Scheme and Layout, Win the Future: 2025 FISF Grand First Lecture of the New Year and Executive Education New Year Course Release Conference Held | EE

Release time：2025-02-19    

Introduction

Trump’s launch of new tariff policies Version 2.0, DeepSeek reshaping the new orders in the AI market, the ongoing fever of Chinese enterprises going overseas...2025 is doomed to be a year full of opportunities and challenges. So how should enterprises and individuals encounter uncertainties and turn the corner in case of crisis?

On February 15^th 2025, the 2025 FISF First Lecture of the New Year and Executive Education New Year Course Release Conference was solemnly held at Yifu Building, Handan Campus, Fudan University. Huasheng Gao, Deputy Secretary of FISF General Party Branch, Deputy Dean and Professor in Finance, Yan Wang, Director of Executive Education Department (E.E.D.), and Weifeng Xu, Deputy Director of Executive Education (EE), were present at the conference and gave speeches. Later, Professor Huasheng Gao, Jingti Zhang, Director of FISF-LICA Teaching Base, and Yuanrui Gu, Co-director of Capital Tax Research Center, respectively delivered wonderful keynote addresses sharing their thoughts on hot topics like AI intelligence revolution, international wealth management structure, tax risk and compliance control. Nearly one hundred elite leaders from banks, investment institutions and entity enterprises were immersed in the “First Lecture of the New Year” full of real stuff, participating in the common discussion about the infinite possibilities of financial empowerment in the future so as to contribute to the lasting prosperity of their enterprises and families.

Closely related to industrial hot topics in the current development trend and focusing on the core natures of finance serving entities, FISF Executive Education launched the heavyweight five public courses of New Financial Entrepreneurs for “finance plus enterprise management”, Leading Camp of Science and Technology Innovation in Medicine and Finance for “finance plus industrial technology innovation”, High Net Worth Exclusive Course for International Life Insurance Counselors LIC for “finance plus wealth management”, International Trust and Life Insurance Course, Practical Practitioner of Tax Risk Prevention and Planning in Capital Operation for “finance plus risk compliance”, and announced in advance the school’s future course directions of “finance plus AI scenario application” and “finance plus enterprises going overseas”. On-site consultation for the course registration was also opened simultaneously, and everyone actively asked questions, creating a lively interactive atmosphere.

01

Internationalized top financial teaching faculty

Helping elite senior management to ride the momentum

On the site, Yan Wang, Director of Executive Education Department (E.E.D.), first introduced the recent development situation of FISF and the fruitful achievements it has acquired so far.

Setting root on the profound humanistic accumulation and financial expertise of Fudan University, Fudan International School of Finance has been running on the management modes and standards of world-class business schools since establishment, focusing on high-end financial talent cultivation and academic thinktank research in financial fields. Over the short period of only 7 years, it has successfully recruited an international top teaching team consisting of 56 worldwide, including renowned financial scholars from first-tier business school in the US, Europe and Asia, who have helped the economic and business schools of Fudan University rank top 1% globally on the ESI list; have built a series of internationalized high-end financial education products covering all levels from bachelor’s to doctor’s degrees; and have cultivated a large number of leading financial talents taking an active part in all walks of life.

Wang also specially mentioned, “Beyond the professional financial education system, FISF has also been closely following the frontier pulse of the development of the times by establishing a series of high-end thinktank research centers integrating politics, industries, universities and research, which can accelerate the transformation of scientific research achievements while also providing reliable thinktank support and resource integration opportunities for the massive students and alumni.” In the near future, FISF Handan Campus will be put into use officially. She expected that more senior management and entrepreneurs in pursuit of improvement and breakthrough will actively join the big family of FISF, and together they can go hand in hand in the new campus to explore wider life potentials and future possibilities.

02

Super artificial intelligence advancing irresistibly

AI Big Model Reshaping Wealth for a New Future

With the recent emergence of Deepseek bringing about surging waves in the global AI industry, how should we make proper response to the super artificial intelligence era? In the keynote sharing stage, Huasheng Gao, Deputy Secretary of FISF General Party Branch, Deputy Dean and Professor in Finance, gave a speech entitled “Intelligence revolution: how does AI reshape wealth for the future” and led others to make an in-depth exploration on how to construct a financial big language model with AI and how to construct a whole-new paradigm of personal wealth growth.

Under the guidance of the professor, everyone present at the conference experienced in person the whole process of stock selection and in-depth excavation of nonstandard information in financial statements by AI, fully understanding the exceptional charm of the border-crossing integration between cutting-edge technology and traditional finance. Evidence showed that despite the various amounts of investment revenues from different AI portfolio strategies, compared with the average revenue on the general stock market, the profit growth performed quite well. When facing tens of thousands of professional research reports and financial statements, AI can always complete within an extremely short time tasks way out of the reach of human labor, excavate and output all the key points of investors’ concern in an efficient way.

