Syaru Shirley Lin

Syaru Shirley Lin, Compton Visiting Professor in World Politics at the Miller Center, is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and an adjunct faculty member of Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her book, Taiwan’s China Dilemma, on the impact of the evolution of Taiwanese national identity on cross-Strait economic policy, was published by Stanford University Press in 2016 and in Chinese in 2019. Lin is now writing a book on five East Asian economies caught in the high-income trap, all of which are facing problems including inequality, demographic decline, financialization, outdated education systems, and the need for further technological innovation. Her analysis and commentary frequently appear in English and Chinese media.

Lin graduated from Harvard College and earned a PhD from the University of Hong Kong. Previously, she was a partner at Goldman Sachs, where she led the firm’s private equity and venture capital efforts in Asia. She spearheaded the firm’s investments in many technology start-ups and was a founding board member of the Alibaba Group and the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. She also specialized in the privatization of state-owned enterprises in China and Singapore. 

Lin currently serves as chair of the Asia-Pacific Hub, Reform for Resilience Commission and she is on the boards of Goldman Sachs Asia Bank and Langham Hospitality Investments. She is also a director of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation and was appointed by the Hong Kong government as a member of the Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation. She is also senior advisor to Taiwan's Talent Circulation Alliance, an initiative to promote Taiwan as a hub for talent for the region and the world.