Zak Dychtwald

Founder & CEO of Young China Group, Bestseller-Author

English 🇺🇸

Zak Dychtwald - Biography

Zak Dychtwald is the founder and CEO of the Young China Group, author of Young China, and an internationally sought-after expert on China, global collaboration, and intergenerational change.

Zak Dychtwald is globally one of the best speaker on the Future of China in terms on consumption, technology and economy.

Through the Young China Group, he combines research, consulting, and market analysis with a particular focus on economic, technological, and social developments in China. As part of “YCG Bridgeworks: A Global Collaboration Lab,” he also explores how international teams can collaborate more successfully across cultural and generational boundaries.

Another focus of his work is on relations between China, the U.S., and Europe—particularly in the context of economics, politics, new technologies, and artificial intelligence.

Zak Dychtwald Speaking Topics

Zak Dychtwald is also the author of critically acclaimed Young China: How the Restless Generation Will Change Their Country and the World (St. Martin’s Press), available in six languages.

How China’s “Millenial Mindset” will redefine Global Innovation and Your Business

Despite the stereotypes of “copycat China,” Chinese millennials were bred for highspeed disruption. For rising Young China, how does a lifetime of rapid growth lead to a hyper adaptive innovation ecosystem? How do China’s generation gulfs impact the way the world sees China? In what ways does an ecosystem of rapid change make for a culture of adaptation and early adoption? In this session, based on research for Dychtwald’s upcoming feature in Harvard Business Review, we will rethink the role China will play in the future of innovation and your organization through the lens of its millennials—as a collaborator, competitor, and engine of global disruption.

Young China Rising in a Complex World: Consumer, Competition, Collaborator.

While much of the Western world remains mired in a half-on/half-off limbo, offices, restaurants, retail spaces, and even night clubs are filling up in China. But not all sectors have rebounded equally, and the young generation’s outlook on consumption, work, and government has been impacted to its core. In this keynote, Zak explores how young China – the engine of China’s consumer and innovation economies – has reacted to recent events and how they are shaping up as global consumer, competitor, and collaborator.

Young China: How China’s Mindset will Change their Country, the World and Your Industry

We often obsess over American Millennials. What are they loyal to? What are their values? Who will they vote for? Will they even vote? What do they want to buy? And yet, when we think China, we often just think of the “China Market”—no nuance necessary. Chinese millennials are already becoming the most powerful consumer class in the world, redefining every industry they touch. China’s 420 million millennials outnumber American millennials by five times. It’s time to understand the world’s consumers of today and tomorrow. This session will answer, why does China have generation gulfs compared to our generation gaps? How is “Old China” different than “Young China”? How do American millennials stack up against Chinese millennials? What do they want that is different in their products? In the workplace? For themselves, their families, and their countries? How does a generation of single children understand community, family, technology, and leisure?

Young China – The New State of Chinese Consumption, Collaboration, and Competition

Will Young China be the consumer engine they were before COVID? For areas like travel and luxury, it less a question of “what?” – an enormous release of pent up demand – and more a question of “when?” For other consumer sectors, the answers are less obvious after a year of an on-again-off-again economy that has left more young people counting their RMB than getting ready to splurge.

Zak Dychtwald speaks about the attitudes and consumer drivers of China’s 420 million millennials, who they are, how they stack up against global millennials, their impact on global innovation, what they want, and why they want it. This generation redefines every market they touch, and Zak gives you an insider’s guide into understanding how this generation is changing the world.

A frequent expert contributor to Harvard Business Review and globally sought after speaker, Zak has been invited to speak on six continents including Harvard University, The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit, Aspen Ideas Festival, among others. He has been named an Asia 21 Next Generation Fellow and elected Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce Shanghai Future Leaders Committee.

AmCham Shanghai has announced Zak Dychtwald as Chair of the Future Leaders Committee.

As a strategic advisor and frequent keynote speaker with expertise in global cooperation and the emerging mindset of the youth in the East and West, Zak Dychtwald has been invited to speak at venues on six continents, including Harvard University, The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit, Google’s Next Billion Users Initiative, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, among others. He has also been named an Asia 21 Next Generation Fellow.

As Chair of the Future Leaders Committee, one of AmCham Shanghai’s 21 industry committees, Zak will be working with AmCham Shanghai to identify key issues and develop and lead programming for the committee.

Zak Dychtwald previously worked as a consultant for the Dilenschneider Group, a communications consultancy, and as a freelance translator for a game from Metheus. He is a Columbia University graduate, he has spoken at forums and summits across the world as an authority and expert in his field.

Zak Dychtwald - Biography

Zak Dychtwald Speaking Topics

Media Kit