Professor Huasheng Gao pointed out that in the vast ocean of data and information, human labor alone could hardly grasp the overall perspective of an object within a short time in the past. But now with AI big model, it is no longer the monopoly of professional investment institutions to carry out massive information integration and data analysis. By skillfully designing and constantly optimizing prompts, ordinary people can totally drive the big language model to efficiently integrate information resources and significantly increase the decision quality as well as the return on investment.

“AI empowerment of all walks of life is an inevitable trend in the future. In the financial aspect, this will be not only a deconstruction of wealth creation modes but also a comprehensive upgrade of financial thinking concepts.” Professor Huasheng Gao reminded everyone to make good use of financial innovation and AI tools to empower the long-term development of enterprises. Often it was not necessarily peer competition that killed an industry, but more possibly lower-dimensional attacks from other industries.

03

Put your armor on before going on the battlefield

“Life insurance plus trust” can generate an effect greater than the two simply put together

In the international society, different countries vary a lot in tax policies and legal regulations. So blindly transferring assets overseas may give rise to a variety of unexpected asset losses and tax risks. Regarding this, Jingti Zhang, Director of FISF-LICA Teaching Base, decoded for everyone how to flexibly construct international trust structure with “life insurance plus trust,” and assisted families and enterprises “going out” to reduce high tax risks, avoid western sanctions and ill-formed infringement, and reasonably scheme asset currency allocation, eventually achieving the goal of wealth inheritance.

Based on numerous actual cases, Jingti Zhang noted that though many enterprises and individuals “going out” might avoid tax risks by means of overseas low-tax zone companies and BVI shell companies, such capital was held by the actual controller individually with no guarantee in the final analysis, and still faced with a series of legal risks and tax dilemmas.

On one hand, as long as the actual controller is still a Chinese tax resident, all the personal income generated overseas should be subject to a 20% income tax in China; on the other hand, due to a lack of understanding of gift/inheritance tax exemption policies in foreign countries, the actual controller often ignored the fact that his or her descendants shall need to pay heavy taxes if they transferred assets out blindly, which will be a matter for regret in the future. “To avoid such problems, it is especially important to put on the “safety hat” of family trust or private foundation for personal asset structure.”

Zhang further analyzed that supposing the actual controller founds an international trust abroad within the FDL jurisdiction, the purpose of tax deferment can be achieved by not distributing the income generated from assets to any individual; if tax incentives can be formed through international life insurance, the actual controller can totally pass down all the insured amounts and policy increments to the next generation as exempt assets after the occurrence of the final death compensation while not affecting flexible capital allocation, realizing even more favorable tax planning.

Jingti Zhang held that rather than directly holding a number of securities and title deeds that would lead to serious tax disputes and legacy disputes, it’s very necessary that high net worth people should do subtractions after the age of 50 until reaching the point of “a small medical kit plus several insurance policies plus trust contracts plus capital at flexible allocation at any time”. For wealth practitioners, comprehensive internationalized talents that are both reliable and professional are quite rare. This field is still unknown and unexplored, leaving large room for future development.

04

Facing the era of big data in taxation

Taking tax burdens into consideration for overall business plans

In recent years, with comprehensive promotion and application of digital electronic invoices and under the guidance of the tax supervision concept of “administering taxes by law, administering taxes by data, and administering taxes strictly,” China’s tax big data system has kept being optimized, exposing to sunlight more and more tax evasion behaviors in the name of tax planning.

Based on her many years of practicing experience in the tax system, Yuanrui Gu, Co-director of Capital Tax Research Center, gave a detailed analysis on common misconceptions and high-risk behaviors by enterprises and individuals existing in tax risk prevention and compliance management. “The Fourth Phase of the National Golden Tax Project promotes data-driven taxation, with data between departments having been interconnected, and big data in taxation having been penetrated into the entire production and operation chain.”

She particularly warned that with the data granularity on electronic invoices increasingly refined, enterprises must enhance internal management on tax information, and try their best to avoid circumstances like mismatch of purchase and sales items, random invoice collection for reimbursement, filling financial statement information at will, falsely reporting the enterprise nature to enjoy low-tax benefits, falsely issuing invoices and so on. As for individuals, the tax information of a natural person is also no secret in big data, particularly for senior management of listed enterprises, internet celebrities and stars as well as high net worth people owning overseas assets who are under strong supervision, any aggressive tax shelter will be paid special attention to and inspected deep.

“In the future, the most cost-efficient way of tax planning may be legal taxation.” From this sense, Yuanrui Gu claimed that enterprises should perform well full lifecycle management before, during, and after the process, i.e.: at the establishment stage, take tax burdens into consideration for overall business plans, and ensure the accurate application of relevant tax policies; at the development stage, incorporate tax synchronization into the contract clause review process to avoid unnecessary tax risks due to legal oversight; and at business implementation and follow-up stage, do well in internal control accounting and leave traces of materials so as to cooperate with subsequent tax inspection and avoid misunderstanding and disputes.

