Mr. Steve Champion,
President,
Taiwan
Greater China Fund
Steven
R. Champion was recently appointed President, Chief Executive Officer,
and portfolio manager for the Taiwan Greater China Fund (the new name
of The R.O.C. – Taiwan Fund.)
Prior to this, Mr. Champion was Chief Investment Officer at Aetna International
during 1996-2001 where he managed $17 billion in life insurance and
pension assets in seventeen emerging markets. The company’s major
investment portfolios were in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico,
Brazil and Chile. He has also served as Vice Chairman of the Bank of
San Francisco, Chief International Investment Officer at the Bank of
America, and Chief Investment Officer at the Bank of Hawaii.
Mr. Champion has spent sixteen years based in Greater China, including
fourteen years in Taiwan. He was President and CEO of the International
Investment Trust Company in Taipei during 1987-1992. IIT was the first
and largest mutual funds management company in Taiwan. He directly managed
The R.O.C.-Taiwan Fund and managed that fund’s unique conversion
from an offshore fund to one listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
During this period, he was twice voted a member of “Finest Foreign
Fund Managers” by Financial World.
Mr. Champion worked for Continental Illinois National Bank during 1973-1987,
including two tours in Taiwan and assignments in Chicago, Jakarta, and
Hong Kong. He was Vice President and Country Manager in Taiwan during
1980-1987 and was Regional Manager for Taiwan and Korea during his last
two years with the bank. He was twice elected Chairman of the American
Chamber of Commerce Banking Committee and led the foreign banks’
efforts to upgrade accounting standards in Taiwan.
Mr. Champion has served of a Director of International Investment Trust
Co., The R.O.C.-Taiwan Fund, Gwang Hua Investment Trust, the China Dynamic
Growth Fund, the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, the San Francisco Company,
the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, the American Club in China,
Taipei American School, the Taipei Community Services Center, the Foundation
for Scholarly Exchange (which oversees the Fulbright program in Taiwan)
and the Hawaii Special Olympics.
Mr. Champion authored The Great Taiwan Bubble (Pacific View Press, 1998)
and “Uncooking the Books in Taiwan,” published in the Op-Ed
pages of The Asian Wall Street Journal. He has been a speaker at many
investment conferences and has helped teach a class in the Investments
Seminar at Stanford Business School for eleven years.
Mr. Champion has a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and an M.B.A.
with distinction from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University
where he was named to Beta Gamma Sigma and as a Distinguished Scholar.
He is a Certified Public Accountant and has a certificate in Chinese
from Taipei Language Institute. He served as a line officer in the U.S.
Navy during 1968-1971.
