTs in the gaming industry. With a strong vision of the potential of decentralised apps and assets, Yat quickly steered Animoca Brands to a leadership position in the open metaverse: the company has one of the largest blockchain portfolios in the world.

Yat has earned numerous accolades, including Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum, Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the DHL / SCMP Awards, and recognition as one of Cointelegraph's top 100 notable people in blockchain. A classically trained musician, Yat is a member of the advisory board of BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and a director of the Asian Youth Orchestra.