35th AVCJ Private Equity & Venture Forum
Asia's premier private equity & venture event for the last 35 years
Four Seasons Hotel, Singapore & Online
2021 Speaker Lineup
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Aaron’s tenure in venture capital started in 1996, when he co-founded Eucalyptus Ventures, and he has served as Managing Director since that time. He has been a Managing General Partner of Pitango Venture Capital since the merger of the Eucalyptus and Pitango management groups in 2000.
Prior to joining the venture industry, Aaron had 16 years of experience in executive management in the high-technology sector in Israel and abroad. Prior to founding Eucalyptus, he served as Corporate Vice President of Orbotech Ltd..(NASDAQ: ORBK), where he was responsible for worldwide operations, sales and customer support.
From 1986 to 1993, Aaron served as President and CEO of Orbotech, Inc, headquartered in Boston, MA, USA., where he also guided the merger of Orbot and Optrotech that led to the establishment of Orbotech. He previously was a sales executive at IBM.
Aaron holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Statistics from Tel Aviv University and also served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force.
Aaron served on the Board of Directors of Chromatis Networks (acquired by Lucent for $4.5B). He currently serves on numerous Boards of Pitango portfolios: Silk, Riskified, Tailor Brands, Drivenets and Formlabs, as well as having been an observer at JinkoSolar (NYSE: JKS) prior to the company’s IPO.
Aaron was elected in 2009 to serve as the Chairman of the IATI (Israel Advanced Technology Industries) where he led the transformation of the organization from a venture capital organization to an organization representing the entire high-tech industry in Israel. Today it is the leading high-tech association in Israel
Prior to founding A91 Partners, Mr. Abhay Pandey (Abhay) was a Managing Director at Sequoia Capital India Advisors Private Limited from 2008-2018, which he joined in June 2007. At Sequoia Capital India Advisors Private Limited, Abhay has partnered with passionate founders in Consumer and Healthcare sectors focused on a on a few themes, including, creating challenger brands in large categories, supporting superior execution capabilities in massive market opportunities and building companies in new emerging categories. His investment track record and board positions include Vini Cosmetics, Indigo Paints(NSE: INDIGOPNTS), B9 Beverages, Faces Cosmetics; PI Industries (NSE: PIIND), La Renon, Koye Pharmaceuticals, Curatio Healthcare, ASG Eyecare; and Awfis, MedGenome Inc. Prior to Sequoia Capital, Abhay worked as an investment banker with DSP Merrill Lynch (2004-07) and as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. (Mumbai and Johannesburg) offices (1996-2002) where he served leading clients in media, industrials and automotive verticals on a wide range of strategic and operational issues.
Abhay received his PGDM (MBA) from Indian Institute of Management Kolkata (1996) and a B. Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay (1993).
Abhay is passionate about supporting philanthropy and giving back to society in education. He is a Trustee at Ashoka University, and a Trustee of BECT, a charitable trust for primary and secondary education. He also serves on Executive Committee of IVCA.
Alex has headed Asia Pacific for Permira since 2011. He is a Partner and served on the firm’s Executive Committee. He first joined the firm in London in 2002 and moved to Tokyo to establish Permira’s first Asian presence in 2005, which he led until the end of 2010. Alex has worked on numerous transactions including ABS, Sushiro, Arysta LifeScience, Cortefiel, Galaxy Entertainment Group, I-MED, Grobest, John Masters Organics, Magento, New Look, Topcast and Tricor.
Prior to joining Permira, Alex spent five years at McKinsey & Company in London. He was previously at Braxton Associates and began his career at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A French national, Alex has lived in Asia for over 30 years and is a fluent Japanese speaker.
Alex majored in Political Science and East Asia Studies at Yale University and holds a Master’s degree in European Politics from the College of Europe, Belgium. He also has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Alex joined NewQuest in 2011 and is responsible for sourcing, executing and managing investments across the Greater China region. Alex has nearly 15 years of experience in finance, primarily focusing on investments, capital raising, M&A and corporate advisory.
Prior to joining NewQuest, he was an Associate at Credit Suisse’s Investment Bank based in Hong Kong, where he worked in corporate finance and equity capital markets. Alex received his undergraduate degree in Economics from Duke University in Durham, NC. Alex is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Mr. Alvin Lam is a Principal with CVC Capital Partners. Alvin joined CVC in 2005 and is a member of the CVC’s Asia Operations Team, based in Hong Kong. Prior to joining CVC, Alvin was a Principal with the Boston Consulting Group’s Greater China practice and worked for Philip Morris International in a regional business development role. Alvin holds a BSc Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Amit Varma is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Quadria Capital, Asia’s leading healthcare private equity firm with over US$2.6 billion of assets under management.
Dr. Varma has extensive M&A, strategic and operational leadership and board level experience in healthcare organisations across the USA, Asia and Australia.
He is a renowned critical care physician, having practiced in the domain for over 21 years, including a decade in the USA before returning to Asia. He has also served in various operational and managerial roles at Manipal Hospital, Narayana Hrudayalaya, Fortis Healthcare and Religare Healthcare.
Dr. Varma graduated from the University of Delhi with a Bachelor of Medicine, a Bachelor of Surgery (M.B.B.S.) and a Doctor of Medicine (M.D). He was also a Resident at State University of New York and a Fellow in Critical Care / Neonatology at University of Pittsburgh.
Andreas Aschenbrenner joined EQT Partners in October 2014 and is based in Munich as part of the Equity team. Andreas is currently a member of BBS Automation and SHL Medical board of directors.
Andreas holds a Master degree in Law and a PhD.
Prior to joining EQT Partners, Andreas worked at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as Partner & Managing Director for 14 years in Munich and Stockholm where he was a core team member of BCG’s Industrial Goods and Corporate Finance practice. Additionally, he was part of BCG’s global management team in Industrial Goods and held various management positions.
Directorships: SHL Medical, BBS Automation
Andrew joined Palisade in 2016, with a focus on managing both Palisade’s pooled fund clients and direct investment mandates.
Immediately prior to joining Palisade, Andrew was Head of Direct Investments at JANA, where he was responsible for advising clients on both pooled fund and direct infrastructure opportunities across a broad range of sectors including regulated utilities, renewables, airports, seaports and toll roads. Andrew’s responsibilities included investment due diligence, financial modelling and negotiation of transaction documents.
Prior to this, Andrew spent eight years at Macquarie in both Sydney and London. During this time, Andrew worked across a number of infrastructure and private equity roles, including being part of the investment team for a Macquarie-managed special situations fund, as well as asset management for a UK regulated water utility.
Andrew holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) and Bachelor of Economics from the Australian National University.
Background
Andrew has 23 years of experience with KPMG principally focused on major IPO and corporate M&A transaction deal execution and project management in multiple major locations including London, New York, Sydney and Singapore.
His principal sector experience is on transactions in the Private Equity and Services sectors.
Andrew has acted as Lead Partner for KPMG on more than 350 significant transactions with an aggregate deal value of more than $150 billion. He has led many of the more complex and demanding projects KPMG has been involved with in Asia over the last ten years.
Professional and industry experience
Private Equity: As Head of Private Equity, Andrew has led projects with most leading financial sponsors including KKR, Blackstone, CVC, Carlyle, TPG, Northstar, CHAMP, CHAMP Ventures, L Capital, Catalyst, TA Associates, Goldman Sachs PIA, TH Lee, and Macquarie Bank Principal Investments.
Complex transactions: Andrew has led the project management and due diligence for many landmark public and private transactions including KKR’s acquisition of Goodpack (SGX), the Seven / Westrac Merger, KKRs acquisition of GenesisCare, the CPPIB acquisition of Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group, Macquarie Media Group IPO, DUET’s IPO, AUSTAR’s refinancing, the global consortium acquisition and listing of Dyno Nobel, the global consortium acquisition of Boart Longyear, the consortium acquisition of the DBNGP, the acquisition by AGL of both Southern Hydro and Powerdirect.
Direct / co-investments: Andrew has assisted SWF, major pension funds and fund of funds on direct or co-investments including CPPIB, Temasek, GIC, Ontario Teachers, CalPERS, CalSTRS and HarbourVest.
Location experience: His major location experience include: London (5 Years), Sydney (13 Years) , New York (2 Years) and Singapore. In addition he has led transaction teams in across South East Asia, China, Japan, India, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Hong Kong
Mr. Gorthy is the Senior Portfolio Manager responsible for directing the investment activities of the Avenue Asia Strategy and has over 20 years of investment experience in Asia. Prior to joining Avenue in 2014, Mr. Gorthy was a Managing Director and Partner at Pacific Alliance Group (“PAG”) in Hong Kong, where he was a Senior Portfolio Manager focusing on special situations and distressed investments. Prior to PAG, Mr. Gorthy was a Director in Deutsche Bank’s Asia-Pacific Distressed Products Group. Previously, he was a Director at Beacon Advisory Pte Ltd in Singapore, providing consulting and advisory services to Asian corporates and, before that, Mr. Gorthy worked in Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Finance and Investment Banking division.
Mr. Gorthy received a Bachelor of Technology (First with Distinction) from National Institute of Technology Warangal (1996) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (2000).
Anthony Muh is a Senior Partner of H.R.L. Morrison & Co, a specialist investment manager and operator of infrastructure assets. An investment professional with more than 30 years of experience in both traditional and alternative investments. He is responsible for expanding Morrison & Co’s infrastructure investment capabilities outside of its core markets of Australia/New Zealand.
Mr. Muh previously spent over a decade with Citigroup Global Asset Management and Salomon Brothers Asset Management as regional Chief Investment officer. He was a member of its global asset management committee. Mr. Muh also previously headed up the proprietary investment activities in Asia Pacific of Alliance Trust PLC.
Mr. Muh is a Non Executive Director of London listed Utilico Emerging Markets Trust plc, a specialist emerging market infrastructure investment company and was also a former Board of Director of Infratil, a NZ/Australia listed infrastructure company. Mr. Muh is the current Chairman of Asian Corporate Governance Association and an Advisory Board member of Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc. He is a past Chairman and Fellow of Hong Kong Securities and Investments Institute and a past Chairman and Fellow of New Zealand Society of Investment Analyst (now known as INFINZ).
Arjun Bawa is a Partner and Head of Asia at Fairview Capital Group. Mr. Bawa has 24 years of experience in banking and private equity across Asia, North America and Europe, of which 15 years have been dedicated to the Asia Pacific region.
Fairview is an independent advisor with global presence focused exclusively on delivering GP-led liquidity and capital solutions to private market funds. We focus on advising general partners on continuation vehicles, asset sales and related secondary market transactions. The Fairview team has a track record of consummating 40 secondary transactions representing $13 bn of worldwide deal volume, including 25 GP-led deals.
Prior to Fairview, Mr. Bawa held diverse roles in the private equity industry including as a limited partner and secondary investor. He spent 10 year with AIG and PineBridge Investments between New York and Singapore and co-led the investment activities of PineBridge Investments in Asia, focusing on primary and secondary fund investments. He sat on the internal investment committees of all primary fund investment portfolios for Asia, US, Europe, Latin America and Africa. Prior to AIG, he worked for Allianz Group in New York and Munich where he focussed on fund investing and direct venture capital investing. He also spent several years with Deutsche Bank in Singapore across various roles including mergers and acquisitions and venture capital.
Based in Hong Kong and originally from the US, Arshad is managing partner at Betatron Venture Group, which invests in early-stage B2B companies across Asia, excluding China. At Betatron, he oversees investments related to climate adaptation, and manages Betatron’s deal sourcing. He is the host of the Investing In Asia Podcast and runs the Hong Kong Climate Adaptation Meetup.
Arshad has a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Mr. Lyons joined Bain Capital Credit in 2006. He is a Managing Director and Head of Bain Capital Credit Asia based in Bain Capital Credit’s Hong Kong office. He is the Portfolio Manager of Bain Capital Special Situations Asia fund. Mr. Lyons is also a member of the Distressed and Special Situations team focused on special situations and portfolio investing. Prior to his current role, Mr. Lyons was based in Bain Capital Credit's London office covering European distressed opportunities. Previously, Mr. Lyons was a consultant at Bain & Company where he advised clients in a range of industries.
Mr. Lyons received an A.B. Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University.
Ben Hart is a Partner and Head of Investor Relations (Asia) at Adams Street Partners, where he focuses on the firm’s institutional and private wealth relationships across the region. Ben is a 25-year Asia resident with over 20 years’ experience in the venture-backed tech and private equity markets.
