Syaru Shirley Lin is a research professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, a nonresident senior fellow in Brookings’ Foreign Policy program, and an adjunct professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Her research and teaching focus on cross-Strait relations, international and comparative political economy, and the challenges facing high-income societies in East Asia. She is the author of Taiwan’s China Dilemma: Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy (Stanford University Press, 2016; in Chinese in 2019).

She was the youngest woman partner of Goldman Sachs, where she led the firm’s investment efforts in Asia, managing private equity and venture capital investments in 12 countries and setting up its Tokyo operation. She spearheaded the firm’s investments in technology start-ups in Asia, making it one of the earliest and most successful investors in China. She also led the first round of institutional investments in Alibaba and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation.

Shirley is an independent director of Langham Hospitality Investments, Goldman Sachs Asia Bank, TE Connectivity, MediaTek, and the Focused Ultrasound Foundation.

A resident of both Taipei and Hong Kong, Shirley graduated cum laude from Harvard College and has studied and worked in Tokyo and Madrid. After retiring from Goldman Sachs, she earned her master’s and doctorate from the University of Hong Kong.