Who We Are
IMA Asia runs peer group forums for senior MNC executives managing Asia/Pacific operations. Live forums run in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore with a virtual forum for worldwide executives. Our forum discussions focus on the best way to build strong businesses in Asia by sharing first-hand experience and insights. The debates are supported by our country analysis and guest contributions by leading consultants and analysts from across Asia.
Executive peer group forums in Asia’s key markets
Market analysis & business strategy insights
Asia Pacific economic and political outlooks
Growth forecasting and market entry guidance
Our background
International Market Assessment (IMA) was founded in Australia by Richard Martin in 1990 to provide peer group forums for CEOs of foreign MNCs in Australia and for Australian-based executives managing Asia. Prior to that Richard had been based in Hong Kong and Singapore for a decade working for Business International (BI), a pioneer of executive forums in Asia, and The Economist Group, which acquired BI in 1985. In 1993, Richard was a founding director of IMA India, a company launched and owned by Adit Jain. In 1999, the Australian-focused forums were spun off and eventually sold to the Corporate Executive Board (now part of Gartner).
From 1990, IMA represented The Economist Corporate Network and EIU until 2006 when the Economist Group exited country forums in Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Pakistan (in the process, losing in-country expertise and ties with some 3,000+ executives across Asia). IMA was renamed IMA Asia and expanded forum sessions across Asia from 2007 with IMA Asia companies established in Singapore (2007), Hong Kong (2009), and Shanghai (2015).
In 2026, IMA Asia will transition to a Singapore headquartered partnership with Jonathan Shyu, Jane Yan, and Is Smith joining Richard Martin as founding partners.
How we work
The main value in a peer group lies in listening to the executives who sit beside you. They run major businesses across Asia. They can tell you what’s happening in their markets weeks before the media might mention an issue or months before a consultant might write a slide deck. They are negotiating with governments, building teams and facilities, and driving results. Ultimately, all our debates come down to the tactics and strategies for building strong Asian businesses.
To ensure our forums work membership is only open to peers. For our CEO Forums that means only the CEO of China or of Asia attends. We also run forums specifically for CFOs and for direct reports to the Asia or China head (typically heads of strategy, HR, BUs, and marketing).
We also ensure that the insights come from around the table rather than from the front of the room. Most of the time in our meetings is given over to debate, with our session chairs drawing in everyone. The insights from guest speakers inform rather than dominate discussions.
A forum member can also list four executives anywhere in the world for our Executive Team Support (ETS) service, which ensures members get value from membership even if their work or travel schedule prevents attendance at meetings. We invite ETS members to appropriate live or video peer group sessions, send them all our papers and market analysis, and help them through our call-up support service. We monitor program utilization and where needed arrange 1-on-1 catchups in a member’s office. We also provide in-house briefings (live and virtual), which many forum members use during their planning cycle.
Forum members are also welcome to sit in on sessions in other cities when travelling.
Our forum members
Our forum membership is approximately 35% US firms, 40% European, with the rest from Japan, Australia, and elsewhere. Manufacturers and service firms both account for some 40% of members with the remainder involved in both activities. The manufacturing industries represented run from materials through IT equipment, FMCG & luxury goods, automotive, shipbuilding, and capital goods. The service industries represented run from entertainment and gaming through healthcare to finance.
Related Forums
We’ve worked with the following forums for decades. Our forum members are welcome to sit in on sessions when travelling to these markets (contract us to arrange). It’s a great way to quickly gather market insights.
India – IMA India has run peer group forums in six cities across India since 1993 with some 2,000 members (www.ima-india.com).
Indonesia – CastleAsia has run the Indonesia Country Program in Jakarta since the 1980s (www.castleasia.com).
Our team
The IMA Asia team have been working together on Asia for decades. In 1981, Richard Martin, Mark Michelson (our Forum chair, HK), and Rick Payne (our Asia editor) worked together in the HK office of Business International. In the following years Mark and Rick led regional businesses in public affairs and HR before returning to work with Richard at IMA Asia in the last decade. Over those decades we’ve worked with several generations of leadership at major MNCs in Asia. Our GMs, forum directors, and administrative leaders have been with IMA for a decade or more with extensive experience in delivering top-level forums in Asia.
Our Forum Advisory Board
The Forum Advisory Board assists forum members with discussions and briefings for visitors from HQ. Our board members also take part in forum sessions either as chairs or as contributors to the debates. Board members have been chosen because of their prior leadership roles for major MNCs in Asia (most were prior members of one of our CEO programs) or because they’ve played an outstanding role in exploring Asian strategy as professors. They bring an invaluable perspective to our debates and to HQ briefings.
