Asian Cultural Council's Year of the Dragon Gala

Year of the Dragon Gala Honoree

Hans Michael Jebsen

Chairman, Jebsen Group

Hans Michael Jebsen is the Chairman of Jebsen Group. He is Non-executive Director at Jebsen & Jessen Group, Jebsen & Jessen Hamburg, and Independent Non-executive Director at The Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. Dedicated to community work, Mr. Jebsen is Chairman of the Hong Kong Section at the Hong Kong C Europe Business Council, and Chairman of the HKUST Business School Advisory Board. He established the Jebsen Educational Foundation to support two professorships at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Mr. Jebsen is also active in the non-profit sector: he serves as Member of the Board of Trustees of Asia Society Hong Kong, Trustee of the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong, Member of the Advisory Board of the Hong Kong Red Cross, Founder Member and Executive Council Member at the Asian Academy of International Law, and the former Chairman of the Asian Cultural Council in Hong Kong. 

Mr. Jebsen was conferred the title of Guangzhou Honorary Citizen in 2021. He was bestowed with the Danish title of “Kammerherre” by H.M. The Queen of Denmark in 2020; and was awarded the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Award in 2018; Doctor of Business Administration honoris causa of The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in 2015; Knight 1st class of the Order of Dannebrog, Denmark in 2014; the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009; the Silver Cross of the Order of Dannebrog, Denmark in 2006 and in 2001, the Bronze Bauhinia Star of the Hong Kong SAR.

Mr. Jebsen was a member of The Government of the HKSAR’s Advisory Council on the Environment from 2009 to 2012, and The Government of the HKSAR’s Council for Sustainable Development from 2003 to 2009. He also served as Municipal Economic Advisor of The People’s Government of Jilin City, PRC from 2005 to2010 and also as Committee Member of The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee of Jilin City, PRC from 2005 to 2010. He served as a member of the Operations Review Committee of the Independent Commission Against Corruption from 2015 to 2020.

Mr. Jebsen studied Economics and Business Administration at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland.  

Year of the Dragon Gala Honoree

David Rockefeller, Jr.

David Rockefeller, Jr. is an active participant in the business and nonprofit arena, especially in the areas of environment, the arts and philanthropy. Mr. Rockefeller is a Trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and previously served as Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation.  He was twice Chairman of Rockefeller & Company, which became Rockefeller Capital Management in 2018 and where he now serves as a Director. 
 
As a passionate supporter of the arts, Mr. Rockefeller is a trustee of the Asian Cultural Council and a life trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. He is also a fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He is the former chair of the North American Nominating Committee for the Praemium Imperiale, the Japanese prize for outstanding international achievement in the arts. 
 
True to his family’s legacy of land preservation, Mr. Rockefeller served as citizen chair of the National Parks Foundation from 1995–2005. In 2013, Mr. Rockefeller and two of his sisters established the Peggy McGrath Rockefeller Foundation, operating under the name “Stone House Grain.” Stone House Grain holds and manages 2,000 acres of farmland in Columbia County, New York, and is dedicated to promoting regenerative agriculture as well as to supporting young farmers.
 
Mr. Rockefeller’s commitment to environmental preservation and his passion for sailing led him to found the nonprofit organization, Sailors for the Sea (SfS), in 2004. In 2018 SfS joined forces with the global ocean conservation organization, Oceana, becoming one of its programs. Mr. Rockefeller has joined Oceana as a director where he promotes the organization’s campaign-driven work to sailors worldwide.
 
Mr. Rockefeller is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He lives in New York City with his wife Susan, an artist and filmmaker, and together they are the parents of four children.

John D. Rockefeller 3rd Awardee

Takashi Murakami (ACC 1994)

Born in Tokyo in 1962, Murakami completed the doctoral program in Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts in 1993. In 2000, he proposed “Superflat", a concept/theory of contemporary visual culture that connects traditional Japanese art with the flatness of anime and manga while also referring to the state of Japanese society. In 2001, he established Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., of which he is the president.

In 2024, he opened Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto, his first solo exhibition in Japan in eight years, at Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, where around 170 of his new works are on view. He also has approximately 120 new works reinterpreting Utagawa Hiroshige's 100 Famous Views of Edo on view at the Brooklyn Museum.