Prior to joining Adams Street, Ben worked at Swiss-based private equity firm Capital Dynamics, where he served as Managing Director and COO, Asia, overseeing the firm’s business development efforts in Asia and North America.
Before joining Capital Dynamics, Ben spent over a decade working with VC and PE-backed tech firms in China and across Asia on their market development strategies. He served as Managing Director, Asia, at Aircom International, and also held senior positions at Convergys Corporation, Alliance Digital, Inc., and the JM Network.
Education:
University of Colorado, BBA
Investment/operational experience: 21 years
Languages: English, Mandarin Chinese
Benson Tam is the Founder and Chairman of Venturous Group.
Venturous is China’s first Citytech™ Group. Powering Smart City economies, it is an investor, business builder and operator of Smart Citytech infrastructure companies. Creating value by transforming the future of city living, Venturous leverages the latest deep Citytech, strategic partnerships and digital transformation to make cities more liveable, sustainable and productive, in China and beyond. The Group’s corporate structure allows for venture capital, private equity, pre-IPO deals, M&A, co-investments, incubation, strategic partnerships and joint ventures, and it has its own IPO on the horizon.
Benson is a “3-in-1” civil engineer, software engineer and financial engineer. He combines deep finance, technology and China insights.
He has been a private equity investor in Asia for 30 years, including being a Partner at Fidelity Growth Partners Asia. During his ten years at Fidelity, he was involved in multiple China “Super-Unicorns” such as Alibaba, AsiaInfo (software and IT services provider) and WuXi AppTec (pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device provider).
Benson started his journey into finance in 1989 as an investment banker at S.G. Warburg in London, followed by East Asia Warburg in Hong Kong. In 1992, he began his private equity career at Hellman & Friedman Asia in Hong Kong.
For the past 20 years since 2002 Benson has been based in Beijing. He holds an MSc in Computing from University of Oxford and a “double first” BSc in Civil Engineering from Imperial College London and is also a UK Chartered Accountant.
Bonnie Lo is a founding partner and COO of NewQuest. Ms. Lo oversees the finance, investor relations, operations, and administrative functions of NewQuest. She has over 20 years’ experience in finance and investing. Prior to taking on the COO role, Ms. Lo was co-head of China business for NewQuest. Prior to founding NewQuest, she was a director in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s (BAML) Asia private equity group focusing on investments in Greater China. Ms. Lo has also held other positions within BAML including in the corporate principal investments and investment banking groups. She also previously worked at 3i Group plc focusing on growth capital investments in Greater China.
Ms. Lo has an Executive MBA from EMBA-Global Asia, a joint programme between Columbia Business School, University of Hong Kong Business School, and London Business School. She received her undergraduate degree in Economics and East Asian Studies, magna cum laude, from Brown University in Providence, RI. Ms. Lo also serves on the Board of the Hong Kong Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (HKVCA).
Partner, joined CVC in 2006. Based in Hong Kong, Brian is co-head of CVC's private equity business in Southeast Asia and also leads our regional industry groups.
Prior to joining CVC, Brian spent nine years working in JP Morgan's M&A department in New York, Hong Kong and Korea offices,
advising on a wide range of M&A and corporate finance transactions. Brian holds a BA degree in business economics and political science from Brown University, US.
Brooke Zhou is Partner of LGT Capital Partners, and leads the firm’s overall China business, as well as secondary investment activities in Asia.
LGT Capital Partners is a leading institutional alternative asset and fund of funds manager, currently managing over USD 60 billion AuM on a global basis. The firm is headquartered in Pfäffikon, Switzerland (near Zurich) and has offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, New York, Dublin, London, Paris and Dubai.
Prior to joining LGT Capital Partners in 2010, Ms. Zhou was with CDH Investments, a leading Chinese private equity manager, based in Beijing. Prior to CDH Investments, Ms. Zhou spent her career at Bain & Company in Shanghai, as well as Oracle Corporation in Redwood Shores, California.
Ms. Zhou earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ms. Zhou grew up in Shanghai and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
Bryant Stone is a Managing Director at Tor Investment Management, a Hong Kong and Singapore-based alternative credit manager focused on the Asia-Pacific markets with over $2 billion under management. Bryant is a senior member of Tor’s 17-person investment team and focuses on deal origination and structuring of corporate and real estate debt transactions across the Asia-Pacific region. He has 19 years of experience in direct investing and structuring credit investments. Prior to TOR, Bryant worked for GE Capital across Beijing, Tokyo, Hong Kong and the United States. Bryant moved to Hong Kong in 2006 to help set up the GE Capital credit team where he focused on loans, NPLs, and equity investments across the region. While in Asia Bryant was Head of Credit and Restructuring and Co-Chief Risk Officer in Tokyo and Beijing, respectively. Bryant earned a BS degree in Business Administration with a double concentration in accounting and finance from Boston University’s School of Management.
Mr. Bhagat is Managing Partner, Asia at L Catterton. In this role over the last two years, he has been responsible for driving the integration of the Asian franchise into the global firm, reshaping the strategy and focus of the firm in Asia, and leading marquee transactions including investments in Jio Platforms, ETVOS, PHC Holdings, and Sociolla. Mr. Bhagat is also the CEO of L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp, the firm’s first directly sponsored $285 million SPAC, targeting consumer tech companies in Asia.
Prior to joining L Catterton, Mr. Bhagat was Head of Private Markets for South Asia and concurrently head of the global healthcare portfolio at Khazanah Nasional Berhad. Mr. Bhagat also spent 14 years at McKinsey & Company, including six years as Managing Partner of the Singapore office. He was a leader in the principal investor, healthcare and operations practices and worked extensively with private equity and sovereign wealth funds to develop strategies, execute transactions, manage risk, and implement board governance initiatives.
Mr. Bhagat received a degree in Architecture from the University of Mumbai and an M.B.A. in International Business from INSEAD.
Ms Christina Bao, Managing Director, is currently the Co-Head of Sales & Marketing at HKEX.
Ms Bao joined HKEX in 2016 as the Chief of Staff, reporting to the CE of HKEX. She was responsible for the planning and oversight of the Group’s strategic projects.
Prior to joining HKEX, Christina held a number of senior positions at Ping An Bank (previously at Shenzhen Development Bank, which merged with Ping An Bank in 2010) since 2001. At Shenzhen Development Bank, she served as the Chief of Staff to the Chairman and CEO from 2005 until 2010, and was responsible for the bank’s strategic projects, Investor Relations and Public Relations. After the merger and integration of the two banks, she headed Retail e-Banking, Service & Marketing, and the Retail e-Finance Strategic Business Unit for Ping An Bank.
Ms Bao received her Master of Business Administration (Finance, General) from the Peking University of Mainland China.
Christina is a Managing Principal of Gaw Capital Partners and in charge of global capital markets activities. She works closely with limited partners relating to capital raising and new product developments. Gaw Capital is a real estate private equity firm and has raised six commingled funds targeting the Greater China and APAC since 2005. The firm also manages value-add/opportunistic funds in Vietnam and the US, a Pan-Asia hospitality fund, a European hospitality fund and also provides services for separate account direct investments globally. The firm has over USD$ 27 billion in AUM as of Q3 2020. She also serves as Executive Director of Pioneer Global Group (0224.HK) and Independent Non-executive Director and Member of the Finance and General Committee and the Sustainability Committee of CLP Holdings Limited (0002.HK).
Prior to joining Gaw Capital, Christina had an investment banking career with Goldman Sachs and UBS as Managing Director for over 15 years, with responsibilities as Head of Asia Equities Distribution and as Head of APAC Capital Introduction team within Prime Brokerage. She has deep experience in covering some of the largest institutional investors globally.
Christina is also active in community and educational sector capacity work in Hong Kong. She is currently a board member of InspiringHK Sports Foundation and advisor of Teach for Hong Kong, finance committee member and board member of Hong Kong International School, board member of Stellart International School of Arts, executive committee vice chairwoman of St. Paul’s Co-educational College Alumni Association, corporate member of the Cheltenham Ladies College UK, school supervisor for TWGHs S. C. Gaw Memorial College and the council member of Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She has also served as the board member of The Women’s Foundation for over 10 years from 2009 to 2019 and the board treasurer of The Hong Kong Ballet Group from 2010 to 2017.
Christina received her B.S in Business Administration from the University of San Francisco, California.
Ms. Christine Williams has over 15 years of proven working experience in Private Banking/ Wealth Management. She has been working directly with entrepreneurs, family offices and private equity funds from Asia to Europe with the focus in Greater China.
Christine worked in top tier banks, including UBS, JP Morgan, HSBC, DBS and BNP Paribas in Zurich and Hong Kong. Recently she held various positions where she led, developed, and managed family office business. She was Managing Director of Odyssey Group, Executive Director of BNP Paribas Private Bank, and Senior Director of DBS Private Bank.
Christine started her career as a portfolio manager. She later became clients’ trusted adviser and managed their overall banking matters. Starting from 2015, Christine started to work with family offices to set up and run business in Hong Kong. Thanks to all the roles she was offered, Christine gained extensive knowledge of investments, trust, tax, legal and regulations, and accumulated valuable resources and network. With clients’ interest in mind and armed with the knowledge, experience, and resources she has, Christine has the goal to help entrepreneurs, family offices and private equity funds to connect the dots and find holistic solutions.
Christine holds a Master degree in Finance. She speaks native Chinese and English.
Darren is a partner in KPMG’s Hong Kong tax practice and leads the M&A Tax team as well as the Alternative Investments practice group. He has more than 25 years experience of serving institutions in a wide range of industries in Hong Kong and Asia Pacific. Darren has been involved in developing appropriate structures for investing into the Hong Kong and other countries within Asia Pacific, along tax and financial due diligence reviews in connection with M&A transactions and advising on cross border transactions. Darren has extensive experience in working with the mainland Chinese market, including structuring acquisitions of investments in China. Darren is also a Member of the Technical Committee of the Hong Kong Venture Capital Association (HKVCA), a Member of Tax Committee of Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the Chair of the Finance, Legal and Tax Committee of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Deputy Chair of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (AustCham).
Experience
David McKenna joined Advent International in 1992. He coordinates Advent’s efforts in the North American industrial sector and oversees the firm’s investment activities in Asia. During his time at Advent, Dave has worked on numerous investments across the industrial, retail and consumer sectors and also headed the firm’s Hong Kong office for two years. His private equity experience includes three years as a senior dealmaker with Bain Capital working on large buyouts in a variety of sectors. He began his career as a consultant with the Monitor Group.
Dave graduated cum laude with an AB from Dartmouth College.
Sector Focus
Industrial
Investments
Dave has worked on numerous investments at Advent, including ABC Supply, Aspen Technology, Culligan International Group, Distribution International, Fort Dearborn, INNIO (formerly GE Distributed Power), Morsco and Quala .
Directorships
Current: BOS Solutions, NCS Multistage, Serta Simmons Bedding
Previous: ABC Supply, Aspen Technology, Boart Longyear, Bradco Supply, Keystone Automotive Operations, RGL/Regent, Culligan International Group
David is a Managing Director for Audax Private Equity and is based in the firm’s San Francisco office. Over the past 15 years, David has been involved with over 25 of Audax’ platform companies. David primarily focuses on medical products and healthcare services, business and industrial services, and specialty distribution.
Prior to joining Audax, David was a strategy consultant at The Monitor Group, a strategic advisory firm in Cambridge, MA. David received a B.S. from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
Additionally, David is active with the San Francisco chapter of SEO Scholars, which provides educational and career opportunities for underrepresented minority public school students and the St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
Donald Tang, CFA, is Founder and Managing Partner of Celadon Partners, a private equity firm focused on transformative innovations in traditional industries.
Mr. Tang has over 18 years of experience in alternative investments. Prior to Celadon Partners, he co-founded and was Chief Executive Officer of D. E. Shaw & Co. (Asia Pacific) Limited, the firm’s main investment presence in Asia. He started his career at Citadel Investment Group, L.L.C.
Mr. Tang is a member of the Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Advisory Council, Special Advisor (China) to the Milken Institute, and a former member of the Asia-Pacific Steering Committee of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc.
In 2016, Mr. Tang was named one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. He is a Fellow of the fifth class of the China Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Mr. Tang is also a member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO).
Mr. Tang graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003 with B.S. degrees in computer science and business administration and a minor in computational finance.
