Founder, Crayfish.io Ting is an experienced speaker on China and has published on various aspects of China business issues. She has featured on BBC World Service, CGTN, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and Cambridge 105, and in the Daily Telegraph, South China Morning Star, China Daily, Cambridge News, Cambridge Independent, Business Weekly and Business Leader magazine.
Expertise: UK|China Trade, China inbound and outbound investment, Chinese business communication, deal negotiation, market entry strategy, sales and distribution, technology transfer, sourcing, China recruitment and HR.
Known as “the Go-to Person for China”, Ting Zhang has 25+ years’ experience of UK-China international business, trade and investment.
She first came to the UK to study at the University of Cambridge before pursuing a career in investment banking in the City of London. But, as early as 2001, she foresaw the growing business opportunities between the UK and China, and quit her job as a banker to set up her own consultancy - during which time she provided strategic input to both UK and European government agencies on their China strategies, was a China Venture Partner for leading European VC firm, Prime Ventures as well as an advisor to Lord Wei of Shoreditch, and personally coached many leading British entrepreneurs, guiding them through the complexities and culture of doing business with China.
It wasn’t until 2017 that Ting finally realised her dream of finding a more efficient and affordable way of facilitating international trade with China when she launched Crayfish.io - the first online full-service platform dedicated to Chinese-speaking business services and building connections with China, powered by online platform technology. The innovative platform helps to facilitate cross-border collaborations such as market entry, translation, recruitment, IP, cultural expertise and digital marketing – and, as reported by China Daily at the time of its launch, is “the first of its kind in the world”.
Crayfish.io’s typical target audience is made up of startups and scaleups with an interest in doing business with China – and, in September 2019, Crayfish.io went on to launch the UK’s first ever fully funded Accelerator programme aimed at helping ambitious early-stage UK tech startups (within the medical devices, advanced manufacturing, new materials, ICT, IoT, semiconductors and consumer electronics sectors) get China-ready with a combination of seed equity and handholding. The initiative is now backed by two Chinese anchor investors, UK-China Enterprise Fund and Shenzen-based DB Investment Management Ltd (DBI).