Prior to joining Korn Ferry in 1998, Mr. Gu was deputy general manager of Kinko's (China), a joint venture of Kinko's International and Stone Group based in Beijing, where he was responsible for marketing and customer service. In that role, he developed the marketing strategy and implemented the customer satisfaction program for the joint venture.

Earlier, Mr. Gu lived in Los Angeles for seven years where he worked for the University of Southern California and Rockwell Science Center as a research associate; and Kinko's International as an operations manager.

Mr. Gu received a Ph.D. in material science and engineering from the University of Southern California. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Army Research Office, his technical research involved ceramic composite processing, computer aided automatic mechanical property testing and infrared controlled automatic welding. He also holds a master's of science degree as well as a bachelor's degree in science from Shanghai Jiaotong University. Mr. Gu's articles have been published in several well-known technical journals and presented at tech symposiums.

He is currently the secretary general for the Returnee Business Association of Shanghai.