Speakers

Group President and CEO,
Vertex Venture Holdings

Kee Lock leads the team at Vertex Venture Holdings, a wholly-owned and wholly-sponsored subsidiary of Temasek Holdings, and is engaged with driving its efforts toward investing in emerging companies and leading venture capital funds throughout Greater Asia and the U.S. Kee Lock has nearly three decades of experience as an investor (Walden International, Transpac Capital), entrepreneur (MediaRing.com, BioSensors), and operational executive (NatSteel, Beaver Computer Corp, Intraco), while also serving on the boards of Logitech International, Yongmao and SHC Capital.

Managing Director,
CyberAgent Ventures

Nobuaki Kitagawa is the Managing Director for CyberAgent Ventures and the CEO of CyberAgent Ventures China, responsible for all of the company’s investments in Mainland China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Korea. Since joining to CyberAgent Ventures in 2006, Nobuaki has
led international expansion of the Japan-based VC firm from no investment outside Japan then to more than 40 overseas investments including Tudou.com (Mainland China), iPartment (Taiwan), Vatgia (Vietnam), Tokopedia (Indonesia) and Kakao Corp (Korea). Prior to CyberAgent Ventures he also had 11 years’ experience in the telecom industry working for Japan’s NTT DoCoMo.

CEO and President,
Bubble Motion, Inc.

Tom Clayton has started and run numerous high-tech startups.  Now running Bubble Motion, a Sequoia Capital, JAFCO, and SingTel Innov8 backed social media startup that is one of the largest VC-backed startups in Southeast Asia having raised over $60M+ in funding, Tom is leading the company through unprecedented user growth across Asia on its Bubbly voice blogging service. 

Co-founder and Managing Director,
Rocket Internet (South East Asia)

Stefan started with Rocket Internet in India before coming to SEA to start the offices and becoming initial co-founder of amongst other Zalora, Lazada and OfficeFab. He previously worked as strategy consultant at The Boston Consulting Group in Copenhagen and Bain & Company in Stockholm, where he focused on private equity investments.

Managing Director, Online Sales,
Twitter

Aliza recently joined Twitter to build and run the medium and small business markets across the APAC region. Previously she spent 5 years at Google, as Managing Director, Commerce and Wallet and Managing Director  of the Online Sales Group, where she led the team’s strategy and growth in Asia Pacific. She also worked closely with the Economic Development Board to create a major presence for Google in Singapore.

Director,
Rakuten Asia

Shin Hasegawa is a Director in Rakuten Global Marketing Office, leading Global projects as the Assistant Chief Marketing Officer and Asia Regional activities as the Head of Asia Marketing. Prior to joining Rakuten in 2012, he worked in Procter & Gamble for 10 years with broad Marketing and General Management experience across multiple brands and countries.

Co-CEO,
Kakao Corporation

Sirgoo Lee is the Co-CEO of popular South Korea social messaging application, KakaoTalk. Prior to joining Kakao Corporation in 2011, he was serving in various director roles in NHN Corporation from May 2004 and July 2011. 

Founder and Group CEO,
MOL Global Pte Ltd

Ganesh leads the two wholly owned subsidiaries of MOL Global, namely MOL AccessPortal Berhad (“MOL”), a global online payment service provider and Friendster Inc. (“Friendster”), the world’s pioneer social network. He co-founded and built MOL from scratch to become one of the biggest online payment service providers in Asia with annual revenues of over USD200Million. MOL today has over 680,000 physical payment channels across 80 countries worldwide and handles over 5,000,000 transactions a month.

In 2012, he was the Malaysian Ernst & Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year and was the Top Winner for the Prestige Top 40 Under 40 2012 Awards.

Managing Director,
DeNA Asia Pacific Holdings

Tetsuya Mori heads up DeNA Asia Pacific Holdings in Singapore, responsible for Mobage expansion to Southeast Asia. He is also a Silicon Valley veteran having stationed in California from 1994 to 2004, and contributed to the global technology evolution. In 2004, Tetsuya relocated himself to Japan and joined a Venture Capital arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group called Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, as Managing Director of Cross Border Investments. Through his investment activities, Tetsuya discovered his passion for Southeast Asia.

