Biography

Dr. Timothy Sze currently serving as the Special Assistant to the President, and is the Director of the Office of Mainland Affairs at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

Dr. Sze first joined HKUST as the founding Head of Mainland Affairs at the Office of Vice President for Institutional Advancement in 2011 and is responsible for deepening and strengthening the University’s China engagement across multiple industry, education and research partnerships through student mobility, entrepreneurship, alumni relations and industry engagement. Dr. Sze’s portfolio has then been expanded to cover internationalization in 2018, with him becoming the Head of Global Engagement and Greater China Affairs of the University, responsible for the development and implementation of international outreach and marketing strategy for HKUST. The Global Engagement and Greater China Affairs team provides counsel and direct support to the Administration on University’s strategic engagement with global partners. Dr. Sze has also served as the Special Assistant to the President, Prof. Wei Shyy, the 4th President of HKUST, and as the Secretary of the Governing Board of HKUST(GZ), the Director of General Administration Office of HKUST’s new campus in Guangzhou between 2019 to 2022, responsible for the planning and development of a full range of academic, administrative, finance, purchasing and HR policies and systems for the new campus, and oversees the complementary integrations between the two campuses.

Prior to taking up these institutional advancement, strategic engagement and academic administration positions in the higher education sector, Dr. Sze was Beijing based for more than a decade, where he has worked in Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT), renewable energy and green finance sector at WI Harper, China Capital Group, Sinosol AG, eColutions, and CDB New Energy successively as their Vice President for Operation and Finance, in-house Counsel, Director of Operations, Country Manager and Managing Director. Dr. Sze has also served as a member of the Board of AISEC Mainland China, with a particular focus on the career development and mentoring of young people. He was the founding Deputy Executive Director of China Renewable Energy Entrepreneurs Club, an NGO jointly established by the Energy Research Institute of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and WWF. He was active in social entrepreneurship and NGO programs in Beijing.

Academically, Dr. Sze is an Adjunct Associate Professor of the Division of Public Policy, and the Big Data Institute at HKUST, and a Professor of Practice (特聘導師) at the MBA Education Center of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (中國社會科學院大學). Dr. Sze’s main research interests are in Tech for Impact, digital economic, social entrepreneurship, and Online Dispute Resolution.

Dr. Sze holds a PhD in Jurisprudence from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Dr. Sze obtained his LLB Degree in Law and Business from Hong Kong Shue Yan University, a Diploma in Law from Peking University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Law (CPE) from the University of Law in London, and an LLM in Dispute Prevention and Resolution from the University of Westminster, London. He also spent a year in the SASAC-HEC joint EMBA program while he was in Beijing

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