JUDGES

Akiko Naka

Founder and CEO
Wantedly, Inc.

Akiko Naka is the Founder and CEO of Wantedly, Inc. which was founded in Tokyo in 2010. She started out as an equity saleswoman in Goldman Sachs before pursuing her passion as a professional manga comic artist. When that didn’t take off, she joined Facebook Inc. (Japan) as one of the pioneering members. However, Akiko wanted to create an even larger social impact and eventually left Facebook to start Wantedly, Inc.

Wantedly is a social recruitment platform with the mission to create a world where work drives passion. We do this by connecting like-minded companies and talents based on passion and interest, rather than pay and benefits. We currently have over 29,000 companies and 2.4 million monthly active users across Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Germany.

Akiko took the company public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2017 and became one of the youngest female CEO/Founders in Japan to achieve such a success. Since then, Bloomberg has titled her as the “Startup Queen”. Wantedly plans to continue it’s global expansion in the upcoming years and spread its mission to create a world where work drives passion.

Leo Wong

Founder
BornTea

Leo was born and raised in Hong Kong, currently the founder of BornTea, the inventor of the Instant Cold-brew Tea. Previously, at the age of 22, Leo started his first company Sensbeat, the creator of omv and Sensbeat app which had more than 200,000 users and received USD1M in seed funding during college.

Leo has received the Champion of Young Entrepreneur in HK in 2014, Grand Prize Champion in Ignite Entrepreneurship Challenge, and featured in the 1st HK International Entrepreneurs Festival. Leo was also a national finalist of CCTV2 <<创业英雄汇>>, the Chinese version of Shark Tank. Prior to Sensbeat - Leo was a student, Cohort Chief, and a Class Anchor of class 2014 at Hong Kong University of Science an Technology.

Leo is a regular swimming contestant - he received 2nd in an Aquathon Swim and more than 40 swimming awards at schools - he loves playing football and cooking a lot too!

Quek Siu Rui

Co-founder and CEO
Carousell

Siu Rui is a co-founder of Carousell, and as the CEO is responsible for setting the overall strategy and direction for the company. Since the launch of Carousell in August 2012 together with co-founders Marcus Tan and Lucas Ngoo, Siu Rui has been deeply involved in product strategy, international expansion and growth. He is passionate about technology and has been buying and selling online since he was 13. This has been a driving force behind Siu Rui’s commitment to building a product-focused company, focused on solving meaningful problems for people globally.

Prior to Carousell, Siu Rui spent some time in marketing and product management at VSee, Ogilvy & Mather and DBS Vickers. Siu Rui read Business Administration and Entrepreneurship at National University of Singapore and Stanford University (Under the NUS Overseas College Program in Silicon Valley, California), and dropped out of his Honours year to start Carousell.

Carousell is a classifieds marketplace that makes selling as easy as taking a photo, buying as simple as chatting. Launched in August 2012, Carousell began in Singapore and now has a presence in seven markets across Asia. With over 171 million listings, we are one of the world’s largest and fastest growing marketplaces in Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and is backed by Rakuten Ventures, Sequoia India, 500 Startups, Golden Gate Ventures, DBS and EDBI. The Carousell marketplace has a diverse range of products across a variety of categories, including cars, lifestyle, gadgets and fashion accessories.

Emma Yang

TEDx Speaker, Founder
Timeless

Hailed by former US Attorney General of New York Preet Bharara as one of 100 extraordinary change-makers and by Susan Cain of Quiet Revolution as one of the great writers and thinkers of her generation, 14-year old Emma Yang (楊君熙) is a 3-time Carnegie Hall Performer, MIT-Solver, TEDx Speaker, and the Founder of Timeless, a mobile app that empowers Alzheimer’s or Dementia patients stay engaged and connected to loved ones.

Since its inception in 2016, Timeless has garnered many awards and media attention around the world including Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, BBC, CBS, CGTN America. In 2017, Timeless was selected as the winner of the MIT-Solve Brain Health Challenge. Emma was designated as one of the 38 MIT-Solvers out of nearly 1,000 teams from 103 countries. In 2018, Timeless was named the Grand Prize Winner of the Women Startup Challenge hosted by Women Who Tech and Google. Most recently, Timeless was the recipient of Bayer Foundations' Aspirin Social Innovation Award.

An avid coder, Emma is passionate about Computer Science, Music, History, and Languages. In 2015, Emma won first place in the US and second place globally in Technovation Challenge, a global technology entrepreneurship competition for girls, out of 400 teams from more than 60 countries. In 2016, Emma was named one of New York’s 10 Under 20 Young Innovators to Watch and Crain’s New York’s 20 Under 20. In 2017, Emma was selected as one of the 100 Faces of Impact globally by Impact Squared. In 2018, Emma was invited to be ARM’s Global Youth Ambassador, representing her generation in using technology to push boundaries & enrich lives.

Emma excels academically and is a Davidson Young Scholar, a member of Johns Hopkins University Julian C. Stanley Study of Exceptional Talent (SET), and the youngest ever mentee to enter Wolfram Research’s Mentorship Program. In 2016, Emma was the youngest participant of the White House’s Opportunity Project, representing Wolfram Research in bringing the power of the Wolfram Language to solve problems using Open Data.

A frequent panelist and keynote speaker at national and international forums, Emma recently spoke at the Asian American Community Development Conference, TEDxFoggyBottom, Talks at Google, Misk Talk, Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, and Women Who Code Conference to name a few. Aside from her school and entrepreneurship life, Emma is also a contributing writer for Quiet Revolution’s Quiet Diaries, a space for young voices to post their perspectives on life.

Born in Hong Kong, fluent in English, Chinese, and learning Latin and French, Emma’s goal is to speak as many languages as possible. In her free time, Emma enjoys listening to podcasts, music, reading, biking, and going to movies.

Naina Subberwal Batra

Chairperson and CEO
AVPN

Naina joined AVPN as our CEO from September 2013, and has been appointed as Chairperson in May 2018. Naina’s leadership over the past 5 years has grown the AVPN membership by more than 3x and elevated the organization into a truly regional force for good. Under her direction, the organization has grown from focusing only on Venture Philanthropy to supporting the entire ecosystem of Social Funders from philanthropists to impact investors and Corporate CSR professionals. She was instrumental in developing AVPN’s innovative services that connect, empower and educate the now 500+ members of AVPN.

Prior to joining AVPN, Naina was a member of the senior leadership team of a purpose driven unit of The Monitor Group, a leading global strategy consulting firm, aimed at catalyzing markets for social change. Naina was also partner and Co-Founder of Group Fifty Private Ltd, curating contemporary Indian art with a view to provide a medium for upcoming and established Indian artists to showcase their work directly to a large and diverse audience.

Naina has a master’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University where she graduated at the top of her class. She also holds a bachelor degree in Economics and International Relations from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA and a General Course Diploma in economics from The London School of Economics

Sammy Cheung

Founder, President, and CEO
Efinix®

With his broad background in FPGAs, CPLDs, structured ASICs, and non-volatile memory, Sammy is an expert when it comes to building programmable semiconductors. After working in the industry for nearly 25 years, he and Co-Founder Tony Ngai, realized that there had to be a better way to make programmable products that really solved customers' problems. To achieve this goal, they founded Efinix® in 2012.

