Professor Yang Chen-ning, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist of world renown with strong connections in Beijing, has set himself a mission: to boost mainland science.
Though a United States citizen, he is strongly aware of his roots and feels a responsibility to help his ancestral homeland develop technologically.
He was honoured by a US university in 1995 for being a 'major scientific thinker of the 20th century [with] towering influence in being the de facto cultural liaison between his adopted country, the United States, and his beloved native land, China'.
Professor Yang won the Nobel Prize in 1957 for showing that the spin of elementary particles shatters a previously accepted physical law.
So his scientific credentials are world-class. But as a theoretical physicist who has spent his career in academia, he seems an odd choice to head a group looking at how to build high-technology businesses.
Professor Yang is highly regarded in the mainland, where he has met leaders including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and officials involved with the Hong Kong handover.