For the last five years, Dr. Zhao has worked for Bank of China (BOC) where he was a major contributor in streamlining the bank's risk management process. He successfully set up a new division for capital allocation in the Asset & Liability Management Department and worked as its Division Head. This division was mainly in charge of capital cost charging, as well as performance evaluation and capital budgeting across various risk categories and business units. Among China 's state-owned banks, BOC was the first one to adopt such a management process.

Before joining BOC, Dr. Zhao served the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) as a due diligences manager for credits business, and China International Capital Company (CICC) as an economist in its Research Department.

Dr. Zhao received his BS. Degree in city planning from Nanjing University, MA in economics from China Renmin University and Ph.D. in economics from China Center for Economics Research (CCER) in Peking University.

Dr. Zhao has a strong and long lasting interest in financial institution management, economic issues of China , and Chinese financial reform. He authored and co-authored three books and published many articles. He has lectured on financial risk management and on China 's economy and financial reforms at Beijing Institute of International Finance.

During his Humphrey Fellowship year, Dr. Zhao wishes to broaden his knowledge of state-of-the-art risk management and its application in America-based financial institutions. He also wants to study the role played by financial institutions and capital markets in diversifying macro risk of the whole economy.