Before Efinix, Sammy was the vice president of the IC group at Stretch, Inc. and was senior director developing HardCopy products at Altera. He started his career in 1990 at Cypress Semiconductor.

Norma Chu

Founder and CEO
DayDayCook

After graduated from college, Norma Chu worked in an investment bank in the United States. She relocated back to Hong Kong in 2007 and was appointed Head of HSBC Securities Services when she was 30. Due to her strong passion in food and lifestyle, Norma left her job as an i-banker and devoted herself to establishing DayDayCook in 2012.

DayDayCook shares recipes and cooking videos to various social media platforms on a daily basis. On one hand, Norma consists on the high quality of ingredients, recipes, photos, design and videos when generating content. On the other hand, DayDayCook collaborates with renowned local brands and executes integrated marketing strategies to reach audience. In addition, Norma and her DayDayCook team have expanded their video content to travel, food and lifestyles, which have been distributed through all social media platforms in both Hong Kong and Mainland.

All these efforts have made DayDayCook one of the most popular online recipe platforms in Hong Kong. DayDayCook has 500,000 unique visitors and 4 millions of viewership monthly, and Norma is now actively expanding the business, including cooking class, mobile apps, brand products like home-made sauce, ready-to-eat foods and honey tea.

Since the beginning of 2015, DayDayCook has entered the mainland market. Its videos have accumulated over 4000 millions of click rates on video sharing platforms in China, which also has over 30 millions of subscribers. With its widespread popularity, DayDayCook was funded by K11 and Alibaba with a hundred million of Series B Renminbi financing in 2017.

In the Mainland, DayDayCook is more focus on offline experience stores and E-commerce business development. In 2017, DayDayCook started to engage in offline experiential marketing by launching food and life experiential halls in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan, where users can have a taste of all-round and refined lifestyles. They will be opening in 10 more cities in 2018 nationwide.

Peggy Choi

Founder and CEO
Lynk

Peggy Choi is the founder and CEO of Lynk, a global knowledge sharing platform that is disrupting the way business decisions are made. Peggy founded Lynk in 2015 with the mission of making knowledge more accessible.

In her previous career in finance, Peggy recognized that companies of all sizes and in all geographies faced similar needs for the right knowledge every day. She was inspired to revolutionize access to knowledge for people and enterprises across all industries and parts of the globe. Seeing the value of insights from the right advisors, executives or experts to inform crucial decisions, Peggy created Lynk.

Before starting Lynk, Peggy worked in banking and investments in the US and UK for several leading firms. Most recently, Peggy was an investor on the team that helped create the Special Situations strategy at TPG Capital in San Francisco. Prior to that, she was a private equity investor in the technology space at Silver Lake Partners in London and worked with some of the world’s largest technology companies while in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs in New York.

Peggy grew up in Hong Kong and Singapore, then studied Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania and Finance at The Wharton School. She remains passionate about creating things, especially art and sculpture.

Prof. Tony Mok

World-renowned Leader in Cancer Research & Management

Professor Tony Mok is a world-renowned leader in cancer research and management. He served as President of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and currently, member of the Board of Director of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He founded the Lung Cancer Research Group, and has led multiple multi-national randomized phase III studies that established the global standard on personalized medicine for advanced lung cancer. He obtained his fellowship in medical oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital in Canada, and publishes widely in top academic journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine. Professor Tony Mok honored with the ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 for his contribution to and leadership in lung cancer research worldwide.

Lehui Liang

Associate Director, Portfolio Management
Social Ventures Hong Kong

Ms. Lehui Liang is the Associate Director of Portfolio Management of SVhk. She oversees the firm’s investments in portfolio social ventures, including each ventures’ social impact measurement and financing initiatives. She also liaises with external funders to fund SVhk’s early stage initiatives and manages the funder relations process, from proposal to reporting. Ms. Liang graduated from Wellesley College and worked in banking prior to joining SVhk.

Philo Alto

Founder and CEO
Asia Value Advisors

Philo Alto is the founder and CEO of Asia Value Advisors (AVA), a purpose-driven philanthropic capital advisory firm based in Hong Kong. Through bespoke advisory services, convening, and research, AVA seeks to inform and inspire individuals and organizations to create sustainable impacts.

His work included advising The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust on program curation for its inaugural Philanthropy for Better Cities Forum in 2016 with 60 globally-renowned speakers and attracting over 1,300 delegates. Previously, he co-organized an impact investing forum in Hong Kong for East and South East Asia with the Rockefeller Foundation adopting an ecosystem to the impact investing market.

Philo has also co-authored two publications: “Mind the Gap: Lessons and Findings from EngageHK” and “Adopting the London Principles: Policy Considerations to Grow Impact Investing in HK”. His work has been cited in the media such as the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Alliance magazine, and the book, “The Power of Impact Investing”. Philo was appointed as a member of the global editorial board for the Alliance magazine.

Philo received his MBA and MPA from Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. He is an investment banker by training (Goldman Sachs and Citibank alumnus) prior to founding AVA. His voluntary engagements include serving as a director and communitylead of the Harvard Club of Hong Kong, global advisor of Social Ventures Hong Kong, and an officer of the HBS Association of HK

Dr. Wang Jian

Founder of Alibaba Cloud
Chairman of Technology Committee, Alibaba Group
Volunteer of 2050

Chairman of Alibaba Group Technology Committee, founder of Alibaba Cloud, honorary mayor of Yunqi Cloud Town and Xuelang Town，and the Volunteer of 2050.

In September 2008, Dr. Wang joined Alibaba Group as Chief Architect, responsible for the group’s technology architecture and construction of technology platforms.

In September 2009, he founded Alibaba Cloud and took on the role of president, leading a team to develop a large scale distributed computing system—Apsara. He also oversaw the construction of an Internet scale, general purpose computing platform and completed the commercialization of cloud computing services. In the same year, he began implementing Alibaba Group’s de-IOE strategy.

Starting in August 2010, he led a team to incubate and launch YunOS, a commercial operating system to be used for cars, mobile phones, televisions and other smart devices.

In September 2012, Dr. Wang became Alibaba’s Chief Technology Officer. In 2014, he established the Institute of Data Science & Technologies (iDST), with locations spanning Hangzhou and Seattle, to conduct prospective studies.

In early 2013, he launched Yunqi Cloud Town in Hangzhou to give young people a unique environment in which to innovate and start companies.

In April 2016, he proposed the concept and framework of the City Brain, and began working on the world’s first City Brain project in Hangzhou. Just like electricity and roadways, the City Brain will become a new form of infrastructure for cities of the future.

In August 2017, Dr. Wang launched Xuelang Town in Wuxi, to promote the integration of manufacturing and the Internet, and encourage the Internet and data to become a new foundation for manufacturing.

Before joining Alibaba, Dr. Wang served as deputy head of Microsoft’s Asia research institute standing committee. Before that, he was a professor of Psychology, doctoral adviser and department head at Hangzhou University and Zhejiang University.

In 2014, he was listed as one of the China Central Television Top 10 Nationwide Science and Technology Innovators of the Year.

