Professor Charles Zhang Accepts an Exclusive Interview with Humanitarian Affairs Asia, Focusing on Internationalized Talent Cultivation | Info

Release time：2024-05-16    

Recently, Charles Zhang, Deputy Dean of Academics at FISF and Professor in Finance, accepted an exclusive interview with Humanitarian Affairs Asia to talk about the original aspiration and vision of FISF on internationalized talent cultivation and focus on the deep motive, strategic planning and specific measures of FISF in cultivating students’ global competence. As early as January 2024, FISF has carefully selected and fully supported 13 distinguished student representatives to participate in the Third Global Peace Summit hosted by Humanitarian Affairs Asia, discussing global peace topics together with elite students worldwide.

In the interview, Professor Charles Zhang elaborated that the core mission of FISF exists to cultivate leaders equipped with social responsibilities. He stressed the noble responsibilities that FISF has been shouldering: to lay a solid skill foundation for students and to continuously provide driving forces for progress, dedicating itself to pushing them to grow into outstanding leaders with global influence in their respective fields. He further pointed out that participating in international activities like the global peace summit could not only offer students a precious platform to exchange ideas with experts all over the world but also grant them a chance to get acquainted with like-minded peers and thus work together to contribute to the construction of a better world.

Student representative participating in the 3rd Global Peace Summit taking a group photo

Introduction of the professor

Charles Zhang

Deputy Dean of Academics at FISF

Professor in Finance

Director of Fintech Research Center

HAA

What inspired you to support students from Fudan International School of Finance to attend international events like the Global Peace Summit? 

Core to the mission of our school is fostering a culture of social responsibility and cultivating future leaders who focus on impact (over income) and who are equipped and motivated to be global leaders in their space. We believe each of these is consistent with the goals of the Global Peace Summit. 

The challenges faced by this generation of future leaders are global in nature and require vision and cooperation to address. Our students not only learned from experts from around the world but also had the opportunity, perhaps more importantly, to interact with other like-minded young people, sharing views and perspectives. We feel so privileged and thankful to have been invited to this year’s event and hope it will develop into a cornerstone of our educational plan.

FISF student representatives having a discussion with representatives from other countries

HAA

As a leading institution in China, can you share with us what other key initiatives that Fudan International School of Finance is undertaking to promote global citizenship among its students? How do these initiatives align with the school’s broader mission and objectives？

Our school was founded within our university to follow the highest global standards of business education, drawing on the experience of our faculty and leadership from top universities all around the world. The word “International” is in the name of our school, and this is a principle we take very seriously, from the language used in our programs to our faculty, to our curriculum and pedagogy. 

International outreach and education are a required part of our learning plan, including compulsory outbound modules, overseas internships, our international recruitment of students, and partnerships and degree interactions with other top schools from around the world. Our programs and students run annual events and conferences with scholars from around the world, too. Fudan University has a long-standing commitment to this mission of global education, outreach, and impact. FISF is a natural extension to that, with our mission being perhaps further crystalized and intentional. 

An FISF student representative questioning the guest speaker during the seminar session

HAA

In your opinion, how can the finance industry and finance students play a role in addressing pressing global challenges such as poverty, inequality, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals? What specific actions or strategies do you believe are most effective in leveraging financial expertise for positive social impact on a global scale? 

Finance is key to resource allocation and should play a key role in addressing global challenges. The flow of capital is already global in nature, and financial inclusion is a core part of the UN SDGs. By providing new knowledge and strategies in areas ranging from micro-finance to global macroeconomics to digital finance to fintech banking and credit, our school seeks to equip tomorrow's leaders with the tools necessary to play an important part. 

For example, fintech is a required part of the curriculum at all levels of study. Here, we discuss how online banking can reach the unbanked in cost-effective, sustainable ways impossible in the brick-and-mortar world. We discuss how under-developed capital markets can make use of distributed ledger technologies to provide basic financial services to the displaced, such as access to payment and credit. We discuss how big data and AI can help us evaluate investments better, allowing us to extend capital tools to emerging markets and small enterprises. As we transition out of a financial model dominated by the largest economies and financial institutions into one with unprecedented democratization, technology and new modes of finance will play a pivotal role.

Still, perhaps most important is communicating how interconnected the world has become; how what is best for me equates to what is best for us all. We take a holistic approach to inspire in our students a sense of joint destiny and the role they may play not just in their own lives and communities, but in the whole world. Incredible opportunities like the Global Peace Summit provide us with critical tools to that end.

FISF teacher and student representatives taking a group photo