Mr. Yan joined North Summit Capital, a China based venture capital fund focusing on climate change technologies and artificial intelligence technologies, as Managing Director in July 2021.
Previously, Mr. Yan was Investment Managing Director of GCL-Poly Energy Holdings since 2017, responsible for corporate investments and strategic investments, fund formations, joint ventures, and fund raising activities. GCL-Poly is one of the world’s largest solar energy companies and is engaged in energy storage, LNG, power plants, micro grid, semiconductor materials manufacturing.
Prior to GCL-Poly, Mr. Yan served as Executive Director of Affinity Equity Partners, one of the largest Asian buyout funds, Head of Principal Investment of China Minmetals Capital Hong Kong, one of the SOEs in China, business development manager in GE Energy, and investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, etc.
Mr.Yan has over 20 years experience in private equity and venture investments, corporate BD, and investment banking in Asia, and led a number of large M&A and investment transactions in China, Japan and the U.S.
Mr. Yan obtained MBA degree from the Anderson School of UCLA, and Business Administration degree from Hitotsubashi University of Japan. Mr. Yan is fluent in Mandarin, English, and Japanese.
Doni joined Vistra Hong Kong in 2019 as Director, Fund Services for Alternative Investments. She is responsible for business development activities for Alternative Investments in the North Asia region. She has extensive experience in formulating and executing regional and sales strategies in Asia including Japan and onshore China region. She had worked for global firms within the financial information and technology industries, helping to grow their Asia business by increasing market share and diversifying clientele. She has strong relationships with international and Asian clients at senior executive level and has a deep understanding of institutional clients’ business needs.
Doni holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. She is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Doris (Partner) is responsible for all aspects of the primary investment process, including fund selection, due diligence, negotiations, monitoring, and general partner relationship management within China.
Prior to joining Adams Street, she was a Senior Associate for Adveq Investment Management Co. Ltd., a global private equity firm, responsible for sourcing and executing growth/buyout funds and secondary investments in China and Japan. Prior to Adveq, she focused on direct investment activity for C.V. Starr Investment Advisory Asia Ltd.
Doris was named one of Private Equity International (PEI)’s 40 under 40: Future Leaders of Private Equity.
Mr. Edward F. Sippel is a Managing Director at TA Associates. At the firm, he is Co-Head of Asia and manages the Hong Kong office which he helped open in 2011. Mr. Sippel focuses on minority equity investments, recapitalizations, and management buyouts of growth companies in the Asia Pacific region. He has over 20 years of experience in deal sourcing, due diligence, structuring, portfolio management and exits across numerous Asian markets. On behalf of TA Associates, Mr. Sippel currently serves on the Board of Directors of YeePay in China, Fisher Funds in New Zealand, InCorp in Singapore, Betashares and Yarra Capital Management (formerly Goldman Sachs Asset Management Australia) in Australia, MISA in Vietnam and was formerly on the Board of Directors of TA Companies: Speedcast Limited in Hong Kong (listed on the ASX), Nintex in Australia and US, and Forgame Tech in China (listed on the HKSE). At previous firms, Mr. Sippel led deal teams for private equity investments across Asia and served on the Board of Directors of various public and private companies.
Previously, Mr. Sippel was a Partner at Quadrangle Capital Partners, a global private equity firm. He opened the Hong Kong office for Quadrangle in 2007 and headed the firm’s Asian operations. Prior to joining Quadrangle, Mr. Sippel was a Managing Director and Partner at TVG Capital Partners (“TVG”), a private equity firm based in Hong Kong focused on investments throughout Asia. Prior to TVG, Mr. Sippel was with The Asian Infrastructure Fund (“AIF”), a private equity firm based in Hong Kong. Prior to AIF, Mr. Sippel worked at Morgan Stanley in New York.
Mr. Sippel has lived and worked in Asia since 1997. Mr. Sippel received a BA degree from Georgetown University.
Mr. Wong is Managing Partner and CEO of Ares SSG. He serves on the Ares Executive Management Committee. He additionally serves as the chair of Ares SSG Investment Committee, is a member of the Secured Lending Funds Investment Committee and is a Director of Ares SSG Hong Kong. Mr. Wong primarily focuses on investment activities, as well as overseeing strategic matters and business operations of Ares SSG. Prior to joining Ares in 2020, Mr. Wong founded SSG Capital Management in 2009 and served as its Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer, where he focused on special situations and private debt investments across Asia-Pacific. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong from 1997 to 2008, where he ran their Asia Special Situations Group and other credit businesses. Mr. Wong started his career at Coopers & Lybrand, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1994, and went on to join JP Morgan Securities Asia in Hong Kong. He is a founding member of the APAC Alternative Credit Council (ACC), which helps in developing the private credit markets in the region. Mr. Wong holds a B.B.A. from the University of Michigan in Business Administration and an M.B.A. from Manchester Business School and the University of Wales.
Eiji Yatagawa, based in Tokyo, joined KKR in 2006 and is a Partner on the Private Equity team. He is currently on the board of directors of Koki Holdings (formerly Hitachi Koki), SY Holdings (Seiyu), dataX (formerly From Scratch), NETSTARS, and Transphorm. Mr. Yatagawa was also previously involved with KKR’s investments in Unisteel (Singapore), Intelligence, PHC Holdings (formerly Panasonic Healthcare), AlphaTheta (formerly Pioneer DJ), Marelli Holdings (formerly Calsonic Kansei), and Kokusai Electric (formerly Hitachi Kokusai Electric). From 2010 to 2012, he worked in KKR's Hong Kong office. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Yatagawa was with Goldman Sachs & Co.'s investment banking team, based in New York and Tokyo, where he focused on the telecommunications, media, and technology sector and was involved in a number of mergers and acquisitions as well as financing projects. He holds a B.S. and an M.S. from the University of Tokyo.
Emre Hidekazu Yuasa is Principal at Globis Capital Partners, leading investments in IT startups targeting digital transformation of various industries. His track record includes GLM (electric vehicle startup, acquired by a Hong Kong based public company) and he sits on the board of Sensyn Robotics (integrated drone solution), MFS (mortgage and personal credit scoring), Global Mobility Service (auto loan, IoT), TABILABO (digital media and brand studio), Photosynth (smartlock IoT) and work closely with Shippio (digital freight forwarder), and CADDi (procurement platform for manufacturing parts).
Prior to joining Globis Capital Partners, Mr. Yuasa worked for Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting (Tokyo) and KPMG Management Consulting (Tokyo), where he specialized in overseas expansion and Post Merger Integration.
He currently teaches at Globis University Graduate School of Management (MBA).
Mr. Yuasa graduated from Harvard Business School (MBA) and Ohio State University (magna cum laude).
Erhai has nearly 20 years of investment experience in venture capital industry.
Erhai’s notable investments include: NIO (NYSE: NIO), Mobike, Tuhu, Newlink, LuckinCoffee, Aqara, Healthy.io, MegaRobo, StarField, Happy Elements, Evercare, BitAuto (NYSE: BITA), CAR (HK: 00699), Uxin (NASDAQ: uxin), Zhaopin.com (NYSE: ZPIN), and Wish (NASDAQ: WISH).
Erhai’s industry recognitions include:
-‐ The Midas List of Global Top 100 Technology Investors, Forbes, 2018-‐ 2020 and 2012
-‐ Top 30 Most Influential Investors, FORTUNE China, 2016-‐2019
-‐ Investor of the Year, Cyzone.cn, 2019
-‐ Top 100 Venture Capital Investors, Zero2IPO, 2017-‐2019
Erhai holds an EMBA from Tsinghua University; a Master’s degree in Global Finance and an MBA from Fordham University; a Master's degree in Psychology from Peking University; a Master's degree in Communication and Information System from Xidian University; and a Bachelor's degree in Communication Engi-‐ neering from Guilin University of Electronic Technology.
Eric leads Happiness Capital, the “do well and do good” global venture capital arm of LKK Health Products Group (a Lee Kum Kee company) with the mission to create global impacts and make the world a happier place. Happiness Capital’s current investment portfolio covers US, Europe, Israel and China. The major impact goals focus on food, health, trust, climate change and reduced inequalities. Prior to joining LKKHPG, Eric co-founded AGENDA in 2000 and grew it to the largest independent digital advertising agency in Asia, which was acquired by WPP in 2008. Stayed with WPP after the acquisition as the Chief Client Officer (Asia Pacific) of the WPP Wunderman network. Eric’s first venture was an AI cancer diagnostic and treatment planning startup in the UK and US in 1994, which was acquired. He joined Cap Gemini US, a global consulting group, as Director of e-Business in 1997 to help Fortune 500 companies on digital innovations and transformation. Eric was an AI research scientist and university lecturer in the UK in the early 90s.
Mr. Vimont is Managing Partner and Head of Strategy, Ares SSG. Additionally, Mr. Vimont serves as a member on the Ares Credit Group's European Direct Lending Investment Committee, the Ares Private Equity Group's Asia Investment Committee and the Ares SSG and Secured Lending Funds Investment Committees. Prior to joining Ares in 2007, he was a Director in the Financial Sponsor Group of Barclays, where he focused on leveraged finance, established the French business in Paris and was appointed Head of Continental Europe for middle market leveraged finance. Mr. Vimont holds a Master's Degree (M.Sc.) in Management, with distinction, from the French Grande Ecole ESCP Europe. He also holds an ACT (Association of Corporate Treasurers) qualification.
Eric Xin is CITIC Capital's Senior Managing Director and Managing Partner of Trustar Capital responsible for private equity investments in China. Prior to joining the firm, he was a management consultant at Mckinsey & Company in Shanghai and Washington D.C focusing on helping Japanese and U.S multinationals source and set up factories in China. He was previously a Deputy Manager for China Leasing Co., Ltd., the largest leasing company in China and a subsidiary of CITIC Group.
Mr. Xin received an MBA from the Harvard Business School with Honors and a B.A. in Economics from Beijing University.
Eriko Suzuki is Managing Director of Japan’s first ESG focused Venture Capital Fund and former General Partner at global venture capital fund Fresco Capital, and also former Director at Taizo Son’s social impact focused venture capital Mistletoe Inc.
Eriko has lived abroad from North America to the Middle East, and whilst obtaining an Honors Economics degree at McGill University, interned in Kenya at a World Bank affiliated microfinance organization. She started her career in Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley, and later established the Japan business of a Silicon Valley drone startup.
Eriko is also a mother of two children and author of a Future of Work book - “How we live, will be how we work” (Daiwashobo, 2018) .
Ferish Patel heads Cooley’s Singapore corporate practice. For over 18 years, Ferish has advised clients across the full-spectrum of corporate matters --- including private financings of all stages, IPOs, bank financings, leveraged buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and corporate governance matters. This breadth of transactional experience has allowed Ferish to provide strategic guidance to founders, high-growth companies and investment funds on matters in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the US. In so doing, he has assisted clients in raising over US$100 billion in public and private financings, involving equity and debt capital.
Francois Aguerre is a Partner and Head of origination.
As Head of origination, Francois is responsible for managing the firm’s investment origination activities worldwide. He is based in the firm’s London office.
Prior to joining Coller Capital in 2007, Francois worked in the Investment Banking division of UBS in London. Previously, he worked at Gimar Finance and PAIPartners in Paris, and at Société Générale in New York.
Francoishas an MSc in Engineering from École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées inFrance, and an MBA from INSEAD.
Mr. Frank Su is responsible for managing CPP Investments’ private equity business in Asia, including funds, secondaries and direct private equity investments. Mr. Su leads a team of more than 30 investment professionals to pursue private equity investments across Asia Pacific region, with focus on China, Korea, Japan, India and Australia. He also serves on the boards of Nord Anglia Education and CPPIB (Hong Kong) Ltd.
Mr. Su has more than 20 years’ experience in private equity, strategic consulting and business operations in the region. Prior to CPP Investments, Mr. Su took various positions at Bain Capital, Bain & Company, Ericsson and COFCO.
Mr. Su received an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA from University of International Business and Economics.
Ganen Sarvananthan is the Co-Managing Partner of TPG Capital Asia and Head of Southeast Asia. Prior to joining TPG in 2014, Ganen served as Head of Investments at Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the Government of Malaysia’s strategic investment fund, for almost a decade. He also worked at UBS Investment Bank based in London, Hong Kong and Singapore for more than seven years.