Managing Director and Founder,
TARAD.com

Mr.Pawoot Pongvitayapanu (Pom) is the founder of TARAD.com, the biggest e-commerce service in Thailand. TARAD.com was acquired by Rakuten Group in 2009. He now runs Zocial Inc, a social media analytics and ranking startup.

Head, Local life,
SingTel’s Group Digital L!fe

Under Local L!fe, Cheng Chuan leads a few internet companies, including inSing.com, HungryGoWhere.com and Eatability.com, among various other hyperlocal businesses.
Before Local L!fe, Cheng Chuan spent several years as a technology hunter, travelling to global innovation hubs including Silicon Valley, Israel and New York to bring innovative products and cutting-edge technologies to SingTel customers. He joined SingTel in 1997, and has worked in both the consumer and corporate business groups.

Managing Director Southeast Asia,
Airbnb

JJ Chai is the Managing Director for Airbnb Southeast Asia. Prior to joining Airbnb, JJ was a Junior Partner at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. In his 5 years there, he advised leading technology and telecoms companies across Southeast Asia. He had also spent time early in his career as a software developer and program manager at a Singapore-based tech startup.

Chairman, CEO,
VNG Corporation

Mr. Minh Le is the Chairman and CEO of VNG Corporation, a leading internet and social media company in Vietnam. Established in 2004, VNG has grown from a 5-person startup to a well-respected domestic company running online portal, social networking site, and entertainment products such as music, games, and videos. Its E-commerce platform has approximately 20 million Vietnamese subscribers.

Co-founder at StartupsHK, Community Developer for SoftLayer,
StartupsHK / SoftLayer

Casey Lau is one of the Hong Kong tech start-up pioneers having co-founded one of Hong Kong’s first web design studios, first e-commerce site specialising in pop culture products and Hong Kong’s first blog network focused on the luxury retail industry. He is one of the original co-founders of StartupsHK, Hong Kong’s premier startup community, creating events for startups to meet and share. He is also the newly appointed Community Manager for SoftLayer’s Catalyst Startup Program in Asia-Pacific, providing virtual incubator services for startups across the region.

Co-founder,
Netccentric

Ming Shen’s (Or Ming’s) first sortie into the online realm came in April 2004 in the form of Singapore’s first flash based e-commerce store known as GadgeIt.com. Armed with this invaluable experience and internships at various organizations including the Economic Development Board of Singapore, Ming knew Entrepreneurship was his only path upon graduation, and co-founded Netccentric Pte Ltd in August 2006.

Today, Nuffnang boasts a network of 1,000,000 blogs in the region, with sales and community offices in 7 countries, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia, China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Head (South Asia),
JAFCO Asia

Murli Ravi has ten years’ experience working in investments, consulting and high-tech. At JAFCO, Murli is a hands-on investor who has overseen investments in over 20 technology companies across India, SE Asia and Australia. His prior experience has spanned pre-revenue start-ups to Fortune 100 multinationals. His first love remains working alongside dedicated entrepreneurs who want to make an impact on the world. Murli is an avid traveller and has visited countries on every continent using modes of transportation as varied as helicopters and long-distance road bicycles. He favours micro-experiences over macro-analysis to understand what makes different businesses, markets and cultures tick.

Co-Founder & Editor,
thumbsup.in.th

Oranuch Lerdsuwankij is the Co-Founder & Editor of “thumbsup.in.th“, a leading tech blog from Bangkok, Thailand.  The blog has also had their content syndicated by some of the top publications in Thailand. She has had 11 years’ direct experience in the telecommunications industry working for companies such as Truemove, Atos Origin and Total Access Communication. She has been frequently invited as special speaker by various institutions and organizations, as well as has written many academic articles for the topics of Telecom Industry, Mobile Marketing and Startup Scene.