Anais Mak

Founder
ANAÏS JOURDEN

ANAÏS JOURDEN was founded in 2012 by Anais Mak.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, where the brand is based, Anais moved to Paris to study fashion design at the Studio Berçot. But it was back on home turf, while putting her ideas into practice in the ateliers of local garment makers and tailors on regular trips back to Hong Kong during her studies, that she got to forge her skills as a designer, confronting her creative dreams with reality.

It was through learning from these artisans - and in turn and pushing their boundaries - that the designer was able to hone her distinctive design aesthetic: a subtly perverted take on formal femininity hooked on controlled volumes and fabric experimentation.

The formal wear and old school elements inspired by her well-disciplined childhood growing up in Hong Kong are the canvas of the ANAÏS JOURDEN silhouette. Mixing artisanal and industrial techniques to make clothes that are utterly modern; collections that lend themselves to all types of girls and lifestyles. ANAÏS JOURDEN is about a casual attitude, delivering a graphic punch to generic femininity. A take on the notion of dressing up that is more about twisting the codes of the classic feminine look than breaking them.

ANAÏS JOURDEN’s accolades include a semi-finalist place in LVMH Prize 2015 and Winner of Vogue Italia’s Who is on Next 2015. The collections are sold at key international retailers such as Colette, Barneys, Neiman Marcus, Ikram, Shopbop, Lane Crawford and Joyce.

Bonnie Chan Woo

CEO
Icicle Group

Bonnie Chan Woo is the CEO of Icicle Group, a leading cross-media branding and marketing company with offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Manila and it is publicly traded on GEM of Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Icicle Group services over 250 brands with a unique result-driven approach involving the use of technology, the continuous development of creative talents combined with best-in-class production discipline and the application of strategic design thinking.

In 2017, with a passion for storytelling, Bonnie co-founded Studio SV with Grammy-winning hip hop artist, Lupe Fiasco. The studio produces original content bridging cultures and innovates to create entertainment with brand integration opportunities.

Bonnie received the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award in 2018.

Bonnie graduated from University of Oxford. She is a Fellow of the China Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Hillary Yip

Founder and CEO
MinorMynas

Hillary Yip is the 13-year-old founder and CEO of MinorMynas, which aims to connect kids for real-life learning. In 2016, she won the 1st Prize and Best Business Award at the AIA Emerging Entrepreneur challenge in Hong Kong at the age of 10 and it was the beginning of her entrepreneurship journey.

The MinorMynas beta iOS app was launched in May 2017. As on Nov 30, 2018, the app has over 43,000 downloads across over 50 countries.

She has been invited to share her idea on many occasions, most recently at the Yidan Prize Summit 2018 and Social Enterprise Summit 2018. In the past, she has spoken as keynote speaker, panelist and other ways of speeches and pitches including Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund JUMPSTARTER Grand Finale 2017, Leading Women in Futurism Series with The Women's Foundation, StartmeupHK Festival 2016 & 2017, EdTech Asia Summit 2017, Singularity University Master Class, HKTDC Entrepreneur Day 2018, Hub Plus Summit 2018, Hong Kong Federation of Youth Group Leaders to Leaders Summit 2018, various speakers series at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and many more. In 2017, Hillary delivered a speech at TEDxTinHauWomen talking about her journey in education. Apart from being a sought-after speaker in events and conferences, Hillary also actively engaged in many speaking opportunities to inspire young people in schools, entrepreneurship boot camps, and leadership classes.

Hillary and MinorMynas have been widely featured by many media outlets including the BBC, Yitiao (一条), South China Morning Post, HK Economic Journal and Tatler to name a few. In Oct 2018, her article is being featured by the digital newsletter of the Malala Fund. Her story of being a visionary young entrepreneur has been circulated globally.

Jianxiong Xiao (Professor X)

Founder and CEO
AutoX Inc.

Jianxiong Xiao (a.k.a., Professor X) is the Founder and CEO of AutoX Inc., a high-tech company working on self-driving vehicles. AutoX's mission is to democratize autonomy and enable autonomous driving to improve everyone's life.

Dr. Xiao has over ten years of research and engineering experience in Computer Vision, Autonomous Driving, and Robotics. In particular, he is a pioneer in the fields of 3D Deep Learning, RGB-D Recognition and Mapping, Big Data, Large-scale Crowdsourcing, and Deep Learning for Robotics. Jianxiong received a BEng. and MPhil. in Computer Science from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2009. He received his Ph.D. from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2013. And he was an Assistant Professor at Princeton University and the founding director of the Princeton Computer Vision and Robotics Labs from 2013 to 2016.

His work has received the Best Student Paper Award at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) in 2012 and the Google Research Best Papers Award for 2012, and has appeared in the popular press. He was awarded the Google U.S./Canada Fellowship in Computer Vision in 2012, the MIT CSW Best Research Award in 2011, NSF/Intel VEC Research Award in 2016, and two Google Faculty Awards in 2014 and in 2015 respectively. He co-leads the MIT+Princeton joint team to participate in the Amazon Picking Challenge in 2016, and won the 3rd and 4th place worldwide. He was named to be one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review in 2017, and one of the 12 of the most promising entrepreneurs to keep an eye on in 2018 by Next Visionaries.

Joe Tsai

Non-Executive Director Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund
Executive Vice Chairman Alibaba Group

Joe Tsai joined our company in 1999 as one of our 18 founders. He served as our chief financial officer until May 2013 and is currently the executive vice chairman of the company. Joe oversees Alibaba's strategic acquisitions and investments. He has been a member of our board of directors since our inception, and is a founding member of the Alibaba Partnership, serving on our partnership committee.

Joe serves on the boards of several of Alibaba's investee companies, including Koubei (local services), Ele.me (food delivery), Cainiao Network (logistics) and Magic Leap.

From 1995 to 1999, Joe was a private equity investor based in Hong Kong with Investor AB, the main investment vehicle of Sweden's Wallenberg family. Prior to that, he was general counsel of Rosecliff, Inc., a New York management buyout firm, and from 1990 to 1993, was a tax associate with the New York-based law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.

Joe is qualified to practice law in the State of New York. He received his bachelor's degree in Economics and East Asian Studies from Yale College and a juris doctor from Yale Law School.

Jordan Fung

Founder and CEO
Pedosa Group

Jordan Fung is an award-winning 16-year-old technology entrepreneur from Hong Kong and is currently the Founder and CEO of Pedosa Group.

He founded his first startup, an online tech learning platform and community, at the age of 9. With limited resources, he launched an online campaign to recruit volunteers and sponsors. He then led a team of over a hundred developers around the world and launched the platform in August 2012, shortly after his 10th birthday. Within months, it had hundreds of thousands of active users. He later founded the Pedosa Group, a technology and digital media company which pioneers advanced technologies including a modular Internet-of-Things infrastructure and workflow, which had received widespread media coverage and had received awards from the UN, the EU, and HK government.

He actively promotes youth entrepreneurship through founding a number of NGOs including a local school network which consolidates resources for youth startups and has since incubated dozens of startups founded by under-18s. He had also been invited to speak at international conferences and serves on the boards of international and local organisations and held talks with the government to put forward change and to create a better environment for youth innovation and entrepreneurship.