Mr. Belonogoff is a principal for CarVal Investors. Based in London, Mr. Belonogoff is responsible for leading the firm’s London office, as well as managing individual Corporate Securities investments globally. Prior to joining the firm in 1998, Mr. Belonogoff was business development manager for Fritz Companies CIS, a subsidiary of UPS, based in Moscow, Russia. Fluent in English and Russian, Mr. Belonogoff received his MBA with a concentration in finance from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth and a B.A. in economics and Russian studies from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, graduating magna cum laude.
CarVal Investors is a established global alternative investment fund manager focused on distressed and credit-intensive assets and market inefficiencies. Since 1987, our experienced team has navigated through ever-changing credit market cycles, opportunistically investing $124 billion in 5,490 transactions across 82 countries. Today, CarVal Investors has approximately $9 billion in assets under management in corporate securities, loan portfolios, structured credit and hard assets.
Haide Lui is the Head of Investor Relations at Ascendent Capital Partners. Prior to Ascendent, Ms. Lui spent close to 11 years at HarbourVest Partners based in Hong Kong focused on private equity fund investments across Asia. During that time, she served on the limited partner advisory committees of a number of private equity partnerships, including a range of venture, growth, and buyout funds in China, as well as several Asian funds of global private equity firms. Before that, Ms. Lui was with Morgan Stanley in the Global Capital Markets group in Hong Kong, focused on the origination and execution of equity financings, advising Asian and Chinese companies. Ms. Lui graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA Honours in Natural Sciences.
Harsh Pais co-heads Trilegal's corporate practice and focuses on Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity. Harsh advises extensively on cross border acquisitions (involving public and private targets) and joint ventures.
In addition, Harsh provides strategic counsel to clients on matters involving change of control transactions, corporate governance, securities laws, troubled joint ventures and crisis management. Harsh is also experienced in providing transactional and regulatory advice to clients in highly regulated industries, including telecom and media and technology, retail, financial services and infrastructure.
Harsh was recognised among the 'Top 20 Emerging Legal Leaders in India' by RSG in its inaugural list of Emerging Legal Leaders in 2019. He is rated as a 'leading lawyer' 'highly regarded' for Corporate M&A by IFLR 1000 Guide. He is recognised by Chambers and Partners for both Corporate M&A and Private Equity - "he has excellent commercial judgement and a deep understanding of the issues that are of greatest concern to investors". RSG's India Report cites feedback that "Harsh provides clients with 'top quality advice, he is extremely 'responsive' and 'commercial' with 'knowledge of the client's sensitivities'.
Harsh holds a significant role at FICCI, the apex chamber of commerce for industry in India, as member of its National Committee on Corporate Laws.
He has past experience at a major international law firm in New York and is additionally qualified in the UK and New York. Harsh is an alumnus of Columbia Law School and the National Law School of India.
Mr. Heath Zarin is the Founder, Chair and CEO ofEmergeVest, a global investment firm that seeks to build great businesses, provide innovative capital solutions and generate sustainable value for all stakeholders. Mr. Zarin is also the Founder, Chair and CEO of EV Cargo,an EmergeVest company with more than $1 billion of annual revenues and global operations.
Mr. Heath Zarin was previously Managing Director and Head of Principal Investments, Asia-Pacific, for HSBC, with responsibility for Asian proprietary private investment activities. Previously, he founded and ran Emergent Investment Group (“EIG”), a Hong Kong-based private investment firm. Prior to founding EIG, Mr. Heath Zarin held a series of senior executive roles at Credit Suisse, including forming and managing its Asian private equity business.
Mr. Heath Zarin practiced corporate law with SchuiteRoth & Zabel LLP in New York, where he formed and advised hedge funds and private equity funds. Mr. Heath Zarin’s current and previous board service includes companies across Asia, Europe and North America, in diverse manufacturing and service industries. Mr. Zarin has served as the Chair ofAllport Cargo Services, Adjuno, CM Downton, Jigsaw Solutions, NFT, Palletforce and other businesses.
Mr. Heath Zarin holds a Juris Doctor from the Fordham University School of Law and graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is CFA, CMT and CAIA charterholder and has completed Certificate programs at Harvard Business School.
Hemal Mirani rejoined HarbourVest's senior management team in Asia in 2015 to focus on investments and investor relations across the Asia Pacific region.
Ms. Mirani first joined HarbourVest in 1997 and spent eleven years developing relationships with leading Asian private equity managers and working with our investors and consultants across the region to advance and optimize their private market investment programs. She rejoined HarbourVest after six years with CVC Capital Partners in Hong Kong, where she was head of investor relations in Asia and Chief Administrative Officer.
Ms. Mirani received a BA in Commerce from Sydenham College (Bombay) in 1989, an MA in International Studies with a Japanese language concentration from the Joseph H. Lauder Institute, and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School in 1997. The latter two were part of a joint degree program at the University of Pennsylvania. Hemal speaks fluent Japanese.
Henry Yin is partner at Cooley LLP. He is a trusted advisor to clients on complex public and private mergers and acquisitions (including cross-border/outbound investments), private equity, venture capital and growth investments, joint ventures, PIPEs, financings, going-private transactions and other general corporate matters in China, US and globally covering diverse industries including technology, life sciences, film, media, financial services, consumer, automotive, big data, e-commerce, software, hardware, education/edtech, manufacturing, fintech, logistics, blockchain, real estate, reinsurance, pharmaceuticals and infrastructure.
Henry also advises family offices, founders, significant shareholders and corporate clients in negotiated or contested complex transactions, corporate governance matters, boardroom and transaction strategies, ESOP matters, competitive bidding process, Greater China entry strategies and other technology transactions. Henry received his JD with honors from Duke University School of Law and BA from University of International Relations.
Heads Japan Post Bank's nascent private equity investment programand is responsible for all aspects of its creation and construction. Prior tojoining Japan Post Bank in February 2016, spent most of his career at NipponLife Insurance Company, where he was portfolio manager establishing and leadingNippon Life's private equity operations out of its US subsidiary and also wasHead of Product Development at Nissay Asset Management Co. the asset managementsubsidiary of Nippon Life just prior to joining Japan Post Bank, among othervarious roles he held there.
He has a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Tokyo,LL.M. from the University of Michigan Law School, has passed the New York BarExam and also is a Chartered Member of the Security Analysts Association ofJapan.
Hilary Hung is a Managing Director in the Institutional Client Solutions Group. She is based in Hong Kong. Since joining Blackstone, Ms. Hung has been involved in raising capital for Blackstone's private investment funds. Before joining Blackstone in 2010, Ms. Hung worked at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong in the Investment Banking Division. Ms. Hung received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School and a BA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
Ian Zhu is a founding partner of NIO Capital and played a key role in building the firm’s investment team, setting up RMB and USD funds, and establishing its operations since 2016. His investment focus includes smart electric vehicle, low carbon energy network, mobility and logistics services and manufacturing innovations. He led NIO Capital’s investments in CATL (300750), Ronbay (688005),Momenta, Pony.ai, Newlink,Inceptio, Black Sesame Technology, Innovusion, TrunkTech and BoCloud.
Ian is among the earliest ESG investors in China with 15 years’ relevant experience since his work at Tsing Capital. He has participated in the transformation of relevant industries and evolvement of the community, and has accumulated extensive experience in integrating ESG considerations into the investment practice. Led by Ian, NIO Capital has established systematic ESG mechanism and identified decarbonization as a main direction to pursue in its investments. Ian was awarded China Top 10 CleanTech Investors in 2019 and China TOP10 Carbon Neutrality Investors in 2020.
Prior to joining NIO Capital, Ian was a Managing Partner and Investment Committee member of Tsing Capital, where heled investments in Lucid (LCID),JJE (688280) and Horizon Robotics. Ian also worked in both start-ups and large technology company like AT&T, where he managed diverse functions including sales, business development, engineering and R&D.
Ian holds a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford Graduate School of Business and dual bachelor’s degrees in physics and economics from Peking University.
Irene is a Partner of KPMG China specializing in providing audit and ESG advisory for multinational companies and venture backed companies. She has been working in Hong Kong for over 18 years.
Professional and Industry Experience
She has extensive experience in working with emerging growth companies and leading audit, Hong Kong and US IPO engagements. The industry sectors of her current and past clients include biopharmaceutical, diagnostics, medical equipment, fintech, consumer markets, e-commerce, software, semiconductors and telecommunications.
Besides audit, Irene serves on ESG reporting and advisory projects and co-leads the cross-functional ESG team in Hong Kong to support clients on ESG reporting and assurance, climate change and decarbonization strategies, sustainable finance, and ESG impact measurement and improvement.
Given her experience in the startup ecosystem and knowledge in ESG, she is involved advisory projects and thought leadership publications that relates to entrepreneurship, technology and innovation development, and social and economic impact assessment.
Irene serves on the boards or committees of several NGOs and government/statutory bodies in Hong Kong including WWF Hong Kong, Bring Me a Book, and is a member of Innovation and Technology Venture Fund Advisory Committee and the Financial Review Panel of the Financial Reporting Council.
Irene Koh, Executive Director, Ms. Koh joined JP Morgan Asset Management Private Equity Group in 2008. Prior to joining the Group, Ms. Koh was with JPMorgan's real estate structured finance group, originating and structuring commercial mortgage backed securities for REITs in Asia Pacific ex-Japan. Previously, Ms. Koh was a senior application engineer with Soluris Inc. She holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and a MS in Financial Engineering from the National University of Singapore.
The Private Equity Group is one of the largest global private equity investment managers with assets comprising of over 350 partnerships, direct and secondary investments.
Jacob Chiu is a Managing Director responsible for Asian PE manager research and co-investments for HQ Capital, a leading global independent alternative investment manager with $8 billion AUM in private equity. Previously, he was a Partner with FLAG Squadron Asia; a Managing Director with Search Investment Group; and held senior operating and financial roles with Glaxo, Kraft and TigerPack. He holds an MSc in Financial Management from the University of London.
James Mi is Founding Partner of Lightspeed China Partners, a leading China-focused venture capital firm with over US$2 billion under management. James' early-stage investments include listed companies Meituan (HK:3690), Pingduoduo (NASDAQ:PDD), Rong360 (NYSE:JT), Innolight (SZ:300308), Lianluo Interactive (SZ: 002280), QingCloud (SH:688316), etc. He ranks No. 21 on 2020 Forbes global Top 100 VC Midas List.
Prior to founding Lightspeed China in 2011, James was Managing Director with Lightspeed Venture Partners, a leading US venture capital firm with US$8 billion under management. Before Lightspeed, James was Director of Corporate Development for Google, responsible for the company’s strategic investments and M&A efforts in the Greater China and pan-Asian region. James served as Head of Asia Products at Google and Chief Representative of the Google China Representative Office in 2004.
James received a BS in Physics from Fudan University, a MS in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, and received executive management training at Stanford University. He holds 14 US patents in flash memory, communications, Internet security and commerce. James also serves on Princeton University’s Graduate School Leadership Council and Advisory Council of Center for Contemporary China.
Jamie now serves as Chairman & Partner at AppWorks, the largest startup accelerator in Greater Southeast Asia (ASEAN + Taiwan) and one of the most active VC investors in the region, as well as President at Taiwan Mobile, a leading telecom & technology group in Taiwan. AppWorks, founded by Jamie in 2009, offers a renowned free accelerator program that admits 30-40 AI / blockchain startups twice a year. As a VC, AppWorks manages 3 funds at US$ 212M. Its portfolio with 70+ companies including leading startups in GSEA like Lalamove, 91APP, AnimocaBrands, Carousell, ShopBack, Tiki, 17LIVE, and KKday, while having produced 5IPOs (Uber, NetPublishing, KuoBrothers, Mobix, and 91APP), 3 IEOs. Besides AppWorks, Taiwan Mobile group also serves 7.2 million monthly active mobile subscribers, operates Taiwan’s largest online retail shop, momo, with US$2.43 billion in annual revenue, and brings cable TV & broadband to 1.7 million households.
Before AppWorks, Jamie was a startup founder for 10 years. In 1999, he co-founded Hotcool.com, a pioneer in Taiwan's burgeoning e-commerce industry. After funding dried up post dotcom crash, Hotcool evolved into Intumit, a successful natural language processing & chatbot SaaS startup. In 2006, Jamie co-founded travel startup Sosauce.com in New York. After Sosauce pivoted into Muse Games in 2009, Jamie moved back to Taiwan to start a VC by founders for founders -- AppWorks.