Team profiles
Richard Martin, Managing Director (Singapore)
Richard has over four decades of experience in market analysis and peer group forums in Asia. From 1981, he served as the Asia research head for Business International (BI) running several dozen projects each year on China’s emerging market, regional market opportunities, and competitive strategies for Asia.
From 1986, he served as the Southeast Asia director for the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). During his time, he set up the regional office in Singapore, ran Government Roundtables around Asia, and coordinated CEO briefing programs in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In 1990, Richard founded IMA, which launched the CEO Forum in Australia and in 1992 he was a founding director of IMA India, which now operates in six cities across India with over 2,000 members. In his current role he leads IMA’s market forecasting work and manages the IMA businesses in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Dr. Claudia Suessmuth Dyckerhoff (Switzerland)
Claudia joined IMA’s Forum Advisory Board in 2018 while based in Shanghai. She brings a wealth of experience in corporate strategy, operational excellence, and organisational expertise, combined with a detailed understanding of Asia’s markets, particularly for healthcare.
Based in Switzerland, she is a non-executive board member for Roche, Clarinet, and Ramsay Healthcare, and works with two start-ups in Asia. She remains a Senior External Advisor to McKinsey & Company, a firm she joined in 1995. In her two decades with the firm, she worked in Europe, the US, and China, becoming a Partner (2001) and Director (2010). From 2006-21, she was based in China and was McKinsey’s Sector Leader for Asia Health Services & Systems (2011-2016).Claudia studied Business Administration at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland as well as at ESADE, Barcelona where she graduated with an MBA. She also holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of St.Gallen/University of Michigan Ann Arbor.
Daryoush Ziai (Shanghai)
Daryoush Ziai is a seasoned global executive with over 30 years of leadership in the industrial and building technologies sectors. Most recently, he served as CEO of Schindler Group’s China business and head of its global escalator division, overseeing over $2 billion in revenue and leading a major transformation toward digitally enabled services, sustainability, and operational excellence. He also served on the boards of Schindler’s joint ventures in China—XJ-Schindlerand Volkslift-Schindler—focused on the mass market segment, complementing the premium positioning of the Schindler brand.
Under his leadership, Schindler China was recognised forESG innovation and green technologies by both the Chinese government and HBR China. Prior to Schindler, Daryoush held senior leadership roles at Otis Elevator and Carrier Corporation, where he led Carrier’s Commercial Refrigeration Business across Asia and the Middle East, turning around a $300 million operation, and later managed the $700 million Carrier Middle East business from Dubai. He began his career at Otis as a field operations trainee and later led OtisChina’s service operations, overseeing a portfolio of 250,000 units. Known for his strategic thinking, customer focus, and integrity, Daryoush holds degrees in Civil Engineering and an MBA from Purdue University.
Mark Michelson, CEO Forum chair (Hong Kong)
Mark has an unrivalled knowledge of public affairs management in Asia. Over the last 40 years he has helped leading MNCs on strategies for government relations, corporate communications, and market entry in Asia.From 2004 to 2008, he was Associate Director-General for Investment Promotion at Invest Hong Kong, the investment promotion department of the Hong Kong government.
His prior roles were Vice Chairman forAPCO Asia, Managing Director for Warren Williams International, and Director of Japan and North Asia programs for Business International (from 1980) and The Economist Group (from 1985). He served as the 1996 Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, then the largest American chamber outside of North America. He has also been a member of three Hong Kong Government committees, including theServices Promotion Strategy Group, chaired by the Financial Secretary
Michael Enright (USA)
Called “one of the world’s reigning strategy gurus” by the Academy of International Business, Michael is a leading expert on competitiveness, regional economic development, and international business strategy.
Michael joined the University of Hong Kong asSun Hung Kai Professor of Business Administration in 1996 after six years as a professor at the Harvard Business School, where he helped to found the modern school of competitiveness analysis. He is a principal of Enright, Scott & Associates, a firm specialising in strategic consulting for governments and major corporations.
He also directs the Asia-Pacific Competitiveness Program at the Hong Kong Institute for Economics and Business Strategy and was a founding director of TheCompetitiveness Institute. Michael’s work on competitiveness and on the economies of Hong Kong and China has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the Far Eastern Economic, Financial Times, and the Wall StreetJournal among others
Monila Kothari (Singapore)
Monila Kothari held the role of President APAC at Givaudan Taste and Wellbeing from 2011 to2022 and has been the Head of Marketing and Innovation of APAC as well a Managing Director ofSouth Asia in her previous roles. Her experience is across diverse industry sectors from specialty chemicals, consumer products to Pharma in multinational and local environments.
