Joel Backaler is Managing Director of Global Marketing for Frontier Strategy Group, an international business advisory serving more than 5,000 global executives. He is the author of China Goes West (Palgrave Macmillan), an award-winning international business book that examines the global rise of Chinese brands. In addition to companies from emerging markets, Backaler has worked with many of the world's top brands, including Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Philips, HP and Danone.
He is a frequent contributor to media outlets such as The Financial Times, The New York Times, Bloomberg and the Harvard Business Review. He is also a sought after public speaker, with previous engagements at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, the Hamburg Summit, the Emerging Markets Summit, and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Backaler is a graduate of Connecticut College, a former Fulbright Scholar and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife Qian and son Henry.