Faculty
PhD - University of Montpellier
Biography
Prof. Stephanie Gao is a distinguished global leader in digital transformation, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, combining extensive industry executive experience with a robust academic background.
Prior to her academic engagements, Prof. Gao served as the Vice President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International, where she also held the pivotal roles of Global Head of Alibaba Cloud Academy and General Manager of the Alibaba Cloud International Website.
Prof. Gao is a highly credentialed technical and management expert, holding elite certifications such as Alibaba Cloud Expert Solutions Architect (ACE) and Certified LLM & Generative AI Engineer. Her contributions to the field have earned numerous global accolades, including the 2025 IIOE Higher Education Digitalization Pioneer Case Award and the 2024 Brandon Hall Group Gold Excellence Award for technology-driven education.
What do you enjoy most about teaching CityUHK MBA students?
Our MBA students bring incredible energy and curiosity, turning every class into a dynamic two-way exchange. I love debating real business cases with them, and their challenges often sharpen my own thinking. This cycle of mutual learning keeps us both at the frontier, not following trends but shaping them.
How do you combine theoretical concepts with the latest industry practices and business trends?
I anchor every theory in real-world cases—both triumphs and failures from across industries. We dissect what actually worked in live deployments and, crucially, analyze where initiatives collapsed so we learn from missteps. This keeps our classroom discussions grounded in the messy reality of business, not textbook perfection.
What books would you recommend CityUHK MBA students to read? Why?
I would recommend students stay hungry for real-time intelligence through leading business publications—Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and South China Morning Post, among others. These weeklies ensure you are reacting to live market signals, not yesterday's case studies.
What business topics should CityUHK MBA students be the most familiar with when they graduate from our program?
Master AI governance and risk, grasp human-AI collaboration design, because integration beats replacement.
One career advice to our CityUHK MBA students?
Become fluent in both business strategy and technology implementation. You don't need to code, but you must translate C-suite goals into engineering realities. That translation layer is where your strategic leverage lives.
Hong Kong is a live AI laboratory—financial algorithms here, computer vision in Shenzhen there. You won't just study cases; you'll walk through them weekly. The pace is relentless, but that's exactly what makes this moment exhilarating.