B. Michael Frolic, PhD
Executive Director, ABMP; Professor Emeritus, Department of Politics, York University
Professor Frolic first visited China in 1965 and was First Secretary in the Canadian Embassy Beijing in the 1970s. Later he taught at Peking University and Beijing Foreign Studies University and was a visiting professor at Harvard University. He is the author of numerous chapters, monographs and books, including Mao's People: Sixteen Portraits of Life in Revolutionary China (Harvard University, 1981); Civil Society in China (w/ Timothy Brook, Routledge, 1997), and his latest Canada and China: A Fifty-Year Journey (University of Toronto, 2022).
Director's Welcome
I am immensely proud of what the Asian Business and Management Program at York University has accomplished over the last two decades: training over 10,000 officials, educators and students from Asian countries; becoming licensed by the Foreign Experts Bureau to train Chinese leaders abroad; becoming Canada's largest university-based, customized, non-degree and non-academic training provider for Chinese government officials; and, before the COVID-19 pandemic, training an average of 30 groups per year—about 600–700 individuals—half in Canada and half in China.
It has been an exciting journey and I am grateful to have been present at the creation of our program in 2003 and to have participated in its extraordinary development. What began as a basic introduction to public management has evolved into a sophisticated set of programs enabling our trainees to cope with complex tasks of leadership, management and production in today’s Asia.
In the process we have learned a great deal about delivering effective programs to Asia-based participants: how to break down cultural and language barriers; how to encourage greater interaction between instructors/mentors and participants/students; and how to communicate the Canadian experience while placing it in a Chinese context to name just a few. The expertise that we have accumulated in this regard made our pivot to online learning during the global lock-down a success.
As we emerge into the post-Pandemic era, we look forward to reestablishing our in-person training programs when it is safe to do so, and developing new blended learning experiences that will continue ABMP’s mission to serve the unique needs of Asian learners. Onward to learning!
B. Michael Frolic, PhD
Executive Director, ABMP
Elena Caprioni, PhD
Program Director
Elena received her PhD in Chinese Modern and Contemporary History and International Relations from the University of Cagliari (Italy) in January 2009, focusing her dissertation research on ethnic relations in China. During her post-doctoral studies at the Institute of Asian Research (University of British Columbia, Vancouver) she conducted fieldwork in China for several years.
She is fluent in Mandarin, English and Italian and has more than 10 years of experience with educational organizations in both China (Academic Director of the Peking University program and Resident Director of the Minzu University of China program for the Council on International Education Exchange) and Canada (Associate Director of Open Programs, Schulich Executive Education Centre, Schulich School of Business at York University).
Li Chen
Program Coordinator
Li Chen (Lily) grew up in Guangdong where she worked at the China Construction Bank as Project Manager and at the Greentree Financial Group as Financial Adviser. She immigrated to Vancouver in 1999 and later moved to Toronto, joining ABMP as Program Coordinator.
Li obtained her financial degree from Guangdong University of Business Studies in 1992 and her MBA from the New York Institute of Technology in 2012.