President Director,
OOKBEE

Moo Natavudh is a tech entrepreneur with over 12 years experience in founding, funding, and managing tech companies in Thailand. He is currently the founder and CEO of OOKBEE, Thailand’s biggest e-book store with 85% of the market shares.

Founder and CEO,
beSUCCESS

James Jung is the Founder and CEO of South Korea’s leading startup-tech media platform beSUCCESS. beSUCCESS recently organized beLAUNCH, Korea’s biggest startup conference in June 2012 in Seoul. The 2-day conference was attended by more than 1,500 people and the event spawned tremendous deal making, networking, and extensive media coverage globally and in Korea.

Co-founder,
PropertyGuru Group

Steve Melhuish is an award-winning entrepreneur. For the last two decades, Steve built profitable companies throughout Asia and Europe and in 2006 along with his partner Jani Rautiainen, founded PropertyGuru Group.

Director,
Jakarta Founder Institute

Andy Zain started as one of the pioneer in mobile industry in Indonesia. He helped established services & go-to market strategy for global brands such as Disney, Yahoo!, Cartoon Networks, mig33, Vuclip into Indonesia. He founded few mobile base companies, including Elasitas & Numedia, and took position as Director for SkyBee Tbk, a public listed tech company in Indonesia.

He is also the founder & organiser for MobileMonday Indonesia, a networking forum for over 3000 mobile industry professionals in Indonesia.

CEO,
Infocomm Investments

Kuo-Yi has been active in the IT startup space as founder, early employee, mentor and investor, spanning the US and Asia. He was a senior sales and business development executive at Encentuate (acquired by IBM) and Reputation Technologies (acquired by Security Sources). He was also a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group where he worked with senior executives in the telecommunications, automotive and financial services industries. Kuo-Yi graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the bachelor, master’s and doctorate degrees, all in electrical engineering with focus on nanophotonics.p.

Venture Advisor, former incubator,
Founder of Platform Thinking

Sangeet is a Singapore-based venture advisor, former incubator and widely published technology analyst. His articles have been featured on TechCrunch, GigaOm, TheNextWeb, HBR and leading Asian media. His blog Platform Thinking was ranked among the Top Startup Blogs by the HBS Entrepreneurship Centre. Earlier, as a founding member of Intuit Asia, he led early stage venture incubation and M&A for Intuit, in the region. He has extensively researched patterns in startup success and failure and has built a repeatable model for execution of networked businesses. His work has been recommended by HBS Professor Tom Eisenmann, VC Fred Wilson and GigaOm founder Om Malik.

Director,
Taobao International Business

Daphne is responsible for managing Taobao Marketplace’s business development and marketing strategies in markets outside of Mainland China such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. She has more than 10 years of experience in Internet marketing and e-commerce, and has a strong track record of e-banking and payment product development, business development, and online business operation management.

Founder,
Touchten

Anton Soeharyo loves to play and create games. Fortunately, he managed to turn that into his full-time job. He is the founder of Touchten and successfully launch several hit games with a total of 5 Million unique installs across IOS and Android.

Anton has a corny sense of humor and believes that one day through his games he will change the lives of millions.

Founder and CEO,
Quality Time Lab

Meri Rosich turned the startup Noticias.com into a highly successful business and developed the business for leading online games Solojuegos.com. She also led online marketing for Bertelsmann’s online bookstore, and later on managed the social media strategy and product development for NY’s StarMedia NYSE portal, before finally moving to American Express in London, Hong Kong and Singapore focusing on strategy and M&A. She has also led the Women Team at the United Nations Association for the past four years and advises social start-ups.

Co-founder,
BillPin

Darius Cheung is currently co-founder and CEO of BillPin. Previously he was cofounder and CEO of tenCube, a Singapore-based mobile security company that was acquired by McAfee Inc.

Co-founder,
BillPin

Currently on her second startup, Aileen takes care all-things-Product at BillPin. BillPin helps friends and roommates easily manage shared expenses. Aileen makes sure that the team build what users need, and that users love what they build. Before BillPin, Aileen was CEO of virtual currency startup, First Meta, which she founded and grew to profitability. 

