Yuchen ZHI graduated from School of Economics of Peking University and holds a PhD in International Relations of CASS. He is currently working as Executive President of Beijing RDI B&R Development Research Institute, and Senior Researcher of Cultural Communication and International Strategy Institute of Southeast University.

He has 10 years of working experience in leading the Development Strategy Department of SOEs. He used to serve as Deputy Director of the General Office of China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation (CRSC) and Director of the Corporate Strategy and Legal Affairs Department of CRSC Research & Design Institute. During his tenure, which was also a critical period of China's high-speed railway construction, he carried out a lot of work in strategy formulation, corporate listing, quality improvement, international cooperation, and legal affairs.

He has long engaged in research on international politics, international economy and trade, and peace and security affairs, with rigorous academic attitude and wide vision. Particularly, he has made great achievements in the research of the B&R international cooperation, publishing nearly 100 papers and more than 10 academic monographs. Many of his proposals in his works were directly adopted by General Office of the Central Committee of the CPC and General Office of the State Council.

Before the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was convened in 2018, he wrote two important reports for the national think tank, namely “Development of China's Four Economic Corridors in Indian Ocean from the Perspective of the B&R” and “The Construction and Development of the Asian-African Economic Circle from the Perspective of the B&R”. Both reports were translated into English, recommended by the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the CPC at the main venue of the forum, and were well received by heads of state. At the same time, the reports were listed as major projects of CASS and awarded by CASS.

He independently carried out the R&D of a platform for the B&R economic data, which listed statistics and analysis reports on finance, economy, and trade of 110 countries. He led a team composed of 12 senior consultants and their educational establishment successfully obtained an international PPP certificate certified by the World Bank and APMG Group of the U.K.

He serves as Member of the Advisory Committee of RDI, and edited many well-recognized books, including A Companion for Chinese Companies to the Belt and Road Initiative, Belt and Road Initiative: Exploring a New Mode of Globalization (Chinese and English), The Development of the Area along the Belt and Road and the Contribution of Shanghai. He also participated in NDRC’s project of research on the indicator system for the degree of openness of the countries jointly building the B&R.