JONATHAN WORRALL is Chairman of Ford Equity Research and CEO of Mergent, Inc., a Xinhua Finance company and leading provider of global business and financial information on publicly traded companies and fixed income securities. Worrall has held senior positions in the financial data and analysis systems and software industries since 1982. He has lived and worked in the U.K., Asia, Australia, and the United States, serving the global investment management and broking community.

PETER O'SHEA is Managing Editor of one of Mergent's leading online products, the Mergent Industry Reports, which cover the current environment for leading companies and profile a range of industries in North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. O'Shea has been an editor and journalist since the late 1980s, working for a number of leading publishers. He is currently based in Sydney, Australia.

IVAN CHUNG, CFA, heads Xinhua Finance Credit Ratings, the pioneering project in China that assigns domestic currency ratings to Chinese corporations based on international standards. Mr. Chung has more than ten years of experience in investment and credit research. Prior to joining Xinhua Finance, he was an investment analyst in the Structured and Acquisition Finance Division with Jardine Fleming, specializing in credit risk analysis. He also has experience investing in Asian corporate debt securities. He is a committee member of the Best Practices Committee in the Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia, sponsored by the Asian Development Bank.