Mick Batyske

Deejay, Entrepreneur and Investor

MICK is a Brooklyn-based multi-talented creative with influential footprints internationally – from New York to LA, Davos to Cannes, and London to Tokyo. He is a DJ, style influencer, tech investor, music curator and brand consultant.

He has spun private events for some of the world’s most prominent celebrities, brands, tech companies and philanthropic organizations including Adidas, Entertainment Weekly, HBO, Instagram, Jay Z, Michelle Obama, Miguel, Prince, Twitter, Vanity Fair and Walmart.

As an influencer, MICK has worked with brands like Airbnb, Beats By Dre, Cadillac, GQ, and Mastercard.

His press coverage includes Complex, Coveteur, Cheddar, Entrepreneur, Hollywood Reporter, Inc, New York Times, and Vogue.

Inc Magazine referred to him as "combination of Gary Vaynerchuk and Questlove.” Also, Entrepreneur mag called him: “the center of everything in relevant in tech and culture.”

MICK speaks regularly on creativity and entrepreneurship to brands, conferences and universities, including Cannes Lions, Harvard, MIT, Nike, and Twitter.

He invests in and advises a plethora of start-ups, including Anchor, Dot Dot Dash, Localeur and Winc.

Most importantly, MICK is most proud of his young son, @mylesXB, who amazingly does even more fun photoshoots than his dad. :)

Sammy Leung

Deejay, Host and MC

This content is only available in Chinese

森美畢業於香港中文大學新聞與傳播學院，1994年透過參加商業電台的DJ選舉比賽而成為電台節目主持，現主持當紅電台節目《早霸王》及《公子會》。2001年被商業電台選為「16-25歲最受歡迎DJ」。過往多達25本著作，更曾為多份報章雜誌撰寫專欄，2001 - 2006年更於香港中文大學新聞及傳播學院擔任兼職講師任教電台製作。除擔任有線及無綫電視節目主持、多個活動主持人外，亦曾推出多個音樂作品、演出舞台劇、棟篤笑、參與多部電影及電視劇的演出等，是一位多才多藝的藝人。

David Lee

Co-founder and CEO
NEX Team

David Lee is Co-Founder and CEO of NEX Team Inc., a Silicon Valley-based startup building mobile AI technologies that understand and analyze mobile video capture in real-time. The team is currently focused on their iOS app, HomeCourt, which applies these technologies to basketball, allowing players to better understand and improve their own game one shot at a time. Prior to founding NEX Team, David spent over 8 years at Apple where he led the engineering group behind iWork for iCloud, which further developed technologies from his earlier startup, EditGrid (acquired by Apple in 2008).

Francis Ngai

Founder and CEO
Social Ventures Hong Kong

Francis Ngai is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Social Ventures Hong Kong (www.sv-hk.org). He is also the Founder of Playtao Education, Bottless, Hatch co-working factory, Sonova Institute and Co-Founder of Green Monday and RunOurCity etc.

Since founded in 2007, SVhk has invented and incubated more than 40 social innovation projects, including LightBe affordable housing and Diamond Cab. Being an Impact Purpose Organization, it dedicates to innovating social change through pioneering impact ventures, aggregating impact capital and providing Business 2.0 consultancy.

Prior to establishing SVhk, Francis was the Head of Strategy in a listed technology conglomerate in HK. He graduated from the City University of Hong Kong and was conferred as an Honorary Fellow by the University in 2013. He was selected as one of the 100 Asia Pioneers by The Purpose Economy in 2014, a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in 2012, one of Hong Kong’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons in 2011 and Honorary Fellow of the Education University of HK in 2018. He also serves as Deputy Chairman of Asia Venture Philanthropy Network.

As an ultra-running veteran, Francis completed The North Pole Marathon in 2013, Sundown Ultra-marathon 100km Race and the 250-km Gobi March of the 4 Deserts race series.

Bernard Chan, GBS, JP

Convenor
Executive Council of Hong Kong SAR

Bernard Charnwut Chan is a deputy to the National People’s Congress of China, a non-official member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council (2004-09 and from 2012) and (from 2017) the Convenor of the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council. He is also a former member of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (1998-2008).

A graduate of Pomona College in California, he is the President of Asia Financial Holdings and Asia Insurance. He is Chairman of the Hong Kong – Thailand Business Council and an advisor to Bangkok Bank (China) Co. Ltd. He sits on the boards of several local and overseas companies in the financial services and manufacturing sectors. He also joined the governing board of the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund in Hong Kong.

Among his public service activities, he is Chairman of the Hong Kong Palace Museum Ltd., Chairperson of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, Chairman of The Jockey Club CPS Ltd. Advisory Committee, Chairman of the Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food and Chairman of the Steering Committee on Restored Landfill Revitalisation Funding Scheme. Past positions include Chairman of the Council for Sustainable Development, Chairman of the Antiquities Advisory Board, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Revitalisation of Historic Buildings, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Judicial Salaries and Condition of Service as well as Council Chair of Lingnan University.

He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 2002, and a Commander (3rd Class) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand in 2004. In 2006, he was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star by the Hong Kong SAR Government. He has been conferred honorary degrees from Lingnan University, City University of Hong Kong and the Open University of Hong Kong.

He is married and has two children.

Dennis Plomp

Principal
Nest Ventures

With experience in fundraising, Dennis helps manage the Nest Ventures portfolio and investor relations.

Dennis has over 16 years of experience in PE, VC investments and M&A advisory across Europe and Asia. He has a successful track record of over 60 corporate finance transactions with companies ranging from start-ups to stock listed corporates. Dennis specialises in hands-on PE & VC portfolio management, supporting businesses in various industries with their expansion across Asia, the UK and Europe. Prior to Nest, Dennis advised tech start-ups on late-stage seed and Series A fundraising as Director of Corporate Finance and M&A Advisory at an investment and advisory boutique in London. Dennis lived in Hong Kong from 2010 to 2012 and returned late 2015. He has been active in the start-up ecosystems in London and Hong Kong, most recently co-founding Get in the Ring UK, part of the world’s largest pitch competition for start-ups.

Justin Lai

Country Manager (Hong Kong)
Wantedly, Inc.

Justin Lai joined Wantedly, Inc. in 2017 as one of the first members on the Hong Kong expansion team. Wantedly is a social recruitment platform with the mission to create a world where work drives passion. We do this by connecting like-minded companies and talents based on passion and interest, rather than pay and benefits.

Justin was born and raised in Upstate New York only moving to Hong Kong in 2015 to kickstart his professional career. Prior to joining Wantedly, he worked in the regional digital team of a 4A’s advertising agency for nearly three years. He is now responsible for the overall growth and success of Wantedly here in Hong Kong.

Sui Yang Phang

Managing Partner, Hong Kong
Nest Ventures

Sui’s goal at Nest is to help corporates to innovate. With a keen awareness that no two institutions are alike, he works with partners to understand their unique innovation objectives, and to design bespoke, results-orientated programmes to suit their needs.

Prior to joining Nest, Sui spent 11 years with Citi Global Markets, first in Kuala Lumpur, and then Hong Kong. There, he helped clients to create tailored solutions in risk management and investments. Working with corporates, both large and small, financial institutions and sovereign wealth funds, Sui led deals that won industry recognition with multiple awards.

