May Lee is currently the Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Institutional Impact at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. May is a keen educator, a recognized business leader, an innovator, and a serial entrepreneur. Trained as a lawyer and bridging both American and Chinese cultures, May’s approach to tackling business challenges is incisive, innovative and culturally sensitive. With over 25 years of holding C-suite positions in Merrill Lynch, Goldman, Sachs, and Kamsky Associates, May thrives in roles in which her deep strategic, operational and entrepreneurial skills are called for.

To fulfil her passion in education, May applied her business operations expertise as the Vice Chancellor of NYU to create the Shanghai campus. As the current Dean of the School of Entrepreneurship and Management at ShanghaiTech University, May’s mission is to create a 21st century business school faculty, curriculum, and research agenda that connects creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, science and business. May currently resides in Shanghai with her husband and daughter.

Her favorite quote is, “In Silicon Valley, the only failure is the failure to try being an entrepreneur”, by David Lee, Pioneer Asian-American Entrepreneur Silicon Valley (Founder and CEO, Diablo, Qume).