Our Staff

Mark L. Clifford

President

Mark L. Clifford is the author of Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China’s Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Hong Kong. An honors history graduate of the University of California Berkeley and a Walter Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, he lived in Asia from 1987 until 2021. Previously, Clifford was executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council, the editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), and publisher and editor-in-chief of The Standard (Hong Kong). He held senior editorial positions at BusinessWeek and the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong and Seoul and has received numerous prizes and awards for his books and journalism.

Mark Sabah

Head of UK and EU Advocacy and Public Affairs

Prior to joining CFHK, Mark spent six years at Hermitage Capital Management working with William Browder on the Magnitsky campaign, achieving the passage of the US Magnitsky Law in 2012 as well as working on numerous other laws, motions and debates across the globe to combat Russian money laundering and corruption. Mark also created the Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights Awards which were first held in 2015.
Mark has worked with some of the best known communications agencies in the world including Edelman, Weber Shandwick and Grayling.
Mark has a degree in International Politics from the Manchester Metropolitan University and a Masters Degree in International Political Affairs from the University of Hong Kong.

James B. Cunningham

Chairman

James B. Cunningham served as ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the United Nations (1999 -2004), consul general for Hong Kong and Macau (2005-2008), ambassador to Israel (2008-2011) and deputy ambassador and ambassador to Afghanistan (2011-2014). He is currently a consultant, an adjunct faculty member at Syracuse University's Maxwell School and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.