Lori Granito

Women's Success & Leadership Coach, Professional Speaker, TEDx Coach and Speaker Success Strategist

Lori is a 4x TEDx Speaker, 2x Entrepreneur of the Year award winner, professional speaker, and has built 4 multi million dollar businesses. She is the founder of Legendary Coaching & the Boss Lady Millionaires Club. Her mission is to help increase the percentage of women running million dollar businesses (currently a paltry 2%) by sharing their message, scaling their businesses and impacting the world.

She is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of Kitchen Sync, Hong Kong’s first culinary incubator for start up food entrepreneurs. She is also the owner of several other restaurants and catering companies, including the multi-award winning Magnolia private kitchen.

Lori has lived in Hong Kong for 27 years. Her businesses have been featured in publications such as Travel and Leisure, Time, Newsweek, Forbes, Essence, and The Robb Report. Her television appearances include CNBC’s ‘The Winners’, CNN’s Global Office program, and a six week run on Bloomberg's Asia Confidential. She is a former chairwoman of the Hong Kong Women Business Owner’s Association, Former Vice Chair of the Soho Association, and is on the board of the Women’s Entrepreneur Network in Hong Kong.

María Benjumea

Founder
South Summit

María Benjumea is founder and CEO of Spain Startup, organizer of South Summit, the global platform that brings together the key players of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and that in just four years has become the leading innovation meeting with 12,500 attendees and more than 1,7 billion dollars raised by its finalist startups in previous editions.

María Benjumea has stood out throughout her career for the defense of entrepreneurship, innovation and the concept of "if you want you can". Her leadership has been materialized in projects such as Infoempleo, Lidera and Taller de Arte. Founding member of International Women Forum Spain, she has been vice president of Secot and Círculo de Empresarios. María Benjumea has received several awards including the Gold Medal for Merit and Work.

Dr. Vincent Chow

CEO and Founder
En-trak

Dr. Vincent Chow is the founder and CEO of En-trak, the award-winning Smart Building IoT company. Founded in 2013, En-trak designs and sells a hardware-agnostic data platform that integrates different building data into one centralized platform. With advanced algorithms and machine learning, this empowers building owners with invaluable data and insights into how their buildings are performing and provides actionable intelligence. This helps to manage and optimize their resource utilization, improve productivity and cost efficiencies.

Since then, he has led the company from bootstrapping to profitability. Today, over 350 world-class customers from around Asia including Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx), Hong Kong Convention Centre, Singapore Maritime Port Authority (MPA) and Fuji Xerox, among many are using their solutions.

In 2017, En-trak emerged as the top 3 teams in the Jumpstarter competition. In 2018, they successfully closed their 1st investment round from the Alibaba Entrepreneur Fund and CLP Innovation Fund.

A civil engineer by training, Dr. Chow was awarded the prestigious UK DfT scholarship where he received his Ph.D from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Dr. Chow is a Singaporean and currently based out of Hong Kong.

Winston Wong

CEO and Co-Founder
Qupital

Mr. Winston Wong, is the Co-founder and CEO of Qupital, a financial technology company that specializes in SME trade finance backed up by its cutting-edge technology and big data analysis. Qupital operates a safe and secure online platform which enables SME businesses to raise quick quality capital in few clicks by connecting them with professional investors in equitable win-win opportunities.

Winston has experience in both the Financial and Technology sectors across Greater China Area and he is a Factoring Professional certified by Factors Chain International (FCI). Winston comes from a background of Trade Finance specializing in Factoring and E-Commerce Lending. He previously worked at CSHF Financial Factoring Holdings and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Winston graduated from the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in Bachelor of Computer Engineering.

Billy Naveed

CEO and Founder
Young Founders School

Billy Naveed is the CEO and founder of Young Founders School, a non-profit that helps high school students learn about entrepreneurship. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and has invested in over a dozen startups around the world.

Currently he is co-head of hedge fund sales and leads Equities digitisation for Credit Suisse in Asia. In this capacity he advises large money managers on their public and private tech investments. Billy is not only an active investor but also building his fifth startup, this time in the entertainment space

Billy is a Milken institute Young Leaders and a fellow of the Australian institute of corporate directors. He studied Economics at Warwick University and Masters in Economics and Finance at Warwick Business School

Crystal Pang

CEO and Co-founder
Pickupp

Crystal Pang is the CEO and co-founder of Pickupp, a technology enabled logistics platform focused on optimization and supply chain management, providing affordable and tailored delivery solutions for couriers, brands and retailers.

Prior to Pickupp, Crystal gained expertise scaling marketplace & driving growth as a Senior Operations Manager at Uber from 2014-2016. She acquired critical product development experience from Chinascope Financials, a Shanghai-based Fintech startup where she served as Deputy CEO (2012-2013), and from MathWorks, where she served as software engineer (2004-2006) focusing on optimization algorithms for fixed income and currency hedging in Boston.

Crystal was a former investment banker at BofA Merrill Lynch (2008-2012) and Credit Suisse(2007) with extensive cross-border M&A and capital markets experience.

Crystal holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and MS in Biomedical Engineering from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Diana Cesar

Group General Manager
HSBC
Chief Executive, Hong Kong
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited

Diana Cesar, Group General Manager of HSBC Group, is Chief Executive for Hong Kong and a member of the Executive Committee for The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.

During her career with HSBC, Ms Cesar has held leadership roles in Marketing, Cards and Loans, Mortgages, Distribution Strategy and Consumer Propositions in Hong Kong and across Asia-Pacific. Before being appointed Chief Executive for Hong Kong in September 2015, Ms Cesar had been Head of Retail Banking and Wealth Management for Hong Kong since 2011.

Ms Cesar first joined HSBC in 1999 and was appointed Head of Distribution and Product Development in 2003 with responsibility for establishing retail distribution infrastructure throughout Asia-Pacific. She was named Head of General Banking in 2007, managing all general retail banking portfolios including deposits, mortgages, credit cards and consumer assets in Hong Kong.

Before joining HSBC, Ms Cesar held various senior positions in Marketing and Customer Relations with a number of large multinational organisations.

Gordon Tam

Founder and CEO
Farm66

Mr Gordon Chi Ho Tam(譚嗣籇), Founder & CEO of Farm66, is devoted to the Agri-tech project of urban innovative farming. He especially focuses in sustainable concepts and research in Hong Kong and the feasibility of automatic environmental controlled vegetables farming factory. After graduating from the BA programme in architectural design and the MSc in Sustainable Urban Development, he founded Farm66 that grows organic vegetables from an old industrial building that was transformed into a hi-tech farm in Tai Po district. Production is thriving inside the converted industrial building and mass produces over hundred tonnes of lettuce per year. Not only does it allow him to follow his passion for nurturing plants, it also breathes new life into a part of town that is known more for its dilapidated industrial buildings than organic farming.

In recent years, Gordon has been invited by many corporations, schools and social enterprises to give lectures on scientific research in agriculture and environmental protection. He has received much attentions from both local and overseas media with a lot of press coverage. Local and overseas experts have paid visits to Farm66 to share the knowledge. Since 2016, he has been appointed as a board director and a committee member of the Federation of Hong Kong Agricultural Associations. For him, it is gratifying to be a city farmer, growing healthy vegetables for the next generation of Hong Kong. This is a viable business in Hong Kong because of a demand for healthy produce and the growing awareness of food safety.

