Phylicia Wu

This article is part of the “Perspectives in Private Equity” series. In a dynamic and often unpredictable geopolitical environment, private equity funds must pay ever closer attention to the actions and intentions of governments and policymakers around the world. The past 12 months have been characterized by evolving policy positions and fast-changing cross-border trading relationships, impacting business models and investment theses for institutional investors.

The key to long-term success in the fashion industry is to start trends and continually push the envelope — a philosophy that also applies to its ESG priorities. The $2.5 trillion industry accounts for about 8 percent of the world’s carbon emissions when considering the entire value chain — higher than the entire iron and steel manufacturing industry combined, for comparison. Without any intervention, that figure is projected to increase more than 60 percent by 2030.

By Phylicia Wu Financial technology, colloquially known as fintech, is the underlying infrastructure of recent global headlines—bitcoin’s dramatic ebbs and flows, the proliferation of mobile bike-sharing, and the growing issues of micro lending in China. It is ubiquitous in China, and a number of Chinese companies dominate the space including Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.