Dr. Christina Yan Zhang

Christina is an award-winning leader with 17 years’ experience turning visionary ideas into business success. She has extensive experience working with UN leaders, government ministers, universities presidents, and Fortune 500 CEOs on innovation. She worked for QS, the world university rankings agency, between 2013 and 2020, as China Director. Starting from scratch, she grew the UK-headquartered firm’s success in China. In January 2016, China’s Vice Premier highlighted the use of QS rankings in a speech, with the rankings impacting 5 years funding allocations to 3005 universities with 48 million students, and a budget of £750bn.As an independent candidate, Christina was the first Chinese elected to the national executive of the UK National Union of Students since 1922, and represented the interests of one million international students studying at 600 UK higher and further education institutions who contribute £30bn a year to the UK economy.