In 2014, Farm66 received a patent for its Factory-type Urban Farming System. Subsequently in 2015, it was given the “Carbon Smart Award” and “Hong Kong Industries: Equipment and Machinery Design Award”. Other achievements include the “2016 Technological Achievement Award of Merit”. Gordon’s vision clearly struck a chord, winning top 3 of the JumpStarter 2017, funded by the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund.

Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman

Minister of Youth and Sports
Ministry of Youth and Sports of Malaysia

Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman is the Minister of Youth and Sports and a Member of Parliament of Muar, Johore. He is the co-founder and currently the Youth Chief of BERSATU.

Syed Saddiq is a law graduate from International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), received an Academic Fellow at Temple University, Dialogue Institute on the Art of Dialoguing & Religious Pluralism. He was also appointed as the Special Officer in the Prime Minister’s office under YB Nancy Shukri. From 2015 – 2016, Syed Saddiq was an active researcher for Bait Al-Amanah, one of the renown Think Tank Institution under the Johor State Government.

His experiences prior to joining politics was as the International Debate Coach for over 25 countries worldwide, columnist for MalaysiaKini, FMT & Yahoo, member on the National Consultative Council on Political Financing, Editor-in-Chief of the Monash Debate Review and a Consultant on Public Policy.

His passion in public speaking and dialogue is evident from his active participation worldwide. He was selected to be part the speaker for the Geneva on Corruption, youth events such as Malaysia Social Media Week 2018, National Aspiration Leadership Summit and TedxYouthKL.

As a recognition over his contribution to the youth, he is a proud recipient of Perdana Belia Negara Award, Malaysian Muslim Youth Leaders, Youth Merdeka Award and Tokoh Siswa Award.

David Yeung

Founder and CEO
Green Monday

David Yeung is the Founder & CEO of Green Monday, a multi-faceted social venture with the mission to take on the world’s most pressing crises of climate change, food insecurity and public health. With the global sustainability movement in Green Monday, the market-transforming plant-based retail, dining and distribution network in Green Common, and the revolutionary food technology innovation in Right Treat and Omnipork, Mr. Yeung has pioneered a one-of-a-kind integrated platform that engages and empowers millions of people, along with public and private sectors, towards green awareness, action and economy. His work earns him the award of “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” by the World Economic Forum and Schwab Foundation. Other honors and recognitions include “Roddenbrry Prize”, “Ten Outstanding Young Persons Hong Kong” and “50 Most Innovative Companies”.

As a noted environmentalist and entrepreneur, Mr. Yeung has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Milken Institute Summit, TEDx, as well as financial and academic institutions such as Credit Suisse, UBS and UCLA. International media coverage of Green Monday and Mr. Yeung includes CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg and Forbes.

Mr. Yeung is a graduate of Columbia University, an Ashoka Fellow, and a director of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, Hong Kong AIDS Foundation and Hong Kong Buddhist Association. He is also the author of a number of best-selling books on Zen wisdom and mindfulness.

Djoann Fal

Co-Founder and CEO
GetLinks

Djoann co-founded GetLinks in January 2015. A visionary, asian start-up guru and proud geek, Djoann is passionate about driving social impact and meaningful change in the world using technology.

As CEO of GetLinks, funded by Alibaba, SEEK (ASX:SEK), New World Group (HKG:17) and 500 Startups, he oversees operations across 6 countries, leading a team of 17 nationalities over 120 employees.

Djoann has previously worked as Regional Digital Marketing Executive at Rocket Internet GmBH for Lazada - Acquired by Alibaba in 2016. Prior to, he served as Marketing Consultant in EY Shanghai.

While studying Masters in Management at ESCP Europe in Paris, Djoann co-founded La Paillasse, Europe’s largest makerspace. Today Djoann keep close relationships with the technology, hacker and maker space community across US, Europe & Asia.

Djoann is the Regional Organiser for a technology networking event operating in 12 cities across Asia & supporter of Angelhack, the largest hackathon & developer community in the US.

Since 2015, Djoann have been selected as Kairos Fellow, an organisation supported by Rockefeller Family, Richard Branson & Bill Clinton to support the most innovative entrepreneurs below 25 years old.

In 2017, Djoann got awarded by Kairos K50 in New York Stock Exchange with 50 most innovative tech companies solving social impact challenges founded by young entrepreneurs worldwide, endorsed by Richard Branson.

Garrick Lau

Assistant General Manager - Strategic Planning and Community Engagement
New World Development Company Limited

Garrick Lau is the Assistant General Manager in Strategic Planning and Community Engagement at New World Development Company Limited (NWS). A Gen-Y and father of two children, Garrick aspires to bring happiness and fulfillment to future generations. He believes corporates have an important role to play in creating sustainable social values.

His experience covers change management and intrapreneurship, hospitality and real estate asset management, talent acquisition, employer branding, digital marketing, social innovation, shared value creation, fundraising and content development on youth development.

Garrick has led a charitable organization, which runs the largest teenage entrepreneurship education program in Hong Kong, while serving youth in the areas of work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy. He has also been advising organizations (e.g. Google, Bank of China, Esquel, HKUST etc.) on youth engagement and intrapreneurship. He has created a local graduates’ community of Management Trainee program applicants through social media and pioneered a new space for employer branding through content marketing.

Garrick is a certified management consultant. He has got his bachelor and master degree from the University of Hong Kong and received senior executive training from Stanford University.

Justin Li

Manager - Community Relations
Airport Authority Hong Kong

Justin is a seasoned sustainability professional skilled in technical as well as management aspects of environmental and sustainability projects for public and private sectors. He is well versed in corporate sustainability, environmental, health and safety and ESG disclosure issues and his previous employers included public utilities, blue-chip property developer, international environmental consultancy, MNC, NGO and statutory organisation. Justin is currently leading a Community Investment project for the Airport Authority which aims to address business challenges for the airport community as well as community needs.

Lee Williamson

Editor
Generation T
Asia Tatler

Lee Williamson is a Hong Kong-based journalist with a decade of experience in the Greater China region. Formerly in the editor’s chair at Time Out Beijing, he now heads up editorial for Generation T, Asia Tatler's content and events platform for the leaders of tomorrow.

Ronie Mak

Managing Director
RS Group

Ronie leads and manages the strategy, operations and development of RS Group’s activities in HK and globally. RS Group is a mid-sized HK-based family office committed to creating a paradigm shift in people’s values and priorities so that economic growth will support, instead of jeopardize, human development and environmental sustainability. Through leading and managing the deployment of the group’s capital and resources, Ronie believes that one should, and can, “invest in the future one wants to create”. She also led the incubation of the Sustainable Finance Initiative (SFI) under RS Group (http://sustainablefinance.hk/), a community platform focusing on private investors to drive demand and promote sustainable finance in HK.

