Lu Gao — People · BakLok Advisors

The counterpart

The practice coaches people who sit across the table from institutions. One of them is a friend, and watches it with a sympathetic eye.

Lu Gao is a friend of the founder. He holds no title here and carries no engagements. He is listed because he thinks well of the practice, has said so, and because his view is worth having.

His career has been spent in financial institutions coverage at a global bank — the relationship-manager seat, facing banks, insurers and asset managers — first in Beijing, then in Hong Kong. It is the same seat the founder once held.

That matters. A coverage banker spends his days in exactly the rooms BakLok prepares people for: the client meeting that is really a judgement, the internal pitch that decides a mandate, the conversation with a counterpart who already knows the answer.

He grew up in a household where public institutions were explained for a living — his mother's career has been spent teaching China's own political and democratic systems. Explaining how a system works, to the people inside it, runs in the family.

years at a single global bank — financial institutions coverage

financial centres — Beijing and Hong Kong

degrees in finance — Drexel LeBow and USTC

His vantage

The client already knows what you want. What he is deciding is whether you understand what he wants.

That is the coverage banker's daily discipline, and it is BakLok's premise from the other side of the table: the room is won on the listener's terms, not the speaker's. Gao is here because he has lived on that side of it.

Background

One institution. Two cities. The client's seat.

Most recentlyAssociate Director, Financial Institutions Group — global bank, Hong Kong. Coverage banker and relationship manager to financial institutions.
2017–2020Vice President, Financial Institutions Group and Business Development Manager — Hong Kong.
2014–2017Assistant Vice President, then Vice President, Financial Institutions Group — Beijing.
2012–2014Management Trainee — China and Hong Kong.
EducationDrexel University, LeBow College of Business — Master of Science in Finance (2012). University of Science and Technology of China — Bachelor's degree, Finance (2010).
LanguagesChinese · English

The practice coaches people who sit across the table from institutions. One of them is a friend, and watches it with a sympathetic eye.

One institution. Two cities. The client's seat.

Engagements are reviewed individually. If the brief is suitable, the practice will respond directly.