Paul K. Kelly was President and Chief Executive Officer of Knox & Co., an investment banking firm specializing in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, and international financial advisory services, and President and Chief Executive Officer of PH II, Inc., a privately held investment company engaged in making principal investments on a global basis.  Knox & Co. is active in China and has had a longstanding relationship with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, in regard to jointly pursuing investment banking transactions and other matters of mutual interest.

Mr. Kelly is Executive Director of Westgate Group, Inc., a strategic consulting firm with an emphasis on cross-border activities between countries, particularly by China and Western nations.  In this capacity, Westgate Group advises various governmental, educational, and corporate entities. Mr. Kelly also served as Senior Advisor to the Government of Pudong, the Core Area of the International Financial Center of China, in Shanghai.

Mr. Kelly was a co-founder of Peers & Co., an international investment banking firm, and served as President and Chief Executive Officer until shortly after the sale of his equity interest in the firm to Kemper Corporation during 1990.  Previously, he was Executive Vice President and Director of Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., responsible for all investment banking activities for financial institutions. Mr. Kelly also served as Managing Director and member of the Management Committee of Merrill Lynch White Weld Capital Markets Group, responsible for all investment banking activities for financial institutions on a worldwide basis, and was also senior banker to Merrill Lynch & Co., the holding company for all Merrill Lynch interests.  Prior to this, Mr. Kelly was Executive Vice President, Director and member of the Executive Committee of Blyth Eastman Dillon, where he was co-head of the Corporate Finance Department. He was responsible for all new business activities for the firm and headed the Financial Institutions Group. At age 31, Mr. Kelly was responsible for all corporate finance new business activities at The First Boston Corporation, where he had established the Commercial Paper Department at age 29.

Mr. Kelly has frequently been identified with the introduction of new financing concepts to the capital markets.  Among such, he originated such financing techniques as commercial paper issuance and publicly-issued preferred stock for bank holding companies, short-term collateral trust notes for mortgage banking companies, floating-rate notes convertible into fixed-rate debentures in the United States and Europe, and was instrumental in developing the computerized book order entry system for syndicating publicly-traded certificates of deposit sold to individuals.  The investment banking groups which he has headed have completed numerous merger and acquisition assignments, worth in excess of $80 billion, for various clients in both the financial and non-financial industry sectors. He has also served as Senior Financial Advisor to a variety of international corporate and governmental entities.

Mr. Kelly was a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania; former Chairman of the Huntsman Program in International Studies & Business at Penn; Chairman of the Advisory Board of Kelly Writers House, at Penn; and a member of the Board of Governors of the Penn Club of New York.  In addition, he was a Director of the New York Film Academy, a member of the Director’s Advisory Board of the Yale Cancer Center, a member of the Visionary Council of MIT Collaborative Initiatives, and Co-Chairman of the US-China Future Leaders Program. He is the former Chairman and Director of China Ceramics Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq) and a past director of American Life and Health Insurance Company of New York, The Chicago Sun-Times Corporation, Hydrox Corporation, Ltd. (New Zealand), MCR Corporation, Porta Systems Corporation (ASE), and past member of the North American Management Committee (NAMCO) of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd. (MUFG).

Mr. Kelly graduated with an A.B. in English from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, received an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School in 1964, and holds an LLD (Hon.), 2006, from the University of Auckland.  He has lectured on financial topics before various groups internationally and has contributed articles to a number of professional periodicals. Mr. Kelly is a contributing author of The Treasurer’s Handbook (Dow Jones-Irwin) and has also appeared on a number of television shows in the United States, New Zealand, Japan and China.  Mr. Kelly is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, and Who’s Who in Finance and Industry.

In New Zealand, Mr. Kelly was the Founder and former Owner and Chairman of Carrington Resort, an international golf resort located on the 3,000-acre Carrington Farms property on the Karikari Peninsula, and Edgewater Developers Ltd., a real estate development firm specializing in coastal properties.  He was also the Founder and Owner of Karikari Estate, a vineyard, and winery complex which began production in March, 2003.  Mr. Kelly was an active supporter of the University of Auckland and a former member of the Advisory Committee of its Business School.  He was also a member of the New Zealand Business Roundtable.

Consulting activities performed by Westgate Group for the Government of Pudong include the establishment of the Pudong Institute of Finance (PIF), to provide executive education and training for corporate executives and government officials.   The Founding Universities of PIF were Harvard Business School, Wharton Business School and Columbia Business School, which were chosen by Westgate Group. A number of additional leading international universities and business schools have since conducted Executive Education and Training seminars at PIF.  In addition, Westgate Group organized Project Outreach, a series of official government delegations to the Middle East, composed of Shanghai and Pudong government officials and financial executives, beginning in 2011.  At the time, these were the highest level delegations from the Shanghai and Pudong governments ever to conduct Official Visits to selected Gulf States governments.

In addition to his position as a Life Time Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and his prior Advisory Board positions at the New York Film Academy, the Yale Cancer Center, and MIT Collaborative Initiatives, Mr. Kelly was also Co-Chairman of the Academic Advisory Board of the Western International School of Shanghai (WISS), a leading international school in Shanghai.