Zhang Yaqin

President of Baidu

Zhang Yaqin, President of Baidu for responsible for leading emerging businesses, former president of Microsoft Asia Pacific Research and Develop Group.

Before joining Baidu, Zhang was Microsoft's global senior vice president and Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group president. Dr. Zhang Yaqin is responsible for driving Microsoft’s overall research and development efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, ensuring success for the company in this growing market. Under Zhang’s leadership, ARD has become Microsoft’s largest R&D center outside of U.S., with more than 3000 engineers and scientists engaged in basic research, technology innovation and incubation, product development, and strategic partnerships. In addition to this role, Zhang serves on Microsoft China’s Executive Management Committee providing leadership and governance across all of Microsoft’s organizations in the Greater China Region.

He has published more than 500 refereed papers in leading international conferences and journals and has been granted over 50 U.S. patents in digital video, Internet, multimedia, wireless and satellite communications. Many of the technologies he and his team developed have become the basis for start-up ventures, commercial products, and international standards.

Zhang serves on the Board of Directors of five high-tech IT companies and is an advisor to several Chinese and U.S. government agencies, including the National Science Foundation. He is also a member of the Malaysia Government’s International Advisory Panel and a member of the International Advisory Group of Australia’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre of Excellence.

Zhang is a Fellow of IEEE. He has served as the editor-in-chief for the IEEE Trans. on Video Technology and on editorial boards of several other professional journals and more than a dozen conference committees. He has been a key contributor to the ISO/MPEG and ITU standardization efforts in digital video and multimedia.

Zhang received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1983 and 1985. He received his Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from George Washington University, Washington D.C. in 1989 and has executive business development training from Harvard University.