05

Take practical problems as the direction

Build a “strong engine” for enterprises’ sustainable development

At the course release conference, Weifeng Xu, Deputy Director of Executive Education (EE), introduced in detail the five heavyweight innovative courses of 2025 FISF Executive Education:

New Financial Entrepreneurs

Forging financial thinking and decision-making power, nurturing managers who know more about finance

This course highly condenses frontier financial investment logic, thinking, tools and methods, and offers practice-oriented learning experience by flexibly utilizing the multi-layer, multidimensional and immersive learning mode. It is committed to nurturing enterprise leaders with financial thinking, global vision, practical management and capital operation capability, and boosting flourishing development of both individuals and enterprises

Leading Camp of Science and Technology Innovation in Medicine and Finance

Laying out the path of medical financial innovation and empowering leading enterprises in the industry to take off

This course is closely concerned with the two top disciplines of Fudan University, finance and medicine, and is taught by a top-level team consisting nearly 20 academic, industrial and clinical experts with abundant industrial resources and core discursive power. Also, there will be high-end private advisory boards, on-site educational excursions and Fudan science and innovation fund project roadshows to bridge the exchange and connection between senior management of biomedical innovation enterprises and senior investors in medical fields and jointly build a top biomedical financial ecosphere through win-win cooperation.

High Net Worth Exclusive Course for International Life Insurance Counselors LIC

This course is led by Jingti Zhang, Co-founder of International Life Insurance Counselors Association and Director of FISF-LICA Teaching Base. Students will conduct in-depth study with industry leaders from Mainland China, Hong Kong China, Taiwan China and Singapore to obtain comprehensive expertise about the structural thinking, family office thinking, trust system, private foundation system, international life insurance market and product application, supervision and compliance, etc. Graduates will also be granted a Certificate of Completion by Fudan University and an official LIC certification.

International Trust and Life Insurance Course

Fostering practical experts in international trust and life insurance in the era of globalization

With a complex financial structure involving cross-border, tax, legal and other aspects, international trust and international life insurance is one of the best tools globally recognized for wealth preservation and inheritance. World-leading teachers with TEP full member, LIC certification and abundant practical experience will guide students to uncover the mysterious veil of offshore trust and construct a comprehensive and solid knowledge framework and system of international trust by going from shallow to deep. Meanwhile, it will integrate all the available wealth management resources of FISF and gather the two international professional associations, American Tax Club and Canadian Tax Club, aiming to build an all-round wealth ecosystem.

Practical Practitioner of Tax Risk Prevention and Planning in Capital Operation

Compliance guarantees long-term development and wealth empowers future prospects

In the context of “administering taxes by data” interpreted as accurate law enforcement, refined services, precise supervision, and sincere governance, the prevention, response and compliance management of tax risks of enterprises and individuals have gained increasing concern. Based on practical cases, combining policy theories and actual collection and control, and led by the latest regulatory policies and M&A strategies, this course expounds the key points in taxation involved in capital operation, and aims to feasibly assist enterprise decision-makers to grasp the core highlights of taxation in capital operation within a short time, which can be effectively applied to tax risk prevention and planning.

Weifeng Xu specially reminded that in the context of a completely new era, the development of any enterprise is inseparable from finance. Investors need to push aside the economic mist in time to see clearly the path and direction of the economic trend ahead. FISF Executive Education has maintained agile market-oriented iteration, not only stressing the integration of theories and practices in professional courses, but also committing to high-quality construction of cross-program and cross-grade ecosystem. He wished that everyone could fully understand and grasp the underlying logic of financial management while at the same time participating in mutual exchanges and communication among students and alumni for mutual growth.

06 

A roundtable forum to discuss the future

Hosted by Weifeng Xu and consisting of Huasheng Gao, Jingti Zhang, Yuanrui Gu, and two distinguished EE alumni, namely Zhengzheng Zhang, a first-batch student of Fudan-LICA class (and also the founder of Ju Qianrun Family Office), and Liming Sheng, a first-batch student of Fudan New Medical Entrepreneurs (and also the co-founder of Shanghai Zelixir Biotechnology Co., Ltd), a roundtable forum was held to conduct dialogues and exchanges on topics of major concern, including the economic trend in 2025, scenario application of AI, the pain spots and new changes in overseas asset allocation, assessment and response of tax risks, and science and technology innovation enterprises going overseas. At the forum, the two alumni Zhengzheng Zhang and Liming Sheng respectively shared their in-person entrepreneurial experience and practical examples around the international life insurance and trust structure and the scenario application of AI in the field of synthetic biology, and gave a detailed illustration of how they managed to acquire knowledge in the Executive Education courses and their fulfilled learning experience from breaking their original classes and circles.

In face of a turbulent situation at present and in the future, everyone was more vividly aware of the importance of receiving high-quality professional education, which embodies a systematic refresh of their past knowledge and opens the door to infinite possibilities in their whole-new career in the future. By setting foot on the present and looking into the future, FISF Executive Education will listen carefully to the voice of the market as always and keep optimizing and iterating its course system, injecting soaring financial dynamics into the healthy development of enterprises and groundbreaking growth of individuals.