The Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), held its 2026 Opening Ceremony on September 18 in Wenzhi Hall on SJTU's Xuhui Campus, welcoming new students to its MF, MBA, EMBA, and PhD programs.
Jinggang He, Deputy Secretary of the CPC SAIF Committee and Associate Dean, presided over the ceremony. Attending leaders, professors, and guests included Guangshao Tu, former Executive Vice Mayor of Shanghai and former SAIF Board Chair; Xinghao Jiang, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC SJTU Committee and Vice President of SJTU; Shijun Cheng, Executive Dean of SAIF; Xinan Zhang, Secretary of the CPC SAIF Committee; Danyang Huang, SAIF alumna and Senior Vice President and CFO of Innotron Memory; and Eric Chang, Senior Advisor to the Executive Dean of SAIF.
On behalf of SJTU, Vice President Jiang warmly welcomed the students and set out three expectations for their graduate studies: to align their career goals with national development, to ground their research in China's economic realities and practical challenges, and to cultivate a deep respect for the market, the rule of law, and risk.
In his address, “Seeing Beyond the Surface: Becoming a Rational Decision-Maker in the AI Era,” Executive Dean Cheng drew on a widely discussed business school paper, the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, and a UBS analysis of BYD to argue that, amid a noisy and contested information landscape, analytical thinking matters more than ever. He urged students to look beyond the data to grasp underlying trends and to make independent, rational decisions that balance business value with socia2025l well-being.
Alumna Danyang Huang reflected on her move from academia to the technology industry. She credited SAIF’s cross-cultural academic environment with bridging international financial theory and Chinese business practice, and encouraged students to deepen their expertise and broaden their global perspective.
Speaking for the faculty, Bingbing Dong, Term Associate Professor and MBA Program Faculty Associate Director, highlighted the need for clarity amid global uncertainty. He advised students to define their career direction and build solid foundations in a transforming Chinese economy, stressing that investing in oneself is the most reliable long-term strategy.
Speaking for current students, Lukhmanov Lazizbek Bakhtiyorovich (Yunze Lu), an MF student from Uzbekistan who enrolled in 2025, described pursuing his ambitions in China. He encouraged his peers to forge their own paths, find like-minded companions, and grow at a healthy, sustainable pace.
Speaking for the new students, Ming Dong, Founder and CEO of Shanghai Volant AeroTech and a member of the first class of the 2026 EMBA intake, focused on building China into a science and technology powerhouse. China’s transformation into a manufacturing superpower, he noted, requires breakthroughs in hard technology and the development of industrial ecosystems. He called on his fellow students to embrace new knowledge with an open mind, explore the unknown with curiosity, and pursue truth in building those new ecosystems.
The ceremony also included the presentation of SJTU and SAIF badges, which former Executive Vice Mayor Tu and Executive Dean Cheng presented to new student representatives from each program.
In the “First Lesson of SAIF,” Secretary Zhang highlighted SJTU's tradition of developing interdisciplinary financial talent and integrating finance with industry. He outlined SAIF's vision and achievements in faculty development, education, platform building, and policy research, and urged students to uphold the SJTU spirit and dedicate their youth to advancing China's financial sector.
Earlier, on September 13, SAIF's new full-time graduate students attended SJTU's Graduate Student Opening Ceremony on the Minhang Campus. They also visited the SJTU History Museum and the Science and Technology Achievements Exhibition, learning about the university's history and its long tradition of service to the nation.
