As Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, and Chairman of Microsoft China R&D Group (CRD), Dr. Ya-Qin Zhang is responsible for driving Microsoft’s overall research and development efforts in China, ensuring success for the company in this growing market. In addition to this role, Zhang serves on Microsoft China’s Executive Management Committee providing leadership and governance across all of Microsoft’s organizations in the Greater China Region.

From 2004 to 2006, Zhang was the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, responsible for Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Division in Redmond, USA, including WinCE operating system, Smartphone, PocketPC, and other Windows Mobile platform and devices. Prior to that, he was the managing director of Microsoft Research Asia.

From 1994 to 1999, he was the director of Multimedia Technology Laboratory at Sarnoff Corporation in Princeton, NJ (RCA Laboratories). He was with GTE (now Verizon) Corp. in Waltham, MA from 1989 to 1994.

He has published more than 500 refereed papers in leading international conferences and journals and has been granted over 50 U.S. patents in digital video, Internet, multimedia, wireless and satellite communications.

Many of the technologies he and his team developed have become the basis for start-up ventures, commercial products, and international standards. He serves on the Board of Directors of five high-tech IT companies and is an advisor to several Chinese and U.S. government agencies, including the National Science Foundation.

Zhang is a Fellow of IEEE. He has served as the editor-in-chief for the IEEE Trans. on Video Technology and on editorial boards of several other professional journals and more than a dozen conference committees. He has been a key contributor to the ISO/MPEG and ITU standardization efforts in digital video and multimedia.

Zhang received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1983 and 1985. He received his Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from George Washington University, Washington D.C. in 1989 and has executive business development training from Harvard University.