Episode 8 - Professor Paul Gillis

In this episode The Pack continues it world tour speaking to the experts in the financial world.  We land in Beijing and visit with Professor Paul Gillis.  Paul is one of the foremost accounting experts in the world on China.  This former PWC partner and PCOAB advisory board member is the go-to guy for the US Government as well as Public and Private entities when they have questions on China and its accounting practices.   

Hear about Paul's life and how he ended up in China.  How accounting has evolved and how China's accounting practices have evolved.  We touch on current events and some future predictions.  

Sit back, have a drink, and enjoy a conversation with Dan and The Pack as they swap stories with the amazing Professor Paul Gillis.

• 2:28 Paul’s backstory as an aspiring Olympic skier and his entrance into accounting and joining PricewaterhouseCoopers in its early stages in China
• 14:55 Gillis’s problem with China’s high tax rates and incompetent enforcement, Alibaba’s dominate presence and the struggles facing Ant Group’s IPO
• 29:14 Hong Kong’s lack of market regulation and the dangers it poses to investors, Will Hong Kong will dissolve into China in 10-15 years?
• 40:01 How do you go on live Chinese state TV and balance your opinion, facts and not going to jail.
• 43:54 Students in China and Students in the US.  Rock Star Treatment 
• 48:23 Free speech in the US, China and working the system. 
• 50:08 How China utilizes AI on smartphones to contain COVID and the advantages of a totalitarian state in dealing with the virus
• 57:47 Paul’s take on the age of activist shorts and whether there is still fraud in China
• 1:07:30 The incredibly convoluted accounting practices in China and how Chinese law frees them from accountability to foreign investors