Sidney Rittenberg was founder and president of the China consulting team Rittenberg Associates, Inc. He lived and worked in China for 35 years after World War II, when he joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in China following his U.S. Army training in Chinese Language and Area Studies. During the Mao Zedong era, Rittenberg was held in solitary confinement for 16 years on suspicion of being an American spy.
Rittenberg was Frey Distinguished Professor of Chinese History at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and was Visiting Professor of China Studies at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington. He was a frequent keynote speaker at business seminars and the subject of numerous TV and media interviews, in both the U.S. and China. Rittenberg was co-author, with Pulitzer Prize winner Amanda Bennett, of The Man Who Stayed Behind (2001). He studied at the University of North Carolina and the U.S. Army Language School, Stanford University.
