Merle A. Hinrich is a global business leader, trade pioneer and philanthropist. He dedicated his entire career as the founder and executive chairman of Global Sources Ltd., and as the chairman of the Hinrich Foundation, to promoting mutually beneficial global trade. His 60-year career in global trade began in 1965, when he joined the East Asia publisher of The Importer magazine, based in Tokyo. He then moved to Hong Kong and worked in Taiwan, South Korea and China. There he saw the importance of global trade, post-war, for driving the reconstruction of Asian and Western economies and creating positive relationships between participants. This led to the creation of Global Sources in 1970, to address information asymmetries between buyers and sellers, and to facilitate the development of mutually beneficial transactions and trade between East and West. Global Sources became Asia’s leading global trade online platform and business-to-business media company; it was listed on Nasdaq in 2000 and sold in 2017. In 2012, concerned that poorly managed trade – without market rebalancing mechanisms and responsible corporate behaviors – could lead to skewed outcomes for participants and frictions, he decided to create the Hinrich Foundation for sustainable global trade. The Hinrich Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting trade with mutually acceptable terms, and balanced economic, social and environmental outcomes. It focuses on researching the conditions for improving the practice of global trade, to ensure that trade continues to create maximum benefits for all of its participants, for social cohesion and geopolitical stability. Hinrich was also a director of the Thunderbird Independent Alumni Association, a co-founder and former chairman of the Society of Hong Kong Publishers, an investment promotion ambassador with Invest Hong Kong and an international board member of the Weizmann Institute of Science. He obtained a graduate degree in international trade at the Thunderbird School of Global Management. In 1996, the University of Nebraska awarded Hinrich an honorary doctorate of humane letters. In 2010, Thunderbird awarded him an honorary doctorate of international law. In 2015, Hong Kong Baptist University awarded him an honorary university fellowship.