Shanghai, April 3rd, 2018

On March 13th, 2018, nearly 30 participants coming from German business community in Shanghai and neighboring cities attended the two-hours evening event jointly organized by German Chamber Shanghai (GC Shanghai) and China Controlling Online Community (CCOC) / ICV China. For CCOC/ICV China, it is the first “joint event” organized in close co-operation with GC Shanghai.

The event took place in the meeting room of GC Shanghai. As co-organizer of the event, Dr. Zhen Huang, managing partner of Shanghai De Chen Enterprise Management Consulting Co. Ltd, and co-leader of ICV Working Group China East, introduced China Controlling Online Community and ICV China to the audience through a brief presentation at the beginning of the event. After that, two VIP speakers shared their views and insights for risk management and controlling in China with the audience.

The first VIP speaker of the evening was Mr. Bernd Pichler, Chief Marketing Officer at ICONIQ Motors and member of the Board of Management in this EV Start-Up since January 2018. Mr. Pichler has in-depth knowledge and knowhow in automotive business both as controller and non-controller, as he has worked as controller, CFO and senior executive responsible for finance & controlling as well as for sales and marketing in leading international automotive brands for decades. In his highly informative and interesting presentation, he outlined the future trends of the automotive industry which can be described with the term “C-A-S-E-D” (C for Connected, A for Autonomous, S for Shared Mobility, E for Eletric, D for Digital). Cyber-security will also become more and more important. In his view, traditional risk management practiced in most companies will not suffice to survive in this rapid changing business environment. All businesses should rethink their strategy and business model and adopt their risk management practice to the future world of business.

The second VIP speaker of the evening was Mr. Philipp Senff, Partner at the law firm CMS China specializing on compliance risk management. His presentation was more focused on compliance risks existing in the daily business in China. Based on small case study in sales and purchasing function, he emphasized the importance of compliance risk management for doing business in China and the personal liability of CEO and CFO for compliance risk management in their local companies. To reduce the risk of personal liability, CEOs and CFOs should take actions in at least four fields: 1) Increasing transparency, e.g. through background check of business partners, business reviews, and compliance audits; 2) Enhancing prevention, e.g. by introducing code of conduct, contract standards and negotiation guidelines as well as restructuring relevant decision-making processes in procurement and/or sales; 3) Whistleblower allegations and internal investigations based on company policies for reporting, IT and compliance management, 4) Establishing “red lines” between the compliant conduct of the company and the non-compliant behavior of the staff.

The evening event was moderated by Mr. Alexander Prautzsch, tax director at China tax & business advisory services of PwC and facilitator of the German Chamber Finance & Controlling Workshop Series in Shanghai.


Last modified: Tuesday, 19 December 2023, 10:42 PM