She is known for her developing markets expertise in building and supporting the growth strategy and harnessing digital to drive growth and customer success. She has driven innovation by building the organization, processes and culture to drive APAC specific innovation. Lastly talent management and succession planning has been an area close to her heart, and she brings expertise in building structures to have strategic impact. She is an IDP-C from INSEAD (Certificate in Corporate Governance), holds a Bachelor’s in Pharmacy and an MBA fromMumbai University. She is a Senior Accredited Member of the Singapore Institute of Directors.
Pierre E. Cohade, CEO Forum chair (Shanghai)
Pierreis IMA’s CEO Forum chair in China. He has lived and worked on four continents, building and leading multi-billion dollars businesses, in many cases after turning them around.Until recently the Chief ExecutiveOfficer of Triangle Tyre, China largest privately-owned tyre business. Pierre has also been a Senior Advisor toChinaVest, Wells Fargo’s Investment Bank affiliate in China.
Cohade was formerly the President of GoodyearAsia Pacific. Between 2004 and 2011 he led the turnaround, repositioning, and rapid expansion of this critical part of the company, and delivered 23 quarters of record financial performances. The business community elected Cohade governor of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai from 2006 to 2010. Pierre joinedIBLAC, Shanghai Mayor’s advisory council, as an Observer in 2007 and was named Overseas Economic Advisor to the Mayor of Dalian in 2009.
Pranav Kumar (India)
Pranav has worked in the business advisory and intelligence industry in Asia Pacific for three decades. Between1996-2015, he worked with IMA Asia’s sister firm in India developing their executive peer-group forums into the largest and most successful network of business leaders in the country. Pranav contributed across the business, including advisory, publications, conferences, and peer-group development. He was also editor ofCFO Connect, India’s first and leading magazine for CFOs.
Prior working withIMA India, Pranav was ResearchDirector then Vice President at Gartner, the leading technology firm. There, he led their Research Board, a service for technology leaders of the largest and most complex firms in Asia Pacific, responsible for managing its global research agenda. Pranav has also worked with Intel, The Hindu Business Line (a leading business newspaper), IMRB (a market research agency) and eGurocool (a pioneer in eLearning).Pranav holds degrees inEconomics and Engineering from BITS, Pilani, one of India’s top universities, in addition to an MBA in marketing.
Scott Beaumont (Singapore)
Scott Beaumont (Singapore) Scott Beaumont joined our Advisory Board in January after a 30 year career in technology, including founding his own mobile software start-up and, ultimately, 16 rich years at Google.From 2013, based fromShanghai, he led the turnaround of Google’s presence in Greater China, adding Korea to this portfolio in 2016. Scott then took on the role of Asia-Pacific President fromMarch 2019, based from Singapore. As a consequence, Scott brings with him broad experience of the region, including deep knowledge of technology’s potential and contribution to society including, of course, artificial intelligence.
Scott is a highly regarded leader, both for his ability to build high performing teams across markets and cultures, but also for his ability to engage with and influence remote headquarters
Rick Payne
Bio Needed
Vivek Chhabra (Singapore)
Vivek has close to four decades’ experience as a Regional Director South Asia and as CEO in ASEAN where he led the turnaround of the USD 700m loss-making soft drinks business.
Vivek was also the CFO of Thai Beverage’s USD 4bn Beer business and was earlier the Asia CFO and Regional Business Development Director in Heineken-APB where he completed more than 20 M&A transactions exceeding USD 1bn across Asia Pacific.
Vivek has lived in Singapore, India, Thailand, Vietnam, and in the Oceania region. Vivek serves as an advisor toseveral firms including PE-owned businesses across Asia and Africa
Yihao Zhang
Yihao Zhang served as the global executive vice president and CEO of GE Healthcare China from 2019 to July 2025, overseeing strategy, implementation, and operations in the Chinese market. Previously, Yihao held various positions at Danaher Corporation from 2003 to 2019, including president, vice president and general manager of the Dental Products Business Platform for Greater China and the Asia Pacific region. Prior experiences include positions at P&G and TRW in the United States in brand management and finance.
Yihao was formerly vice chairman of the Advanced Medical Technology Association in China and received the Shanghai “Magnolia Silver Award” in 2021. Yihao holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics from Ohio Wesleyan University and dual master’s degrees in business administration and engineering management from Northwestern University.