Growing up, Jamie was a geek. He started coding and putting computers together since the age of 10. He received his BS in Engineering from National Taiwan University and an MBA from NYU Stern. His blog, MR JAMIE, has provided inspiration to millions of readers in the startup community since 2009.
Jamie has been active in contributing back to the global community. He serves as a Member at the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) among many other community leadership roles.
Jean Eric Salata is the Chief Executive and Founding Partner of Baring Private Equity Asia (or “BPEA”). Mr. Salata oversees all investment and divestment decisions made at the Firm, as well as its strategic direction. Mr. Salata has been responsible for the investment activity of the Firm since 1997 when he started the regional Asian private equity investment program for UK-based Baring Private Equity Partners Ltd. Mr. Salata later led the management buyout of this program in 2000 to establish BPEA as an independent firm.
Mr. Salata has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 1989, and graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton school of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Finance and Economics.
Jeff Keay joined HarbourVest in 1999 and focuses on global secondary investments across a range of transaction types. Jeff is based in Boston and also worked in the Firm’s London office. Jeff is the Chair of the Firm’s Secondary InvestmentCommittee and he currently serves on a number of advisory boards. Prior to joining the Firm, Jeff spent three years at Ernst & Young LLP, where he specialized in the venture capital and financial services industries. His previous experience also includes working at the Financial Accounting StandardsBoard. Jeff received a BA (cum laude) in Economics and Accounting from the college of the Holy Cross in 1996.
As Managing Director of Industry Affairs for the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), Jennifer Choi directs the association’s engagement with industry stakeholders to inform and enhance ILPA’s advocacy and best practices in response to emerging issues impacting the asset class. Ms. Choi leads ILPA’s efforts around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, including the Diversity in Action Initiative, which includes participation from more than 180 signatories today.
Prior to joining ILPA, Ms. Choi served as Vice President of Industry and External Affairs for the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA), where she led the association’s member and industry engagement activities, including efforts to encourage policy frameworks that support the growth of the asset class. As EMPEA’s Research Director, she built the industry’s first global database of private equity activity in the emerging markets. Previously, Ms. Choi was a consultant with Boston-based Stax Inc., leading due diligence engagements and providing advisory services for private equity and venture capital firms.
Jennifer holds a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a B.A. summa cum laude in Economics and Political Science from Augustana College.
Jenny Lee is a Managing Partner at GGV Capital and is best known for her focus on startup innovation in areas such as EdTech, FinTech, Robotics, and AI. Since 2005 she has been instrumental in helping over 11 early stage companies go public on NYSE, Nasdaq, ChiNext, HKSE and SSE STAR Market exchanges, and numerous portfolio companies exit via M&A. Jenny launched GGV’s first office in China in 2005 and re-opened GGV’s Singapore office in 2019. She also leads the firm’s USD fund raising activities.
Jenny is currently an independent board director for Agora (Nasdaq: API) and also serves as a board member for a wide range of innovative private technology startups in the EduTech, FinTech, Transportation, Robotics and AI sectors. Active investments include Keep, Clobotics, Geek+, Thunes and others. Selected past investments include NIU Technology (Nasdaq: NIU), eHang Technology (Nasdaq: ehang), LAIX, Inc (NYSE: LAIX), hiSoft (Nasdaq: PACT), 21Vianet (Nasdaq: VNET), SinoSun (SHE: 300333), YY (Nasdaq: YY), Xiaomi (HKSE: 1810), 51credit (HKSE: 2051), WPS (SSE: 668111), and UCweb (acquired by Alibaba).
Jenny’s previous operation and finance work experience with ST Aerospace, Morgan Stanley and JAFCO Asia enhanced her role as a preferred board mentor and investor to many entrepreneurs in Asia. She serves on the Board of SATS Ltd (SGX: S58), a leading provider of gateway and food solutions and is also a board member of the Singapore Govtech Agency. Jenny graduated from Cornell University with a Masters and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and an M.B.A. from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Since 2012, Jenny has been recognized by the Forbes Global 100 VC Midas, ranking as the #1 woman and #10 overall in 2015. Most recently, she was named World’s Top 5 Female Venture Capitalists by Forbes’ 2021. In 2016, she was named to the Vanity Fair New Establishment list, Fast Company Most Creative People in Business list and is consistently recognized by The New York Times and CB Insights among the top 100 venture capital investors worldwide, ranking #8 among top venture capitalist in Asia. Jenny is also well respected in the Singapore business community and is a recipient of Singapore’s Business China’s Young Achiever Award in 2016, the Business Times’s Outstanding Overseas Executive Award in 2019 and a member of the 2019 Forbes Asia Power Businesswomen 25 list.
At Openspace Ventures, Jessica leads OSV+, Openspace Ventures' mid-stage growth fund, and is a Director on the Investments team.
She has over 14 years of growth- and late-stage investment and corporate strategy experience across Asia Pacific. Her previous roles include leading the investment team in Southeast Asia for Providence Equity Partners – a global telecommunications, media and technology sector focused private equity fund. More recently, she headed Corporate Strategy & Business Development, APAC, for The Walt Disney Company, where she helmed key strategic initiatives and M&A across the region. Earlier in her career, Jessica worked in the Healthcare Investment Banking and Asia Debt Capital Markets teams at Citigroup.
Jessica holds a BA in Political Science from Barnard College, Columbia University.
Jessie is co-founder and partner at Quantium. Jessie Juan has over twelve years of alternative investment experience across Asia with a focus on PE primary investing in Greater China. Through her years of LP career, she brings best practices knowledge as well as LP due diligence insights to the Quantium platform. Previously, she was VP and Investment Committee member for Partners Group’s Asia Pacific Primary Investments, managing approx. USD 800m in capital deployment across primary, secondary and direct investments, and was Advisory Board member in multiple leading partnerships where she led the due diligence, legal negotiations, and post-investment account management. Jessie holds a B.S. degree from the Leonard Stern School of Business from New York University.
Jie is a Partner in Pantheon’s Asia Investment Team. Jie is a member of the ESG Committee and Inclusion & Diversity Committee, and co-leads Pantheon’s ESG initiatives and industry engagement. Jie joined Pantheon from Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners’ private equity fund of funds group, where she was head of Asia, and before that she worked at JP Morgan in leverage finance. Previously she worked at the International Finance Corporation on emerging market debt and equity investments. Jie received a Masters in Finance from London Business School, an MA in Economics from University of Miami and a BA in Economics and International Trade from Shanghai International Studies University. Jie is Vice Chairman of the Hong Kong Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (HKVCA) and serves on its board. She founded and chairs HKVCA’s ESG committee, and co-chairs its LP committee. She also served on the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment Private Equity Advisory Committee (UNPRI PEAC) in 2017-2019 (maximum tenure).
Jim Hildebrandt is a Managing Director of Bain Capital in Hong Kong and a founder of the Bain Capital Asia business.
Prior to joining Bain Capital, Mr. Hildebrandt was a partner at Bain & Company, helping to establish Asian offices in China, Korea, Southeast Asia and Australia. Mr. Hildebrandt served on the Global Operating and Compensation Committees, and had regional leadership responsibility for the Private Equity and Financial Services Practices.
Mr. Hildebrandt received an MBA from Stanford Business School and graduated as the Henry Ford II Scholar. He received a JD from the University of Toronto and studied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario.
Ms. Jireh Li is a seasoned investor with 14 years of experience in asset management, fund investments, business innovation, and fundraising.
Ms. Li joined Source Code Capital in 2018 as Managing Director, Chief of Staff in the CEO Office. She sets and advances firm objectives, is Head of Hedge Fund and Venture strategic fund investments, and heads up related Synergies Creation. She is also Head of IR, directs international PR communications, and oversees other organization-wide projects together with the CEO. Before Source Code, she was Chief Representative and Head of Asia Pacific for Commonfund Capital, where she led successful Venture and Private Equity fund investments across Asia Pacific with Advisory Board experience. Previously she was an Investment Banker at J.P. Morgan in New York doing Leveraged Buyouts. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences globally.
Ms. Li holds a B.A. from Princeton University and two EMBAs from Tsinghua University and INSEAD (both Dean’s List, with Distinction). She was awarded the Tsinghua Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award for her research entitled, “A New Framework: A Study on Ecosystem VCs in China.”
Zhengjie (JJ) Chen is a Managing Director and head of Asia in TPG’s Client and Capital Formation group based in Hong Kong, where she works with the firm’s institutional investors in the region. Prior to joining TPG in 2016, JJ was a Director at Blackstone in the Park Hill Group, where she focused on general partner and limited partner advisory. JJ received her MEng from University of Oxford.
Joe Topley joined the Equities division of Ontario Teachers’ in 2016 with responsibility for European private equity fund investments. He has since expanded his role to cover partnerships more broadly across the EMEA region as well as strategic fund relationships, globally. Joe has more than 20 years of experience in private equity, investment banking and management consulting. Prior to joining Ontario Teachers', Joe was responsible for European client management and investment research at StepStone in London, having previously worked at Credit Suisse, Nomura and Sega. Joe holds a BSc in Biochemistry from Imperial College, London, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Economics from University College, London and an MBA from INSEAD.
Global Head of AlphaSights' Private Equity Practice with 10+ years of experience partnering with top investment professionals. Oversee all of the firm's private equity, growth equity and venture accounts with full P&L responsibility. Manage and lead a global team of client service professionals to support the knowledge search process of250+ private equity funds, including 18 out of the top 20 firms globally, throughout the entire deal cycle, from deal origination, due diligence to portfolio value creation.
John Toomey is one of two members of the Firm’s Executive Management Committee, which serves as HarbourVest’s CEO; and is also a member of the Portfolio Construction Committee. He first joined the Firm in 1997, as a member of the direct investment team. He rejoined HarbourVest in 2001 after business school, and has focused on secondary investments since 2003. John was involved with the 2007 initial public offering of HarbourVest Global Private Equity Limited (HVPE) on Euronext Amsterdam and served as Chief Financial Officer from the IPO through September 2008.
John’s previous experience includes an analyst role at Smith Barney in the Advisory Group focusing on mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructurings.
John received a BA (cum laude) in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard University in 1995 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2001, where he was awarded the Loeb Fellowship for outstanding achievement in finance.
Josh Stern joined the Investment Office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in January 2012. At the Foundation Mr. Stern is part of the group overseeing all private investments. Mr. Stern came to the Foundation from Rockefeller University where he was responsible for the private investment portfolio. In that role he oversaw a portfolio of Venture Capital, Buyout and Growth Capital and Real Assets investments. Previously he worked at Standard & Poor's as a director in the Higher Education and Not-for-Profit Group, which was part of the Public Finance Department. At S&P Mr. Stern worked closely with a large number of universities and foundations across the United States. Over the course of his career he also worked as an investment banker, focusing on higher education institutions. Mr. Stern received an M.P.A. in public finance from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, an M.S. in non-profit management from New York University and a B.A. in history and sociology from Binghamton University.
Juan is a Vice Chairman and Head of International at Hamilton Lane, based in the firm’s Hong Kong office, where he oversees the firm’s Asian and European investment activities and client relationships.
Prior to joining Hamilton Lane in 2005, Juan was an Investment Manager at Baring Private Equity Partners Ltd. in London, where he focused on mid-market private equity in Europe. Previously, Juan held senior research positions at UK institutions such as the University of Essex and was a lecturer and Fulbright Scholar at Stanford University. Juan began his career as an analyst in Madrid at the SEPI (formerly known as lnstituto Nacional de Industria).
Juan received a Ph.D. in Research Methods/statistics and a B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a member of the CFA Institute and the Securities Institute.
Jun Tsusaka is CEO, CIO and Chairperson of the ESG Committee of Nippon Sangyo Suishin Kiko Ltd. (NSSK), an investment firm established in 2014 and focused on Japan’ s middle market. NSSK currently manages five investment funds (including its flagship fund and regional impact funds) on behalf of Japanese and international government and private sector pension plans, institutional investors, endowments and family offices.
Prior to Founding NSSK, from 2006, Jun Tsusaka was a Global Partner, Investment Committee Member and Partner Selection Committee Member for TPG Capital and was responsible for establishing and building up the Japan investment and operating team, which make up the core of NSSK today.
Jun Tsusaka is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School and has an Advanced Management Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from MIT. He is a former Business Trustee of Japan’s Bankruptcy Court, is a member of the Keizai Doyukai and Seiwajuku and the President of the Harvard Club of Japan.