Ronie is an investment banker by training with over 15 years of banking & finance experience. Prior to joining RS Group in 2014, she spent 8 years at HSBC across various roles (CEO office, Strategy, in-house M&A). During this period, she also acted as the Secretary of the Hong Kong Association of Banks in 2012. Other prior roles included corporate finance positions within KPMG, UPS and HSBC. Ronie was born in Hong Kong and graduated from the University of New South Wales in Sydney with merit and a double degree in finance and marketing, Bachelor of Commerce.

Stan Tang

Chairman
Stan Group

Stan Tang is the chairman of Stan Group (Holdings) Limited (“Stan Group”), who has over ten years of experience in corporate management and property investment.

A passionate entrepreneur and recognised social innovator, Stan has established successful channels to support the professional and personal development of young entrepreneurs and actively encourages the teams working under his supervision to innovate, develop and grow. Presently, Stan and the Group are focused on pressing issues, including housing innovation, education, youth empowerment and active ageing in Hong Kong, and aim to create sustainable development strategies. In doing so, he hopes to strengthen the city’s business sector while promoting social welfare, bringing stakeholders together to make Hong Kong a better place

Stan was named Outstanding Young Entrepreneurs by Hong Kong Baptist University and "Hong Kong Social Innovator" by The Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund). He is a member of the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Dongguan, a committee member of the Yau Tsim Mong District Fight Crime Committee, and a co-opted Member of Task Force of The Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund, among other roles. Mr. Tang writes regular column for local newspapers on youth development, local entrepreneurial development and policy issues.

Philip Law

Partner - Audit & Assurance / Market & Global Network
Deloitte

Philip Law is a Partner - Audit & Assurance / Market & Global Network and Program Lead Partner of Deloitte Technology Fast 20 Hong Kong Program. He has over 18 years of audit and advisory experience to address clients’ most complex business challenges. Philip has served companies across several industry sectors, including real estate, consumer products, manufacturing, technology, and natural resources and energy etc. His clientele includes family office with a history over 300 years, stated owned enterprises, MNCs and listed companies on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited and Singapore.

Philip is active in capital market. He has in depth experience in the area of initial public offerings, investment fund operations, reorganizations, strategic merger & acquisitions and tax advisory. He also has rich experience in advising early stage companies. He clienteles include various innovative and technology companies.

Philip is also the Program Lead Partner of Deloitte Technology Fast 20 Hong Kong Program. He has rich advisory experience in the area of technology companies. Personally, he is passionate in mentoring young entrepreneurs and share his advices with early stage companies.

Oliver Weisberg

Managing Partner
Blue Pool Capital

Mr. Oliver Weisberg is a Managing Partner of Blue Pool Capital, a multi-strategy investment firm based in Hong Kong. The firm invests in all the major asset classes including public and private equity and real estate globally. The firm is owned by the management and manages the assets of the management and a group of close-knit long term investors.

Before joining Blue Pool, Mr. Weisberg was a Partner at Citadel (Hong Kong) Limited, having joined the firm in 2006. Prior to joining Citadel, Mr. Weisberg was with Deutsche Bank Hong Kong where he ran the Strategic Investment Group / Distressed Products Group. Prior to that, Mr. Weisberg was with Goldman Sachs & Co in both the Asian Special Situations and Principal Investment Area divisions where he was on the team managing the firm's investments in Ping An Insurance and Alibaba.com.

Mr. Weisberg received his B.A. from Harvard College and then completed a one-year advanced Chinese language program at the Stanford University Center at National Taiwan University.

Mr. Weisberg is on the board for Teach for America's affiliate, Teach for China, where he serves as a Vice Chairman. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard University Shanghai Center and the Harvard China Fund. Mr. Weisberg is on the board of the Squash Education Alliance, a member of the Lincoln Center China Advisory Council, the Chairman of the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Asian Advisory Board, and a member of the Young Presidents' Organization.

Joe Tsai

Non-Executive Director Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund
Executive Vice Chairman Alibaba Group

Joe Tsai joined our company in 1999 as one of our 18 founders. He served as our chief financial officer until May 2013 and is currently the executive vice chairman of the company. Joe oversees Alibaba's strategic acquisitions and investments. He has been a member of our board of directors since our inception, and is a founding member of the Alibaba Partnership, serving on our partnership committee.

Joe serves on the boards of several of Alibaba's investee companies, including Koubei (local services), Ele.me (food delivery), Cainiao Network (logistics) and Magic Leap.

From 1995 to 1999, Joe was a private equity investor based in Hong Kong with Investor AB, the main investment vehicle of Sweden's Wallenberg family. Prior to that, he was general counsel of Rosecliff, Inc., a New York management buyout firm, and from 1990 to 1993, was a tax associate with the New York-based law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.

Joe is qualified to practice law in the State of New York. He received his bachelor's degree in Economics and East Asian Studies from Yale College and a juris doctor from Yale Law School.

Thomas Tsao

Founding Partner and Managing Partner
Gobi Partners

Tom is a Managing Partner and co-founder of Gobi Partners, a venture capital firm headquartered in Shanghai and with offices in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Established in 2002, Gobi is a leading investor in digital media, IT and TMT companies in China and ASEAN. To date, Gobi has funded more than 170 companies and is currently investing its eighth fund.

Tom has participated in the development of several leading companies such as Brite Semiconductor (strategic investment from SMIC:0981.HK), Camera360, CiB (acquired by AsiaSoft), CSDN, Line0, Madhouse (acquired by BlueFocus:300058.SZ), MainSpring, Opzoon (acquired by Harbin Gong Da:600701.SH), Tuniu (NASDAQ:TOUR), World Traveller and Yoyi Digital—often times serving on the company’s board of directors. Previously, Tom was also the former CEO and a Director of DMG (acquired by NASDAQ:VISN), the largest operator of passenger information systems and digital media networks inside China’s subways. At DMG, Tom was the executive producer for the company’s award winning A Sunny Day, Dancing Without You, and A Starry Night programs, the world’s first series of subway soap operas sponsored respectively by Starbucks, Nine West and the MDA of Singapore. He also helped create Gobi’s Oasis Program, one of China’s earliest incubation initiatives, whose list of successfully nurtured startups include GoKuai, NetQin (NYSE:NQ), Teambition, and Zhiyoula.com.

Over the years, Tom has been a featured speaker at several influential business and industry events, including those hosted by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Harvard Business School, IBM, London School of Economics, Shanghai’s Municipal Government, Stanford Business School, the World Bank and the World Islamic Economic Forum. He was named to the Forbes List of “China’s Top Venture Capitalists” in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Prior to Gobi, Tom was a founder of the Beijing Technology Development Fund, sponsored by Beijing Enterprises and Tsinghua University Enterprise Group, where he facilitated investments into CommerceOne, MyRice and SiRF. In 2001, Tom led the US$72 million merger of Hong Kong-based Asia2B (backed by Beijing Enterprises, Jardine Matheson, New World, Sun Hung Kai, Swire Pacific, and Wharf) and Singapore-based SESAMi (backed by Singapore Telecom), the largest Asian new economy merger at the time. He subsequently worked as Vice Chairman of the combined entity.