Founder,
Fetch Plus Inc

Carmen Benitez is the Founder of Fetch Plus Inc, a social media technology company that specializes in developing plug and play social media SaaS enterprise solutions for brand franchises and media companies worldwide. With offices in Singapore, the United States, and Australia, Fetch Plus is the leader in helping major brands and global media companies reach local customers through social media.

Regional Director ,
PopCap Games

Evan Spytma is the Regional Director of SE Asia, Australia and New Zealand for PopCap Games. He first joined PopCap in 2008 and is based out of PopCap’s Singapore office. With over 13 years of experience in Asia and 18 multi-platform game launches across 5 languages, Evan is a seasoned marketing and sales gaming professional. He currently leads and defines PopCap’s expansion into SE Asia’s mobile social market and skill based gaming in Asia Pacific.

Founder and CEO,
The Mobile Gamer

Alvin is the Founder and CEO of TMG, the market leader of mobile social gaming in Southeast Asia. TMG has gained over 3 million users and the figure is still growing strong. TMG was also recently invested by SingTel.

Partner,
Innovation Works (IW)

Chris has 13 years of “hands on” entrepreneurial and angel investments experience, primarily in IT. From 2008 through late 2009 he was a Managing Partner at Eastern Bell Venture Capital, a RMB local China fund, based out of Beijing and Shanghai. From 2005 to 2007, Chris served as the CEO of ICDL Asia Pacific Ltd., an organization in the computer skills certification sector with operations in over 25 Asian countries, which he helped turnaround and relocate to Singapore. Prior to coming to Asia, Chris co-founded and managed ECDL Hellas S.A. in his native Athens, Greece.

Founder,
MetroDeal.com

Ralph Wunsch is the founder of MetroDeal.com, which offers users the deepest discounts on products, restaurants, spas and other activities around the country. Ralph started an online selling business on eBay at the age of 14, catering to antiques and memorabilia and launched MetroDeal.com after graduating from university.  MetroDeal.com turn out to become the #1 e-commerce website in the Philippines by 2012 and the #28 most visited website in the Philippines overall (Source: Alexa.com). Its highest grossing offer sold 35,000+ times in less than 2 days and more than half a million fans follow the MetroDeal phenomenon on the official MetroDeal Philippines Facebook fanpage.

Founder and CEO,
Luxola.com

Alexis founded Luxola.com in May 2011 and prior to Luxola, she founded The Sweet Spot Pte Ltd which was acquired by JigoCity July 2011. She is also a founding team member of Frontier Strategy Group, a Washington D.C. based market research and consulting firm, responsible for starting and building their Asia operations (backed by Spark Capital).

Founder and CEO,
Keewi.me

Mike and his startup Keewi were the winner of Ho Chi Minh Startup Weekend 2011. Keewi helps event organizers in Vietnam to fill in more seats for their events by providing ticketing solution and intuitive guests management and engagement platform. Mike is also running a monthly entrepreneurship/startup events in Ho Chi Minh City called StartMeUp.

Founding Partner,
appWorks Ventures

Jamie Lin is an entrepreneur turned venture investor. He’s the Founding Partner of appWorks Ventures, a US$ 11M Super Angel Fund located in Taipei, Taiwan with a focus on the mobile and consumer internet space. Prior to appWorks, Jamie was once an Associate at HSS Ventures and an Analyst at All Asia Partners. During his life as an entrepreneur, Jamie co-founded Social Sauce, which is behind travel social network Sosauce.com and web 3D game production house Muse Games. Prior to that, he co-founded Intumit, the leader in Chinese search engine technologies, and Hotcool.com, a build-to-order online PC retailer, among other things.

Head,
The Athena Network, Singapore

As a founder member of The Athena Network in London in 2006, which now boasts over 2600 members attending monthly business-focussed meetings, Gina was able to swiftly leverage this powerful and diverse group of professionals.

Spearheading the launch of the Athena Network brand in Singapore in 2011 was an inevitable success for Gina who is poised to further stretch the boundaries for female business owners, executives and entrepreneurs.