Ms. Zheng serves as our chairperson, chief executive officer as well as the interim chief executive officer of our Beijing subsidiary. She also serves as chairperson of Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. She has been in charge of our cord blood bank operations since 2003 and is responsible for the strategic development and overall management of GCBC. Aside from overseeing the overall operation of GCBC, she is also responsible for strategic developments, acquisition planning and negotiations, and formulating overall business strategy and various business initiatives of GCBC. She has more than ten years of experience in the fields of accounting, internal control, and corporate strategies and development in China's healthcare industry. Ms. Zheng had served as an executive director of Golden Meditech and had been in charge of its and its subsidiaries' financial and internal control systems since September 2001. She assumed a critical role in the initial public offering by Golden Meditech on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in December 2001. Between August 2012 and May 2019, Ms. Zheng served as a non-executive director of Golden Meditech. She played an important role in our acquisition of Nuoya ("Guangdong Province Cord Blood Bank") and investments in CordLife ("Life Corporation Limited and Cordlife Group Limited"). Prior to joining us, Ms. Zheng worked for Sino-reality Certified Public Accountants, an accounting firm in China, from 1997 to 2001. She received an EMBA degree from Renmin University of China.
Mr. Chen serves as our chief financial officer and a director. He is in charge of GCBC's finance-related matters, including accounting and budget planning. He is also involved in GCBC's corporate structuring and development, including mergers and acquisitions, and investment in foreign healthcare companies. For example, he played an important role in our acquisition of Nuoya ("Guangdong Province Cord Blood Bank") and investments in CordLife ("Life Corporation Limited and Cordlife Group Limited"). He had served as the corporate finance vice president of Golden Meditech since March 2005. Prior to joining Golden Meditech, Mr. Chen worked in a number of financial institutions, including SalomonSmithBarney, DBS Vickers Securities and UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong. During his employment as an analyst in UOB Kay Hian from 2003 to March 2005, he was a senior analyst specializing in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries and was ranked as one of the best analysts for small cap companies in the region in a poll conducted by Asia Money among brokers in 2003. Mr. Chen is a CFA charterholder. He received his bachelor's degree in commerce from Queen's University, Canada, School of Business in 1999 with a major in finance and accounting.
Ms. Arashiyama serves as our chief executive officer in the Guangdong and Zhejiang divisions. She oversees the daily operation and management of Nuoya and Lukou, and is responsible for the formulation and implementation of marketing strategy for the Guangdong and Zhejiang markets. She joined Nuoya in March 2009 and has over 10 years of sales and marketing experiences in China and in-depth knowledge about China's consumer market and regulatory environment. From 1999 to 2009, she worked for Jatco Company Limited and was responsible for new business and new market development, execution and cost management. Between 1989 and 1999, she was with Nissan Motor Company Limited with main responsibilities of overseas market development including China, Hong Kong and Singapore. She graduated from Beijing International Studies University (Beijing Second Foreign Languages Institute) in 1981 with a bachelor's degree of Japanese culture. In 1988, she completed a postgraduate mass media program in Japan Sophia University.
Ms. Xu serves as our chief technology officer. She is in charge of the daily operations and logistic control of the cord blood bank laboratories, and oversees the laboratories procedures in relation to the processing, separation and preservation of cord blood stems cells to ensure the laboratories environment strictly comply with national standards. Prior to joining us in November 2004, Ms. Xu has over 20 years of solid experience in Cryobiology research and had lectured in Cryobiology at Beijing Medical University.