Justin Ryan is co-founder and Managing Partner of Glow Capital Partners. Justin has extensive private equity experience since starting in the industry in 1997 at Catalyst Investment Managers, including the last decade at Quadrant Private Equity. Justin was Chair of the Australian Venture Capital Association (now Australian Investment Council) in 2003.
In recent years, Justin has led the investments and acted as Chair of four of Australia’s leading online businesses: Adore Beauty, Grays, Quad Lock and Modibodi. Justin also has extensive operational experience, gained while CEO and Managing Director of Alesco Corporation, an ASX 200 listed company which was acquired by Dulux Corporation in 2011.
Kapil Kirpalani is a Director and serves as KKR’s Chief Compliance Officer for the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Kirpalani was at HarbourVest Partners where he was responsible for the legal/compliance coverage of the funds, secondaries and direct co-investing businesses across Asia. He was previously with Pacific Harbor Capital (a Citigroup affiliate) where he covered a broad range of businesses including special situations, debt & equity investments. He began his career in private practice. Mr. Kirpalani holds an LL.B. (with honors), an LL.M. and has completed further business studies at the University of Cambridge.
Karen Lai is a Managing Director of LionRock Capital, a seasoned Asian private equity firm with an investment focus on consumer and sports sectors. She oversees the investments, investor relations and fund operations functions of LionRock Capital. She has over 16 years’ experience in private equity and investment banking.
Prior to joining LionRock Capital, she was an Investment Executive at Candover, a European private equity fund, where she focused on mid-market growth companies in the Greater China region. Prior to that, she worked at Credit Suisse focusing on fixed income structuring, as well as at Bank of America Merrill Lynch focusing on corporate finance and corporate risk management.
Ms. Lai received a Bachelor of Science in Economics (summa cum laude and member of Beta Alpha Psi) from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She is qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
Katja Salovaara serves as a Senior Investment Officer-Private Equity in the Bureau of Asset Management at the NYC Comptroller’s Office. She works closely with the Head of Private Equity in pursuing new initiatives, making investment recommendations, and helping to manage the approximately $24 billion private equity portfolio of the five New York City retirement systems.
Prior to joining the Bureau of Asset Management, Ms Salovaara was Senior Portfolio Manager-Private Equity at Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company in Helsinki, Finland. Ms Salovaara joined Ilmarinen in 2000 to establish their private equity investment program. At Ilmarinen, she was most recently responsible for all private equity fund investments outside of Finland and designed the investment strategy, performed due diligence and made investment recommendations for private equity funds, and served on a number of limited partner advisory committees. Ms Salovaara also set up the PE co-investment program in 2010 and was closely involved in all co-investments. During Ms Salovaara’s 19 years at Ilmarinen the PE portfolio grew from less than 100 million invested to 3,6 bn euros invested (circa 7 % of Ilmarinen’s AUM) and was the best performing asset class at Ilmarinen.
Prior to joining Ilmarinen, Ms Salovaara gained private equity investment experience in London at Shell Pensions Management Services and Pantheon Ventures. She holds a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Helsinki and is a CFA charterholder.
Joined Advantage Partners in January 2002. Katsuya has been responsible for Advantage Partners’ investor relations, ESG, and middle/back office administration functions since 2018 and is a member of AP’s investment committee for Japan buyouts. As an investment partner prior to assuming the role of CAO, he was responsible for investments including Polygon Pictures Inc., Nihonkaisui Co., Ltd., and Xacti Corporation. After graduating from university, he joined Bain & Company Japan Inc. and was engaged in various strategic and operational projects for clients across broad industry sectors (financial services, software, auto, electronics, and others). He subsequently transitioned into venture investment and incubation activities for e-commerce and software-related start-ups before joining Advantage Partners. Bachelor of Arts and Sciences, Asian Studies, University of Tokyo; Master of Business Administration (MBA), Harvard Business School.
Kee Lock, Chua is CEO of Vertex Holdings (“VH”), a Singapore-headquartered venture capital investment holding company. Vertex Group is a global venture capital network comprising 4 early stage technology-focused funds (Vertex Ventures China, Vertex Ventures Israel, Vertex Ventures USA, Vertex Ventures SEA & India), an early stage healthcare-focused fund (Vertex Ventures HC) and a growth stage fund (Vertex Growth). Each of these funds is managed by independent and separate General Partnerships and investment teams, with VH providing anchor funding alongside significant 3rd party capital commitments. Mr Chua is concurrently Managing Partner of Vertex Ventures SE Asia & India as well as Chairman of Vertex Growth Fund. Prior to this, he held senior positions in Biosensors International Group, Ltd., a developer / manufacturer of medical devices; Walden International, a US-headquartered venture capital firm; NatSteel Ltd., a Singapore industrial products company, and Intraco Ltd., a Singapore-listed trading/distribution company. Mr. Chua co-founded MediaRing, provider of voiceover-internet, which later listed on Singapore’s stock exchange. He currently serves on the boards of several companies, including Yongmao, a Singapore public-listed company.
Mr. Chua graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin and an M.Sc. degree from Stanford University.
Kelly focuses on the global primary portfolio and is currently responsible for many of Adams Street’s general partners, including Accel, Benchmark, Berkshire, and TA Associates. She opened our Menlo Park office in 2006.
Before joining the firm, Kelly was the Director of Private Equity for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She focused on the development and implementation of a high-quality private equity fund investment program. Prior to that, she worked as a senior investment analyst with the Hewlett-Packard Corporation where she managed a portfolio of venture capital partnership interests and was responsible for the research and investment management of public equities in the high technology and energy sectors. Additional investment experience includes working with the venture capital group of Morgan Stanley & Company, Inc.
In addition, she sits on advisory boards for 10 private equity firms within Adams Street’s portfolio.
Kelly is Chair of Adams Street’s Primary Investment Committee and a member of the Executive Committee. She is also a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of San Francisco.
Mr. Magid is the President of Audax Private Debt, a leading direct lender in the U.S. middle market. He joined Audax Group in 2000 to establish and lead Audax’ Private Debt business. Audax Private Debt has provided more than $21 billion of debt capital solutions to middle market companies owned by over 230 different private equity sponsors. Mr. Magid serves on Audax Private Debt’s Investment Committee and oversees all facets of Audax’ debt business, including origination, underwriting, and portfolio management.
Prior to joining Audax Group, Mr. Magid spent 13 years as a leveraged finance professional. Over the past 30 years, Mr. Magid has raised senior debt, high yield debt, and junior debt financing for companies and private equity sponsors in a wide range of industries. Mr. Magid began his career in the mergers and acquisitions group of Drexel Burnham Lambert, and also worked at CIBC World Markets, Wasserstein Perella and Kidder Peabody. Mr. Magid received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a B.A. in Economics from Tufts University.
Kiichiro is a venture capitalist at WERU Investment, the oldest university affiliated venture capital firm in Japan. He leads investment research at the firm, covering a broad range of technology and industry domains. He serves on the board of portfolio companies, most notably LeoLabs which provides critical infrastructure for the growing commercial space industry.
Kiichiro began his career as an aerospace engineer working on spacecraft development at NASA/JPL and industry. Thereafter, he led business development at startups in the US and Japan until joining his current firm. Kiichiro holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering with Highest Honors from Georgia Tech.
Kirk M. Beaton is a partner of Lexington Partners and manager of Lexington’s Hong Kong office. Mr. Beaton is engaged in the origination and evaluation of secondary purchases of Asian private equity and alternative investments, and sourcing Asian co-investment opportunities for funds managed by Lexington. Prior to moving to Hong Kong in 2011 to open the Lexington office, Mr. Beaton spent eight years as an investment professional in London with Lexington. Mr. Beaton was previously an analyst in investment banking at Morgan Stanley.
Mr. Beaton graduated from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow with an LLB (Honors) and Universität Hamburg and Universidad Complutense de Madrid with a European masters in economics and law.
Mr Tang is the Chairman and Managing Partner of Affinity Equity Partners following its spin-off from UBS in 2004. Prior to that, he was the Chairman of UBS Capital Asia Pacific, the private equity arm of UBS since 1999. Before UBS Capital, he was the Chief Executive for Investment Banking, East Asia at Union Bank of Switzerland since 1995. Following the merger of Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation to form UBS, Mr Tang became Chief Executive, Hong Kong, of UBS Group and Asia Regional Head of Investment Banking for UBS Investment Bank. Prior to Union Bank of Switzerland, he served as President and CEO of Banque Indosuez's Asian investment bank and Chairman of WI Carr (Far East) Limited, one of the leading stockbroking firms in Asia. Mr. Tang began his financial career with Chase Manhattan Bank. During his 17 years at Chase, he served in a number of senior roles in Malaysia and Hong Kong.
Kurt became Managing Partner of Permira in 2021, having been a Co-Managing Partner since 2008. He serves on the Permira Holdings Limited Board, the Executive Committee, the Firm Operations Committee, the Portfolio Review Committee, the Permira Growth Opportunities Investment Committee and co-chairs the main funds Investment Committee. Kurt joined the London office in 1996 and became a Partner in 2001. From 2003 to 2008 he was responsible for the Nordic office. Kurt has been involved in a number of transactions including AU System, Inmarsat and TDC. He currently serves on the board of English One Limited.
Prior to joining Permira, Kurt worked for Boston Consulting Group in Stockholm.
Kurt has a degree in Economics from SSEBA, Finland, and an MBA from INSEAD, France. He has also completed graduate studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, USA.
Kyle is the Founder and Managing Partner of ShawKwei & Partners, a private equity investment firm established in 1998. ShawKwei & Partners has offices in Hongkong, Singapore, Shanghai and San Francisco managing investments in Asia, Europe, and the USA. Kyle’s private equity experience before ShawKwei & Partners included managing Asian private equity businesses for Security Pacific National Bank and then the Tudor Group. Kyle has served as a director of several Asian and European industrial and service companies including as founder and director of Flex Ltd. (formerly known as Flextronics International Ltd).
Kyle received an MBA from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, a BS in Commerce from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, as well as studied Mandarin Chinese at Taiwan’s National Normal University.
Liam leads Apex’s sales team in Asia Pacific, he is also the regional team lead for Apex’s ESG Solutions in APAC. He has worked in fund services for over a decade, in Europe, the US and now Asia. He has previously held sales leadership positions with SS&C and Apex Group having started his career with SunGard (now FIS). He is a Chartered Alterative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and holds a Masters Degree in Engineering.
Mr. Rowan is a Co-Founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, Inc. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Apollo Global Management, Inc., Athene Holding Ltd. and Athora Holding Ltd. Currently, Mr. Rowan is Chair of the Board of Advisors of The Wharton School and a member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Trustees. In addition, he is involved in public policy and is an initial funder and contributor to the development of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research initiative which provides analysis of public policy’s fiscal impact. An active philanthropist, Mr. Rowan is a founding member and Chair of Youth Renewal Fund and Vice Chair of Darca, Israel’s top educational network operating 40 schools with over 22,000 students throughout Israel’s most diverse and under-served communities. He also serves on the board of OpenDor Media, a digital media company centered on engaging Jewish and Israel content. He is an Executive Committee member of the Civil Society Fellowship, a partnership of ADL and the Aspen Institute, designed to empower the next generation of community leaders and problem solvers from across the political spectrum. He also serves on the boards of, inter alia, several technology-oriented venture companies.
Mr. Rowan graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business with a BS and an MBA in Finance
Marcia Ellis is the Global Chair of the firm’s Private Equity Group, and a member of our global board of directors. Her practice focuses on private equity transactions and complex mergers and acquisitions involving companies, real estate, and other assets located in Asia.
Having practiced in Asia for more than a quarter of a century, Marcia is one of the most experienced M&A lawyers active in the Asian market. In the past two years alone, Marcia has advised clients on deals with a total aggregate value of over US$171 billion.
Marcia regularly advises leading investors on M&Atransactions, including SoftBank Vision Fund, Alibaba, GLP, Bain CapitalCredit, BlackRock, Farallon Capital, Ascendent Capital Partners, Silver CrestAcquisition Corp., Celadon Partners and Ark Pacific Capital. In addition, she is experienced in representing U.S., UK and Asia based institutional investors in the acquisition, financing and disposition of real estate in China, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia, including numerous logistics and internet data center projects, and investment in and acquisition of real estate developers.
From 2008 – 2011, she was the Chief Legal Officer for Asia of D. E. Shaw, where she assisted various group entities in making, restructuring and exiting investments in various countries in Asia, including a number of significant and highly structured investments in China and India.
