Liang Meng '97
Co-Founder
Ascendent

Liang (Leon) Meng co-founded Ascendent in 2011. Prior to that, Mr. Meng was a managing director of D. E. Shaw & Co., where he started and managed the firm’s Hong Kong office and was founder and CEO of D. E. Shaw’s Greater China Private Equity Unit.

Before joining the D. E. Shaw group in 2007, Mr. Meng was a managing director of J.P. Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Limited and co-head of that firm’s China investment banking activities, in which capacity he was responsible for the management of the China investment banking group as well as the firm’s Greater China mergers and acquisitions activities. He served on J.P. Morgan’s Asia Pacific M&A Committee and China Business Engagement Committee.

During his investment banking career, he was also involved in equity, debt, hybrid, and restructuring transactions in the U.S. and Asia Pacific. For most of the period from 1997 to 2002, Mr. Meng worked at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions in the media and telecommunications sectors. From March 2000 to September 2000, Mr. Meng served as chief financial officer of ChinaQuest, an online mapping company providing internet-based and wireless GPS services in China, before rejoining Credit Suisse First Boston.

Mr. Meng earned his MBA from the Yale School of Management, and currently sits on its Greater China Advisory Board.