our team

senior team

Philippa Jones,  founding partner, managing editor

A regulatory and trade policy specialist, Philippa set up CHINA POLICY in Beijing in 2011. Supported by a team of some 15 analysts, she advises public, private and non-profit clients across the company’s sectoral coverage, from macroeconomy through ag, scitech and energy to education and health. She bases her practice on a long-term, wide-angle vision of Beijing's policy trajectory, bringing cross-sectoral synthesis to emerging issues. She also leads the European Commission's PRC legislative and regulatory monitoring project, EUCLERA, a position she has held since 2015. After 20 years in Beijing, Philippa returned to Australia at the outset of COVID. 

From 2004 to 2009, Philippa was a senior advisor at the EU-China Trade Project (EUCTP) in Beijing. At the time, the project was the EU’s largest trade-related technical assistance program globally. Philippa led the agriculture, quarantine, quality, and standards programs, overseeing standards issues across all sectors with a focus on risk and safety. As an expert witness, she has been on the winning side in several agricultural trade cases.

Before her tenure at the EUCTP, Philippa was a member of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. From 1999 to 2003, she served as a trade policy specialist at Beijing’s Australian Embassy, a time of regulatory watershed in the PRC. 

Philippa holds an honours degree in Chinese and economics from the University of Oxford.

 

David Kelly, founding partner, senior associate

David is a founding partner at China Policy. He set up the framework that defines the company approach: not only does he believe in exploring and analysing policy issues but also in investigating the people and agencies that drive them. The company continues to leverage the competency of the PRC policy community’ despite the ideological settings that we must navigate.

David’s current focus is on the global impact of PRC domestic policy settings, not least the ‘game of interests’—Beijing’s code for the ever-shifting tug-of-war between state and market, centre and region, city and hinterland, Party and people. 

Taking a PhD in Chinese history from Sydney University, David held a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Chicago. He has taught at the University of New South Wales and Peking University, holding research positions at the Australian National University and The National University of Singapore. Notable publications include Marxism in the Post-Mao Era with Bill Brugger (Stanford U.P., 1991) and Asian Freedoms, co-edited with Anthony Reid (Cambridge U.P., 1996), plus scores of academic papers.

 

Erlend Ek, research strategy and energy lead

 
Erlend’s focus is on the macro-level synthesis of economic and social policies, particularly in the foundational sectors of energy, industry, agriculture, and trade—bedrocks of the political economy. Decoding the intricate interplay between resource allocation and societal needs, he navigates the dynamics between growth and equity, development and sustainability. Central to his analysis is the exploration of the social contract and institutional setups both domestically and internationally, examining how these frameworks shape economic outcomes.

 

our analysts include

Matthew Nichol, senior analyst and project lead

Matthew specialises in analysing the intersection of policy, trade, and industry, with a focus on agriculture, sustainability, and modernisation. With over a decade of China experience, including six years running his own consultancy in Shanghai, he has advised clients ranging from foreign-owned start-ups to local government bureaus. At CHINA POLICY, Matthew leads cross-portfolio research projects, decoding regulatory shifts and stakeholder dynamics to deliver actionable insights. His Master’s research at SOAS on post-industrial urban revitalisation, awarded with distinction, informs his analysis of sectoral trends and transformations shaping China’s policy-driven economy.

 

Wang Zimeiyi, lead analyst agriculture

 
Meiyi is an expert in the PRC agricultural sector, combining academic success with boots-on-the-ground field experience. Her professional focus lies at the intersection of policy, technology and agribusiness, with an emphasis on Beijing's food security strategy and its far-reaching implications for domestic agricultural policies and international trade dynamics. She has a keen interest in emerging digital technologies in the agrifood industry, with a focus on leveraging big data for actionable insights in agribusiness decision-making. With an MA in public policy from Cornell University, she offers expert advice to international clients on the latest developments in PRC agricultural regulation and their impact on global agribusiness.

 

Alex Wong, analyst macroeconomy and trade

 
Alex focuses on the PRC’s external economic engagement, especially on how the country is ratcheting up trade and investment measures to serve its industry and economy against intensifying geopolitics and trade frictions. He follows policy trends in this regard and unpacks Beijing’s moves in realigning its trade flows–not least via diversifying trade with partners and re-negotiating new trade rules. Alex holds an MA from the Geneva Graduate Institute where he researched WTO affairs and international organisations.

 

Selena Guo, analyst social policy 

 
Selena brings experience in journalism and policy consulting to our team. She focuses on China’s social policy, especially the intersection between education, healthcare, and technology and how they intertwine to respond to China’s demographic shift and other prominent issues regarding social justice and gender equality. In this role, she investigates how the PRC’s increasing focus on technology-driven growth polarises employment opportunities, drives development of the silver economy, and reshapes educational priorities. Selena is a recipient of the Schwarzman Scholarship where she researched China’s foreign relations at Tsinghua University. 

 

Kalos Lau, analyst governance and law 

 
 
Kalos brings a strong foundation in political science to understanding the PRC's contemporary governance landscape. He focuses on domestic governance and reform, particularly examining how Party theory, institutional arrangements, and policy directives shape broader development trajectories. In this role, he analyses the evolution of top-level coordination mechanisms and their influence on administrative organs and social organisation. Kalos is currently undertaking an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford.
 

 

management and partnerships

Ekaterina Kuroedova, Strategy and Digital Transformation Director

Ekaterina guides the company’s digital transformation, leading the integration of AI and LLM technologies across core operations while managing broad data analytics initiatives. She also leads new product development—this website is her latest project. Consolidating tens of thousands of records and reengineering the search function was a character-building task, delivering an unrivalled resource. She is the go-to for clients getting a feel for its new features, guiding them through the terrain it opens up.

Prior to moving to an IT role, Ekaterina’s research focused on China’s multilateral trade agreements and WTO compliance, key industrial initiatives such as Made in China 2025, and geopolitical initiatives like ‘Belt and Road’. Holding BA and MA degrees in international economics and trade from the Harbin Institute of Technology, she studied country risk analysis and geopolitical scenario planning at Maastricht University.

 

Brodie Paul, partnerships director

With over two decades living in the PRC Brodie brings on-the-ground China business experience to our client partnership team.

Brodie is responsible for our sub-national government and industry association practice. CHINA POLICY’S approach excels at providing the wide-ranging PRC coverage—from macro economy and agriculture, to hydrogen policy and environment, to health and education etc— critical to informed engagement by the public sector and large organisations. Helping them up-skill their understanding of current PRC policy, he guides them on the best use of CHINA POLICY content and how to link the dots between PRC policy and its local impact. 

Growing up in Hong Kong, Brodie studied in the US and Taiwan before winning a Princeton University fellowship to Dalian University of Technology, finishing his studies at Fudan University, and working in business for over a decade in logistics and finance. On returning to Australia he brought his Shanghai experience to the Queensland State Government’s Greater China Desk following with a stint in private practice advising publicly listed companies on PRC media and regulations.