Marcia was named as one of the Top 15 Female Lawyers by Asian Legal Business in2021. Clients consider her as "a lawyer whose judgement you trust and who knows how far they can push the boundaries” and a "super-skilled technical lawyer" who offers "incredible problem-solving skills on all aspects of matters, both legal and commercial
Marco De Benedetti joined Carlyle in 2005 and is currently a Managing Director and Co-head of Carlyle’s European Buyout Group, particularly focusing on branded consumer goods. Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. De Benedetti was the Chief Executive Officer of Telecom Italia. Mr. De Benedetti was the Chief Executive Officer of Telecom Italia Mobile from 1999 until its merger with Telecom Italia. Mr. De Benedetti currently also serves on the boards of directors of Moncler SpA, Twin-Set SpA, Irca S.p.A., Forgital S.p.A., Comdata SpA, Design Holding S.p.A., Praesidiad Ltd., Hunkemoller N.V., CIR SpA, and GEDI S.p.A.
Maria is an Investment Manager in Private Markets at Sunsuper, a A$70 billion profit-for-members superannuation fund in Australia. Private Markets include investments in Private Capital, Infrastructure and Property asset classes. The Private Capital portfolio is a total programme of over A$5 billion, which consists of primary and secondary fund investments, co-investments and direct investments across buyout, venture/growth, and distressed opportunities.
Maria has over 15 years of experience in public and private markets. Prior to Sunsuper, Maria was an Investment Director at AP Capital, Equity Capital Markets at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, a Senior Research Analyst at Asia Pacific Arbitrage Partnership, and an Investment Strategist at AMP Capital. Maria has a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours in Finance) from the University of New South Wales, and a Masters of Applied Finance & Investment from FINSIA. Maria is also a CFA Charterholder.
Mark Chiba is Group Chairman and Partner of The Longreach Group. The Longreach Group is an established independent private equity firm with offices in Hong Kong and Tokyo. The firm focuses on Japan and related Greater China control buyouts in the mature industrial and technology, consumer, business services and financial services sectors. The firm manages three Funds which have accumulated approximately US$2.1 billion of committed limited partner and co-investment capital.
Mark co-founded The Longreach Group in late 2003. Mark's lead responsibilities at Longreach include firm management, senior relationship driven deal sourcing and execution, investments in the financial services sector, and building the firm's capital base and global networks.
Before co-founding Longreach, Mark served as Chief Executive Officer and President of UBS Securities Japan, Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Investment Banking Management Committee, Head of Japan Investment Banking and as a member of the UBS Global Investment Bank Board. Previous to this role in Japan, Mark headed the UBS Asia-Pacific Financial Institutions Group.
Mark is an Australian citizen, resident in Hong Kong. He holds First Class Honours degrees in Economics (University of Melbourne) and Law (University of Sydney). Mark is a Rhodes Scholar with a Master of Philosophy degree in International Relations (with Distinction) from Oxford University.
Mark Valadao is a Managing Director of Pagoda Capital, responsible for business development and investor relations. Mr. Valadao has over 25 years of investment industry experience, including 17 years in Asia, with a deep knowledge of investments and strategies across multiple asset classes as well as extensive experience working collaboratively with institutional investors around the world.
Prior to joining Pagoda Capital, Mr. Valadao held senior roles at private equity firms, GL Capital Group and Skymont Capital. Mark was previously Head of Portfolio Strategy at State Street Global Advisors where he was a member of the senior leadership team responsible for representing the firm’s investment solutions to institutional investors in the Asia region. Before SSGA, Mr. Valadao was an Executive Director at MSCI where he was the Asia Pacific Head of Financial Products. Prior to MSCI, Mr. Valadao was an Executive Director at Value Partners Group responsible for the overall management of its wholly owned subsidiary - Sensible Asset Management. Before Value Partners Group, Mr. Valadao was with HSBC Global Asset Management where he helped lead HSBC’s multi-manager business in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to HSBC, Mr. Valadao was Senior Portfolio Manager at Mellon Capital based in San Francisco, USA where he was the lead manager of the US$7 billion Vanguard Asset Allocation Fund.
Mr. Valadao received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Finance from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Martin Laguerre is Executive Vice-President and Head of Private Equity and Capital Solutions. In this role, he is responsible for CDPQ’s private equity portfolio outside of Quebec, which targets companies in various sectors and diverse types of transactions around the world. He also manages the Capital Solutions investment bi-portfolio, which combines private equity and fixed income activities and provides companies with a more flexible source of financing.
Mr. Laguerre manages his global teams from both the Montreal and New York offices. He sits on the Executive Committee and the Invest-Risk Committee, as well as the Strategic Committee of the Equity 253 fund and other investment committees.
Prior to joining CDPQ in 2019, he was Senior Principal, Power and Renewables at Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB, now CPP Investments) in New York. He previously held the position of Managing Director, Global Power and Water Division and Renewables at General Electric, as well as various positions in investment banking and investment management at global financial institutions.
Mr. Laguerre holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He is a Desautels’ Global Expert at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. He has been a CFA charterholder since 2000.
Mr. Laguerre sits on the Board of Directors of Sagen MI Canada, and has served as a director for other companies.
Matthew Koertge is a Managing Partner of Telstra Ventures. Telstra Ventures manages over A$1B FUM with a team based in Australia, USA and China which has invested in 87 companies around the world of which 33 have achieved liquidity events so far , delivering 17 Unicorns, including 5 of which are Decacorns. Since its inception in 2011, Telstra Ventures has generated more than A$520M of revenue for its portfolio companies across 1,250 customers. Matthew has more than 20 years experience in the venture capital industry including leadership positions at Deutsche Bank Capital Partners, Macquarie Bank and Accede Venture Partners and he has worked with around 200 private equity backed companies including many successful acquisitions and IPOs. Prior to this, Matthew started his career as a software/hardware design engineer and project manager at Fujitsu. Matthew holds degrees in Engineering, Law and Business Administration and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
As portfolio manager on the Finance Team, Matt conducts fundamental analysis of global equity investments. His focus is on nonbank companies in the financial technology, payment, business service, and consumer financial subsectors. Matt supports the team’s investments in both public and private companies. He is also co-portfolio manager of a financials hedge fund. He is based in our Radnor, Pennsylvania office.
Matt earned his BS in economics, with honors, from Trinity College. He also attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Additionally, he holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a member of the CFA institute.
Maurice Gordon is a senior managing director and the head of private equity at Guardian Life Insurance company of America.
He has over 25 years experience in private equity investing and portfolio management. In addition to Guardian Life, he has headed up private equity teams at Hartford Insurance and CIGNA insurance.
He and his team currently manage a $3 billion private equity Portfolio that includes buyouts, growth, venture, infrastructure, credit and farmland. He invests in primary funds, co-invests and secondaries.
Maurice holds BA in MS degrees in economics from the University of Illinois and a chartered financial analyst designation.
Melissa Ferraz, Managing Director, is the Global Head of eFront Insight within BlackRock. eFront Insight is a private markets data and analytics platform. As global head, Melissa is responsible for the overall strategy of Insight as well as all sales, customer success, data operations, product and engineering activities within the business. Previously, Melissa was the Global Head of Client Development, Private Markets at IHS Markit. She was a member of the executive leadership team at iLEVEL where she led the launch of iLEVEL into the European and Asian markets. iLEVEL was subsequently acquired by Ipreo and later IHS Markit. Prior to that she spent 10 years building and developing teams at S&P Global in a variety of leadership roles. Melissa holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Iowa, an MBA from the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University Chicago and a Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago.
Meng has 18 years of investment, M&A and investment banking experience. Prior to co-founding CBC in early 2014, Meng was most recently Director/COO at Far East Horizon’s Investments Group where she was responsible for department operations, risk management, and establishing and implementing budgets. In the past 2 years, Meng has led teams on M&A and minority healthcare services investments. Prior to joining Far East Horizon, Meng was Managing Director at ARC China, where she established its China operations. While at ARC, Meng headed various investments across several sectors and also led ARC China’s government relations effort. Prior to joining ARC China, Meng was an Associate Director at Business Development Asia in Shanghai where she executed numerous JV, acquisition and divestiture transactions in the chemical, consumer, and manufacturing sectors in China and Japan. Meng started her career at UBS Investment Bank in New York, where she worked on origination and execution of M&A, IPO, Debt and Equity issuances. Meng graduated with honors from Wellesley College, majoring in Economics and Political Science.
Michael Liu is a Managing Director of Portfolio Advisors and serves as a voting member of the Fund’s Investment. Committee. Michael joined Portfolio Advisors in 2013 and primarily supports Portfolio Advisors’ Asian activities. Previously, he was a Vice President in the UOB Investment Management Division’s alternative investment fund-of-funds advisory business where he had worked with Portfolio Advisors since 2006 through a joint-venture. He joined UOB in July 2006 through the Management Associate program. Michael has served or is serving as an Advisory Board member of five private equity partnership. (B.S. from Nanyang Technological University)
Mr. Octoman is a Navis Senior Partner and an Investment Committee member. Mr. Octoman is also the Chief Operating Officer.
Navis was founded in 1998 to make private equity investments in buyouts, recapitalizations and financial restructurings in Asia, particularly on enterprises with a strong presence in Southeast Asia, Australia and China/Hong Kong. The firm manages several private and public equity funds totaling USD 5 billion. Navis acquires control of its portfolio companies, and since its founding in 1998, has made over eighty controlling investments. Navis when it invests has direct strategic involvement alongside an incentivized management teams, focused on growth, margin enhancement, organizational systems/structure/governance strengthening and cash management.
Mr. Octoman joined Navis in 2000. As COO he oversees the investment committee decision-making process, the portfolio operations group, portfolio company deep dives, and ESG at Navis. He continues to selectively originate transactions and work with companies with a primary focus on Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
Prior to joining Navis, Mr. Octoman worked with Price Waterhouse Coopers with a focus on capital market transaction and financial due diligence in emerging markets. Mr. Octoman also worked for KPMG in Australia and Canada in Business Advisory services.
A lifetime resident of Australasia, having been raised and educated in Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Accountancy from the University of South Australia and is an Australian qualified Chartered Accountant. He is also a member of the UNPRI PEAC committee, and the EMPEA Asia council.
Michael Yu is a corporate partner at Cooley and at CYL & Partners, a firm of Hong Kong solicitors that practices in association with Cooley HK. His practice focuses on initial public offerings and other equity capital markets transactions on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, pre-IPO investments, public takeovers and listing rules and securities regulations compliance.
Michael has actively participated in the strategic initiative by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to attract new-economy companies to list in Hong Kong. In particular, he advised Ascletis Pharma on its $400 million Hong Kong IPO in 2018, the first pre-revenue biotech IPO on the HKEX under its new listing regime for companies from emerging and innovative sectors. He has also advised a number of new-economy companies, including companies in biotech and internet sectors, on their Hong Kong IPOs.
Michael was recognized in IFLR1000 2019 as a Notable Practitioner for equity capital markets work.
Michael received his LLM from New York University School of Law, his LLB from Peking University Law School and BA from Peking University. He is a native Mandarin speaker and is also fluent in English. Michael is admitted to practice in Hong Kong (Solicitor) and New York.
Michael Zhang is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at BA Capital. Michael has over 10 years of early stage and private equity investment experience. Prior to co-founding BA Capital, Michael worked at Eight Roads Ventures, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International. Previously, he was an investment professional at Orchid Asia where his focus was on consumer goods and services. Michael started his career at Deloitte.
BA Capital is a consumer-focused investor in China, specializing in brands investment. It targets all growth stage consumer business. Since 2016, BA Capital has supported companies such as Popmart (HK:9992), Helens (HK:9869), HeyTea, Jovo/Jiang Xiao Bai, Harmay, Long Time Ago BBQ and M Stand Coffee. The team currently manages 2 RMB funds and 1 USD fund.
