Speaker Details
William So
Former President, China Unicom (Europe)
William So graduated from Imperial College London in 1981 and began his professional career with IBM. He held various management positions with IBM China and IBM Hong Kong until 1993 before moving on to become the Managing Director of a subsidiary of Lenovo based in Austria. From 1996, Mr So continued his career in Beijing, helping Western companies develop joint ventures in China. Within a 4-year period, he established a Sino-US joint venture, a European Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise (WOFE), and a Foreign-Foreign Joint Venture in China. He also managed these joint ventures as General Manager, engaging in satellite communications and telecom equipment manufacturing in China.
Mr So commenced his career with China Netcom Group, a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise, in 2000 as the Head of International Operations. The company later merged with part of China Telecom, and later with China Unicom, thereby becoming one of the largest full telecom service providers in China. He held strategic management positions at the company headquarters in Beijing until 2007, when he was transferred to Hong Kong as the CEO for Asian and Middle East operations. In 2008, Mr So came to London as President of China Unicom (Europe) to oversee the group's operations in both Europe and Africa.
