Yi Zhao

Yi Zhao, Ph.D. is the Vice President of Futurewei Technologies Inc., the North America subsidiary of Huawei Technologies, Ltd. headquartered in Shenzhen, China. As its first employee, Dr. Zhao assisted the parent company in successfully establishing the subsidiary organization in Plano, Texas. During his carrier in Futurewei, Dr. Zhao has been in charge of company’s operation, research and development, sales and marketing, industry standards, as well as the company’s public and industry relations. Dr. Zhao has more than twenty years experience in telecommunications and IT industries. Prior to joining Futurewei, Dr. Zhao worked for research institutes (Shanghai Jiao Tong University and The University of Texas at Dallas) and major corporations — Hewlett Packard and Ericsson — in various technical and managerial positions.

Dr. Zhao is a National Council Member of the Chinese Institute of Engineers (CIE/USA, www.cie-usa.org), served as President of CIE/USA-DFW in 2000 and the Chairman of the Board of CIE/USA-DFW in 2001. Dr. Zhao also served as the President of Association of Chinese Professionals (ACP/USA-DFW, www.acpdfw.com) in 1997.

Dr. Zhao is currently a member of Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations (www.dallascfr.org), a board director for Metroplex Technology Business Council (MTBC, www.metroplextbc.org) and a member of the Board of Directors of the DFW Asian American Citizens Council (www.dfwaacc.org), and serves as industry advisors to the Eric Johnson Engineering School in the University of Texas at Dallas (www.utd.edu), and the Greater Dallas Asian American Chamber of Commerce (www.gdaacc.com).

As a board member of the International Business Advisory Council for the Greater Dallas Chamber (GDC, www.gdc.org), Dr. Zhao helped the GDC establish the relationship with China and organized the GDC’s first-ever trade mission to China. Jointly with the efforts from Texas Instruments, Dr. Zhao initiated the ShenZhen – Dallas project and made two cities become partnership cities in 2004.

Dr. Zhao has served in the board for numbers of forums and committees in telecommunications industry and been frequently invited to speak to various industry and business forums in the US and China.