Five foreigners in Changning win 2022 Shanghai Magnolia Silver Award

The Shanghai Municipal Foreign Affairs Office on Sunday held the awards ceremony of the city’s 2022 Magnolia Silver Award where 50 outstanding expats from 13 countries won the honor. Five of them were from Changning District.

The 50 winners work in various fields such as economy and trade, finance, scientific research, education, culture, health, and sports; all making contributions to Shanghai’s economic construction and urban development, and building bridges and creating opportunities for the city’s cooperation and exchanges with other countries.

The Magnolia Silver Award is one of a series of city awards for external recognition, which aims to encourage expats who have made outstanding contributions to Shanghai’s economic construction, social development and foreign exchanges. Since the award was initiated in 1989, the city has conferred the honor on 1,366 expats.

Among the five outstanding expats from Changning, four are from the economic field, namely Australian Franceso Lorenzetto, Mario Moretti from Italy, Koichi Matsumoto of Japan, and Germany’s Norbert Kray. American Justin O’Jack is from the social field.

Lorenzetto is vice president, North East Asia, of Exyte Shanghai Co Ltd. Exyte is the leader in engineering and construction of high-tech facilities across China since 1995.

Moretti is the Asia senior director of Rina Italy Classification Society (China) Co Ltd. He personally planned and promoted the establishment of a series of important projects and entities in Shanghai, such as rail transit system certification, industrial product certification, and new energy business division.

Matsumoto is the chief executive officer of Yamato International Logistics Co Ltd, which is the only logistics group in Japan with a 100-year history. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the firm further improved its functions of trade, aviation and service-oriented economy, achieving strong growth against the trend.

Kray assumed the position of country chair for DNV GL Maritime in Greater China in January 2018. Based in Shanghai, he is responsible for overseeing, strengthening and growing DNV GL’s maritime business in Greater China.

O’Jack is currently the chief representative of the University of Virginia China Office. He actively promoted Sino-US folk diplomacy by using “table tennis diplomacy” to promote cooperation and exchanges in various aspects such as culture and education between China and the United States.

In addition, three foreigners from Changning won the Magnolia Honor Award this year. The district also set up the “Hongqiao Friendship Award” in 2020.