Former Goldman Investment Banker Joins Yum China Board Of Directors

Grace Xin Ge, a former managing director in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs, has joined the board of directors of Yum China, the operator of KFC and Pizza Hut chains in China.

Ge, 48, is the founding partner of G-Bridge Partners, an investment and advisory firm that focuses on cross-border business and venture scaling in Europe and Asia since September 2022, according to an announcement on Sunday. Earlier she was CFO of Baidu spinoff Du Xiaoman, a partner of Ares Management Private Equity Group, and a managing director at the investment banking division at Goldman Sachs. She worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Beijing and San Francisco from July 1998 to June 2003, according to her biography.

Ge, who holds a Harvard MBA, is currently an independent director at Keep Inc., a Hong Kong-listed online fitness platform and solutions company, and Goldstream Investment Limited, an investment management company that is also listed in Hong Kong.

Ge will be entitled to an annual retainer equal to $315,000 for her service as a director in accordance with the director compensation policy previously approved by the board of directors, payable in Yum China’s common stock or, if requested by her, up to one-half in cash, Yum China said. She will be entitled to additional retainer for serving on any committees of the board of directors in accordance with the director compensation policy, the announcement said. Yum China’s legal team doesn’t allow the company to say where Ge is currently based, according to a Yum China manager.

Yum China, a China spinoff from U.S.-listed Yum, has attracted customers to KFCs over the years with local eats such as tea eggs, salted egg yolk rice rolls, sweet pumpkin congee with lotus seeds, and red bean drink with sweet fermented rice. The company’s CEO Joey Wat ranked No. 8 on a survey of China’s most successful businesswomen published earlier this year by Forbes China, the Chinese-language edition of Forbes.

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