Prior to that, Tom was a director at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson (China) covering the TMT sectors. In 1999, Tom served as the Independent Advisor to First Pacific on its US$285 million acquisition of Indofood. From 1996 to 1998, Tom worked for Seapower Financial Services in Hong Kong where he was the head of Corporate Strategy and set up the firm’s Asset Management department. He also helped run the top rated Asian Smaller Companies Fund as ranked by Lipper. Tom started his career as an investment banker in the Financial Institutions Group with Merrill Lynch in New York and Hong Kong. He worked on numerous M&A transactions and developed relationships with banks in Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Tom is a graduate of Harvard College where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Economics.

In addition to his work at Gobi Partners, Tom is the founder of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) China, a non-profit organization aimed at providing internship opportunities for underserved college students which is modeled after SEO in the US. He also serves as a board member of the Presidential Scholars Foundation which cultivates, connects and celebrates U.S. Presidential Scholars (161 of the nation’s top high school graduates who are selected annually and honored by the White House). He was elected as a Vice Chairman of the Pudong Venture Capital Association in March 2010 and served as a member of the Development Committee for Zhangjiang High-Tech Park. Of note, Tom was the inspiration behind Seinfeld’s popular “Movie Phone” TV episode.

Peter Yan

CEO
Cyberport

Mr Peter Yan is the Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited. As the CEO of Cyberport, Mr Yan will lead the digital technology flagship to focus on fostering industry development, enterprise transformation and talent cultivation to realise Cyberport’s vision to create new impetus for Hong Kong’s new economy through digital technology.

Mr Yan has 32 years of experience in the information technology industry and is a fellow of the Hong Kong Computer Society. Prior to joining Cyberport, Mr Yan was the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of SUNeVision Holdings Limited; and had held various senior management positions in large consulting and information technology services companies including Accenture, Tradelink Electronic Commerce Limited, and Computer and Technologies Holdings Limited. Mr Yan has been active in public services especially in the areas of talent development and digital technology industry development, serving as advisors to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong and University of Hong Kong, as well as the Board of Cyberport from 2011 to 2017.

Mr Yan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and received Executive Education from the Harvard Business School.

Albert Wong

CEO
Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation

Albert Wong joined Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) on February 1, 2016 as the Chief Corporate Development Officer. He was appointed the CEO on August 1, 2016.

Albert holds an Engineering Degree from the University of Hong Kong, and an MBA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Albert has over thirty years of commercial experience with various multinationals, including Schlumberger, Caterpillar, Emerson Electric and General Electric. Before joining the HKSTP, Albert was the CEO of ATAL Engineering in Hong Kong. Prior to that, Albert spent fifteen years with GE in the US headquarters, Asia-Pacific and China, in which he was responsible for M&A, Business Development, Product Management, and Business Operations. Albert’s last positions at GE were China CEO of GE Oil & Gas; Asia CEO of GE Industrial Solutions.

Albert is committed to building an ecosystem in Hong Kong to drive development in Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He firmly believes that the future of Hong Kong rides on the success of this ecosystem.

Chibo Tang

Partner
Gobi Partners

Chibo has been investing in early stage companies in the technology and media sectors in China for nearly a decade. He is head of the Hong Kong office and a partner of the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, which Gobi manages as the General Partner.

Chibo started his career as a strategy consultant with Monitor Group, working on projects across the ASEAN and MENA regions. He also spent time at Robert Bosch, where he was Senior Manager of Corporate Strategy in Asia Pacific.

Chibo received his B.A. in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard College. He served on the Board of the Harvard Club of Shanghai for over 6 years, and still travels frequently between Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Sui Yang Phang

Managing Partner
Nest Ventures

Sui’s goal at Nest is to help corporates to innovate. With a keen awareness that no two institutions are alike, he works with partners to understand their unique innovation objectives, and to design bespoke, results-orientated programmes to suit their needs.

Prior to joining Nest, Sui spent 11 years with Citi Global Markets, first in Kuala Lumpur, and then Hong Kong. There, he helped clients to create tailored solutions in risk management and investments. Working with corporates, both large and small, financial institutions and sovereign wealth funds, Sui led deals that won industry recognition with multiple awards.

Malcolm Ong

Head of Product
South China Morning Post

Malcolm Ong is the Head of Product at the South China Morning Post (SCMP), a leading global news media company.

He joined SCMP from Lyft, a ride-sharing platform that operates in over 550 cities in the US. There, he led an array of product initiatives from Lyft.com to organic passenger and driver growth to partnerships with Fortune 500 corporations. Malcolm’s team launched Lyft’s first progressive web app (PWA), Amazon Fire app, Windows 10 app, and its iconic connected dashboard light called “Amp”. Prior to Lyft, Malcolm was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at 500 Startups, a global venture capital fund with over US$350 million in committed capital, where he advised a class of 30+ startups through the fund’s accelerator program. Before 500 Startups, Malcolm co-founded Skillshare, a NYC-based education-tech start-up, and led the product team at OMGPOP, a NYC-based gaming studio. He has also held senior technology positions at Razorfish and IBM.

Malcolm holds a BSc degree in Computer Science with a double major in Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

Tony Tung

Vice President
Gobi Partners

Tony joined Gobi's Hong Kong office in 2016 and currently focuses on the startup eco-system in the city. He helps to manage the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund (AHKEF) and covers high potential startups within the Pearl River Delta technology ecosystem. Tony accumulated extensive experience in growing high-tech businesses from his two startups related to financial technology (FinTech) and big data for fashion. He was in charge of the overall product roadmap and management, business development, operation, technical infrastructure design & implementation, user experience design as well as fund raising of the companies.Tony received his B.Eng. in Computer Engineering and B.B.A. in Financial Engineering from the double degree programme in The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Diana Wu David

Founder and CEO
Sarana Capital / Sarana Labs

Diana Wu David is a strategist, innovator, entrepreneur, and the founder of Sarana Capital and Sarana Labs. Her companies transform how executives work and prepare them to be more entrepreneurial, resilient and successful in the face of constant change, invest in edtech and HRtech, and support innovative education initiatives across public and private sectors. Her diverse, global career includes assisting Henry Kissinger and leading executive education initiatives for Financial Times. A superconnector of people and a sought-after speaker, Diana lives in Hong Kong with her husband and their three children.

Allan Zeman

Chairman, Lan Kwai Fong Group
Non-Executive Director, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund

William (Will) Ross

Head of Customer Franchise
Citibank Hong Kong

William Ross (“Will”) is the Head of Customer Franchise for Citibank Hong Kong. He oversees decision management, customer experience, digital banking and product marketing for the consumer banking franchise in Hong Kong covering all lines of business.

Prior to his Citi appointment, Will was the CEO of Lazada Crossborder in Hong Kong where he was responsible for the significant growth of their crossborder merchandise business.

Will has 20 years of diverse experience in research, venture capital, corporate and investment banking, as well as digital business development. Will has a variety of commercial background, having successfully made the transition from banking industry to strategy and commercial roles, running sizeable online businesses with NEST.VC and Lazada Crossborder. He also has broad geographic experience having worked in the US, UK, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Dubai, India, Singapore, Vietnam and Kenya.

Will holds a Bachelor Degree of Arts in Economics and Philosophy from Queen’s University, Canada.

Margaret Cheng

Human Resources Director
MTR

Kevin Lam

Chief Operating Officer, Corporate and Investment Banking
Citi Hong Kong