IP Leaders Need to Learn and Adapt Fast: LES International President-Elect

Finnegan partner Ningling Wang is Licensing Executives Society International’s (LESI) newest president-elect. The managing partner of the firm’s Shanghai office will lead LESI for the 2026 – 2027 term. Ningling sat down with IAM to discuss her new position and her vision for the organization. See below snippets from their discussion.

What are your priorities for your tenure as president of LESI? 

Ningling: As the president-elect and future president of the LESI, I would like to continue to promote the organization to increase the membership and also to help advance the business of IP worldwide. Specifically, I would like to focus on the initiative of ‘Leadership Academy’ that aims to develop an internal leadership pipeline with succession plan for the board and at the levels of the committees. 

For the past year, our immediate past president, Sonja London, has done a tremendous job in getting more industry people involved with the organisation. I would like to work closely with our current vice-president, Jean-Christophe Troussel, continuing engagement with the industry stakeholders. Globally, my mission will be to help IP professionals, such as industry representatives, communicate on certain IP topics better, including on standard essential patents, which is a very popular topic. 

What initiatives do you plan to further strengthen IP education and literacy among LESI members and the broader business community?

Ningling: Education will be a very important area for my term as I am a strong believer in learning. I believe that providing substantial content with high quality to the members will be very helpful not only for attracting new members, but also for keeping the existing ones within the organization. 

I will continue to promote the ‘LESI Thought Leadership Programme’ and I will make sure to improve our LESI 100 and LESI 200 courses, both of which are parts of the LESI’s Intellectual Asset Management Series – one for beginners and the other one for more advanced IP professionals – to make them available globally and help IP professionals in licensing activities. 

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