Dr. James Yuann

Managing Director

Shanghai

Dr. James K. Yuann (Jim) is Managing Director of Boyden China. Jim specializes in industrial search assignments with a focus on oil and chemicals, material science and life science sectors. Before Boyden, Jim was President of Asia Pacific for Honeywell’s Specialty Materials (SM). During his tenure, Jim built the SM Asia Leadership team, doubled SM Asia revenue to US$820M with 1200 associates, relocated Honeywell Asia headquarters from Singapore to Shanghai and established a global technology center there.

Prior to Honeywell, Jim was General Manager of Asia of PolyOne Corporation, the world’s largest polymer service company for nearly ten years. During his tenure, PolyOne Asia expanded from a one-man operation with US$2M of import sales to more than five hundred associates with $100 M in revenue, and five manufacturing plants located in China, Singapore and Thailand. The Shanghai Mayor honored Jim with the Magnolia Award, identifying PolyOne Asia as one of the best performing foreign enterprises.

During his earlier career, Jim held responsibilities in engineering, marketing and sales, technology licensing business development and general management in the US for Monsanto Co, Occidental Oil Company and BP America. Jim started engaging in Asian business in the early 1980’s by first marketing products, later licensing technology and subsequently establishing ten manufacturing sites in Asia. Jim has years of experience in starting up and managing China operations. He attributed his success to building competent teams with the right talents.

Jim is passionate about developing young executives. He lectures on Leadership in the IMBA program collaborated between MIT (Sloan) and Fudan University. Jim is on the McDonnell Academy Advisory Board of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and an Asian Council member of the AMA (American Management Association). He is a frequent speaker in many international conferences and business schools on globalization, talent management, China strategy and joint venture management.

Jim has a Doctor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, a Master of Science degree in Materials Science from University of Cincinnati in Ohio, USA, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University.

Jim has been living in Asia since BP America expatriated him to Hong Kong in 1989. He currently lives in Shanghai, China with his wife.