Baruch College alumnus Wilson Liu rang the closing bell alongside board members, employees and associates from his company at the Nasdaq MarketSite stock exchange building on March 3.      

The Nasdaq’s opening and closing bell ceremonies are highly recognized occasions in the financial world, denoting the start and end of each trading day.

The privilege of ringing the bell is reserved for a chosen few, including Liu. He is the chair and CEO of ETAO International Co. Ltd., a digital health care company that started trading publicly on the technology-heavy index on Feb. 21.

“I want to thank you, all the guests who come here today and all partners and over 3,000 global employees of ETAO,” Liu said. “Without your support and hard work, we cannot stand here today.”

Liu received a master’s degree in computer information systems in 1997 and another in accounting in 2004. He invited current Baruch College President S. David Wu to join him and his co-workers at the closing bell, according to Baruch’s communications office.

Liu became the first American Chinese regulator at the New York Stock Exchange in 2003, according to the Chartered Financial Analyst Society of New York. 

He has accrued over two decades of experience in investment and financing management, technical consulting and information security auditing at esteemed financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase & Co.,  PricewaterhouseCoopers, Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley.

After quitting his position as an information technology audit manager at Morgan Stanley to pursue his vision, Liu founded ETAO in 2017 to integrate technology with health care.

ETAO provides comprehensive health-care services including telemedicine, hospital care, primary care, pharmacy and health insurance. The company focuses on doing business in markets in China and the United States and working with Chinese American physicians.

The company said it owns 12 hospitals, 30 clinics with 3,000 beds and three internet platforms, with nearly 4,000 employees and over 5 million registered online users, according to its website. Notably, ETAO supported over 3 million patients in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world.

According to ETAO’s website, some of the medical centers that the company has worked with include Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic and the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

During the closing bell ceremony, Liu explained that “ETAO” means “the origin of the world” and reflected on his journey from his time at Morgan Stanley.

“I’m a small fish in Morgan Stanley’s big pond,” he said. “Today, I’m a bigger fish in ETAO’s fast-growing small pond. The hard work over the past five years have finally come to this major milestone.”

Additionally, the company entered a merger agreement on Feb. 17 with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp. III, which is a special-purpose acquisition company. Subsequently, Mountain Crest CEO Suying Liu was named as a new board director for ETAO. 

Suying stood next to Wilson at the podium before the closing bell. He discussed how Wilson’s leadership style has instilled confidence in partners and contributed to the company’s accomplishments.

“While I have known Wilson only since we began the deal discussion little over 15 months ago, his charisma, devotion and perseverance have not only guided ETAO through its operations in wellness to this day but also instill confidence for partners and collaborators alike,” Suying said. “Congratulations to all of us for achieving this important milestone.”

Headquartered in New York City, ETAO operates in Asia, Europe and North America. The company has also established partnerships with leading health care institutions and technology companies worldwide.

The company acquired Dnurse in 2021, a leading provider of diabetes management technology. The acquisition marked ETAO’s entry into the digital health care market and expanded its portfolio of health care solutions.

With this acquisition, ETAO aimed to enhance its ability to provide innovative health care technology to patients and health care providers, particularly in the area of diabetes management.

The ETAO CEO emphasized the company’s integration of technology and health care to provide an outstanding service. In addition, he shared his philosophy, which he developed when he first worked in the NYSE 18 years prior.

“Be happy on your birthday, be healthy in your mind, be wealthy in your soul, be ‘Wilson’ in your life,” Liu said. “Be yourself. Just be happy, healthy, wealthy, ‘Wilson.’”

Liu ended his speech with a call to “work harder to make our world a better place for everyone” despite the challenges that will emerge in the future” and he was met with applause from his colleagues and invitees.