ASIA CEO Community

Winnie has 20 years of work experience in London and China, of which 10 years within the capacity of CFO, COO and advisor in the Education sector in Asia. She was with Pearson Asia between 2009 to 2014, first as the Director of Financial Planning and Analysis for Asia Pacific (2009-2011) and then moved on to be CFO for Greater China (2011-2014). During her time at Pearson, she has supported the business in various efficiency improvement initiatives including outsourcing of accounting and procurement functions to Dalian and Bangalore, pricing analysis, product SKU rationalization, pan-China Oracle system roll-out. She has also led and successfully completed acquisition of Global Education, leading overseas study test preparation company in China. Winnie then moved on to be the CFO for Education International Cooperation (EIC), the largest Overseas Study Consulting company in China. EIC was majority owned by CVC Capital Partners. It has operations in 4 countries and 35 cities around the world. During her time at EIC, Winnie had proven track record of improving reporting accuracy, financial planning and analysis quality, and has led a tax planning exercise resulting in a tax saving of RMB40m per annum for EIC. She has also led and completed the acquisition and integration of New Pathway (a premium consulting firm in China). helped shareholders in the debt refinancing and dividend distribution exercise. CVC has successfully completed the exit of EIC at end of 2016. Other education experience of Winnie included COO at British Education (operator of Wycombe Abbey International School in China), advisor to private equity firms in various education deals in Asia. Prior to joining the education sector, Winnie worked as a Strategy Consultant at Andersen, Bain and Company. She was also Strategy Manager for Sainsbury plc. She spent her first ten years of career in London. Winnie is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. She has a B.Sc. degree in Econometrics at Bath University in the UK.