Syaru Shirley Lin

Syaru Shirley Lin is a nonresident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and the Compton Visiting Professor in World Politics at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. She is an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and chairs the Asia-Pacific Hub of the Commission on Reform for Resilience, which is reviewing the response to the COVID pandemic. Her research and teaching focus on cross-Strait relations, international and comparative political economy, as well as challenges facing the high-income societies in East Asia. She is the author of “Taiwan’s China Dilemma: Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy” (Stanford University Press, 2016) which was also published in Chinese in 2019. Her book highlights the linkage between national identity and foreign economic policy and analyzes the implications for Taiwan’s future relationship with China. She is now writing a book on five East Asian economies caught in the high-income trap, all of which are facing problems including inequality, demographic decline, financialization, outdated education systems, and the need for further technological innovation. Her analysis and commentary frequently appear in English and Chinese media.

She was the youngest woman partner as well as one of the first Asian partners of Goldman Sachs, where she led the firm’s investment efforts in Asia, managing private equity and venture capital investments in 12 countries and setting up its Tokyo operation. She spearheaded the firm’s investments in technology start-ups in Asia, making it one of the earliest and most successful investors in China. In that capacity, she led the first round of institutional investments in Alibaba and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. Prior to her work in private equity and venture capital, she specialized in the privatization of state-owned enterprises in China and Singapore.

Shirley has served on the boards of numerous private and public companies and currently serves as a director of Goldman Sachs Asia Bank and Langham Hospitality Investments. Appointed by the Hong Kong government, she serves on the Hong Kong Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation and is also a director of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, which supports the development and adoption of new therapeutic medical technologies. She is also senior advisor to Taiwan’s Talent Circulation Alliance, an initiative to promote Taiwan as a hub for talent for the region and the world.

A native of Taipei, Shirley has been a resident of Hong Kong for three decades. Shirley graduated, cum laude, from Harvard College and has also studied and worked in Tokyo and Madrid. After retiring from Goldman Sachs, she earned her masters and doctorate from the University of Hong Kong and launched a new career as a scholar, policy analyst, and corporate and non-profit director.

Affiliations:
American Association for Chinese Studies, board member
Crestview Partners, senior advisor
Focused Ultrasound Foundation, board member
Goldman Sachs Asia Bank, independent non-executive board member
Hong Kong Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, member
Langham Hospitality Investments, independent non-executive board member
Talent Circulation Alliance, senior advisor