Michael received a Bachelor of Accounting from Texas A&M University
Dr Michelle Deaker is a Managing Partner of OneVentures, Australia’s leading technology and healthcare multi-strategy investment firm. The firm now has circa US$330M in funds under management and raising its fifth fund, 1V Growth Fund V (US$150M). Dr Deaker has been primarily responsible for the foundation of OneVentures firm and capital raisings of OneVentures Funds. Dr Deaker serves on the investment committee of OneVentures Funds, leads the technology practice within the firm, is a Director on OneVentures portfolio companies Employment Hero (Chair), Phocas Group, My Mobile Data and 8i and is responsible for investor relations. Dr Deaker founded multiple businesses prior to her move into venture capital including one of Australia’s first fintech companies (E Com Industries/giftvouchers.com) sold to UK publicly listed company Retail Decisions (ReD). She has over 20 years’ experience in the development of high growth technology companies in Australia and the US, has served on the boards of large and small listed and unlisted companies and expertise in global business expansion. Her previous board appointments include NICTA (now CSIRO’s Data61) and Seven West Media (ASX: SWM). She has also served in advisory board roles with NSW Government’s Taskforce for the Digital Economy, Heads over Heels and Australian Investment Council Venture Capital Working Group. Dr Deaker holds a Bachelor of Science with first class honours, Master of Science and a PhD (Applied Science). She is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Chief Executive Women (CEW).
Mingming has built a strong reputation as an early-stage investor, serial entrepreneur, and engineer. He founded Future Capital Discovery Fund, an early-stage venture fund specializing in enterprise service and high-tech sectors in China, in 2014. He has since established a track record in identifying high potential start-ups and creating industry-leading companies. He was the first institutional investor in Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) at its angel round, and saw the company grow to more than $23 billion in value. Other “first-check” investments led by Mingming include Niu Technologies (NASDAQ: NIU), Newborn Town (9911.HK), Sensors Data, and Narwal.
Prior to Future Capital, Mingming was an early participant in China’s burgeoning start-up ecosystem both as a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He built successful companies that were later acquired by Google and Alibaba. He invested in a number of highly successful start-ups including Autohome Inc. (NYSE: ATHM), XD Inc. (2400.HK) and Kujiale. He began his career at Hewlett-Packard, Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft.
Mingming previously served as the Independent Director of Kingsoft Corporation, as well as Board Member for Li Auto and Niu Technologies. Mingming was selected to join the 2021 Forbes Midas Brink List. In 2020, he ranked #55 in Forbes China's Top VC Investors list.
Mingming received a BS in Electrical Engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University and an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Nakul Zaveri is a Managing Partner at Relativity Investment Management, a mid market growth private equity strategy focused around sustainable and responsible investing in India and South Asia. Relativity invests in businesses which are underpinned by technology, innovation and long term shifts, are purpose driven, impact oriented and have a growth-return focus. He has over 20 years of experience spanning entrepreneurial, operational and investing activities. He brings relevant investing experience across Sustainable and Responsible Investment strategies including investing in renewables, clean tech, industrial/ enterprise efficiency, evolving consumer priorities, and related value chains. He is also one of the early initiators and adopters of integrating sustainability, ESG analysis and insights into research and investment process across geographies. Prior to Relativity, he was with Global Environment Fund – South Asia investment team and earlier with Climate Change Capital. He received his MBA from University of Oxford.
Nicholas Bloy, Managing Partner – is one of the three founders of Navis Capital Partners. Navis currently manages USD 5 billion in private and public equity funds.
Mr. Bloy leads investment teams in making, monitoring and exiting investments, sits on Investment Committee and sits on the boards and/or executive committees of several Navis portfolio companies, and is responsible for fundraising. He also sits on the International Advisory Council of CIMB, one of the Southeast Asia’s largest banking groups.
Prior to co-founding Navis, Mr. Bloy worked at The Boston Consulting Group in Asia from 1989 to 1999 after spending 3 years with Bain & Co. In London.
He holds a BA Hons degree from University College, London and an MBA from INSEAD, France.
Nicholas A. Nash is the Managing Partner and a co-founder of Asia Partners, a leading growth equity technology investment firm in Southeast Asia.
Prior to Asia Partners, Mr. Nash was the Group President of Sea, Greater Southeast Asia’s leading internet company, from 2014 to 2018. Sea is today a $9.5bn U.S. public company and the region’s market leader in e-commerce and e-sports.
Mr. Nash led Sea’s landmark initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: SE), which raised approximately $1 billion of primary capital and which was the largest ever U.S. IPO of a company from Southeast Asia. It was one of the largest IPOs worldwide in 2017 and was also the largest ex-China emerging markets technology IPO in the U.S. since 2011.
Mr. Nash joined Sea after more than a decade with General Atlantic (GA), most recently as the co-founder and head of GA’s Southeast Asia business. Three of Mr. Nash’s successful investments while with General Atlantic are now multi-billion dollar NYSE publicly traded companies. Prior to GA, Mr. Nash was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York.
Mr. Nash was a member of the World Economic Forum’s ASEAN Regional Strategy Group from 2017-2018. Mr. Nash was a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 2013-2018 and is a member of the global Kauffman Society for leadership in venture capital, a member of the Young Presidents Organization, a board member for Room to Read in Singapore, and a board member of Endeavor Indonesia.
He received an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2007, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in Chemistry and Physics, magna cum laude, in 2000. In 1996 he was named a United States Presidential Scholar, one of the nation’s highest academic honors for graduating secondary school students.
Mr. Wei is a managing director for CarVal Investors, responsible for managing corporate securities investments in Asia. Prior to joining CarVal in 2018, Mr. Wei was a portfolio manager with BFAM Partners in Hong Kong where he managed investments in performing, stressed and distressed assets. Prior to joining BFAM, Mr. Wei held positions with JP Morgan Partners, Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group and Arkkan Capital focusing on emerging markets distressed, high-yield, private equity and structured products. Mr. Wei earned his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and his B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Nisa Leung is a Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners and leading its health care investments. Qiming Venture Partners is a leading investment firm in China which currently manages over USD 5.6 billion in assets and investment in over 370 companies.
Prior to joining Qiming, she was co-founder of Biomedic Holdings with operations and investments in medical devices, pharmaceuticals and health care services in China including Novamed Pharmaceuticals (acquired by SciClone NASDAQ:SCLN) and U-Systems (acquired by GE Healthcare). Nisa was Venture Partner of PacRim Ventures in Menlo Park, and was previously with Softbank/Mobius Venture Capital.
She currently sits on the board of Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (SSE:603087), Zai Lab (NASDAQ:ZLAB; HKSE:9688), Venus MedTech (HKSE:2500), Nurotron, dMed, CanSino Biologics (SSE:688185; HKSE:6185), New Horizon Bio, Berry Oncology, Broncus, Insilico Medicine among others. Her other investments include Aeonmed Medical, Berry Genomics (SZSE:000710), CITIC Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Shanghai Pharmaceutical HKSE: 2607), Crown Bioscience (acquired by JSR Life Sciences), Kira Pharmaceutical, LIH, Novast Pharmaceuticals, Origene Technologies (acquired by VCAN Bio SSE:600645), Richen, VR Medical, Wuxi Leiming, Chain Medical Labs, MEDx, Cure Genetics, SinoCell Tech (SSE:688520), Apollomics, Sino United, Schrödinger (NASDAQ:SDGR) and Jacobio among others.
Nisa has been recognized by the Forbes Global 100 VC Midas List in 2019 and 2020, named Top 3 Best Female Venture Capitalist in China by Forbes in 2018 and won Venture Capital Professional of the Year by Asian Venture Capital Journal in 2017.
Nisa earned her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS from Cornell University. She is currently visiting lecturer at Harvard Law School, member of Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council, board member of the Hong Kong Airport Authority and Hong Kong Palace Museum.
Norberto Jannuzzi is a Partner & Head of Private Equity Healthcare Strategy Brazil. Mr. Jannuzzi is primarily responsible for managing funds and investments in the Private Equity business unit since 2011, responsible for several investments in funds IV, V and VI including Elfa, Natulab, Eve and Atrial. He was also CFO and CTO for Healthcare portfolio companies between 2012-2016. Norberto joined Patria in 2011 and became a partner in 2019. Prior to joining Patria, Mr. Jannuzzi was an investment lead at HAL Investments (Dutch Private Equity) based in its Latin America Office and was responsible for investments in the Healthcare and Retail market. Earlier in his career Mr. Jannuzzi was a Business Development head at Novo Nordisk Pharma (NVO) for Latin America between 2006 and 2009. Mr. Jannuzzi started his professional career as a management consultant at Accenture, focused on strategy projects and based in London and São Paulo between 2003 and 2006. Mr. Jannuzzi holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in Business Administration from the University of Bath/U.K. (1999-2003).
Nozomi Oda is a partner in the Tokyo office. Her practice focuses on cross-border public and private M&A, joint ventures, strategic investments, and capital markets transactions. She has a particular emphasis on advising private equity and life sciences, clients. Nozomi serves as–head of Morrison & Foerster’s Asia Private Equity practice.
In addition to her work in private practice, Nozomi previously spent two years with Japan’s FinancialServices Agency (FSA) as a deputy director of the corporate disclosure department, where she participated in the drafting of the FSA’s regulations on disclosures regarding tender offers, private placement offerings and director compensation.
Nozomi is recommended in the 2020 edition of The Legal500 Asia Pacific for Japan: Corporate and M&A.
Nozomi is a bengoshi admitted to practice in Japan and New York, and is a member of the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association.
Ms. Hu is a managing director for CarVal Investors. Based in Singapore, Ms. Hu is responsible for global fundraising and investor relations. Prior to joining CarVal in 2018, Ms. Hu served in senior pan-Asian fundraising roles at Intermediate Capital Group and CQS Management Limited. Ms. Hu also previously worked with private clients at UBS Wealth Management in London. She earned her M.B.A. from INSEAD and her B.A. from the University of Waterloo in Canada. Ms. Hu is fluent in Mandarin.
Oliver Stratton is a Managing Director for Alvarez & Marsal's Asian practice in Hong Kong. With 25 years of experience in consulting and private equity in Asia, his primary areas of concentration are business strategy, performance improvement, operational turnarounds and M&A. Mr. Stratton has worked with clients across a range of industries including private equity, financial services, telecommunications, consumer goods and retail, industrial products and services, transportation and logistics and energy and resources.
Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Stratton spent 20 years with Bain & Company, including 10 years as a Partner. Mr. Stratton also spent two years as a Managing Director with Candover as part of its Asia leadership team.
In these roles Mr. Stratton has served many of the global, regional and major local country funds operating in Asia. Working with those clients, he has led due diligence and portfolio company performance improvement assignments across a range of industry sectors in Greater China, Korea and Southeast Asia.
Mr. Stratton earned an MA in engineering from Cambridge University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. A British national, Mr. Stratton has been based in Hong Kong since 1988.
Orlando Bravo is a Founder and Managing Partner of Thoma Bravo. He led Thoma Bravo’s early entry into software buyouts and built the firm into one of the top private equity firms in the world. Today, Orlando directs the firm’s strategy and investment decisions in accordance with its principles of partnership, innovation and performance.
Orlando has overseen over 270 software acquisitions conducted by the firm, representing more than $79 billion in transaction value. Forbes named him “Wall Street’s best dealmaker” in 2019, and he was part of Thomson Reuters “Eight Buyout Pros to Watch” in 2009.
Orlando was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Brown University in 1992, and earned a JD from Stanford Law School and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1998.
He is the Founder and Chairman of the Bravo Family Foundation, the mission of which is to provide access and opportunities to young adults in Puerto Rico. After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, he spearheaded a humanitarian mission to remote communities on the island. In 2019, Orlando committed $100 million to the Foundation’s Rising Entrepreneurs Program (REP) with the goal of fostering entrepreneurship in Puerto Rico.
The Orlando Bravo Center for Economics Research at Brown University supports innovative research, training and collaborative projects for faculty and students in the Department of Economics. At Stanford Law School, Orlando created the Bravo Family Public Interest Post-Graduate Fellowship Fund to support students seeking full-time employment in public interest.
Orlando’s philanthropic focus also includes child healthcare. He endowed faculty scholar and fellow positions at Stanford University’s Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research as well as supporting a wide range of medical research.
Orlando is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Corporation of Brown University.
Oscar is the Director of APAC Business Development at Ontra, leading the company’s growth and market entry in the region. Prior to Ontra, Oscar was a corporate lawyer at Ropes & Gray LLP, focusing on technology M&A and intellectual property transactions. Earlier, Oscar worked as a Google Public Policy Fellow in Washington, DC. Oscar holds a J.D. from the USC Gould School of Law and an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics. He is admitted to the State Bar of California.
Pamela is a partner for the Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners Private Equity Fund group and has 16 years of industry experience. Prior to joining the firm, Pamela was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company's corporate finance practice in Hong Kong, responsible for investment opportunity identification, deal advisory, merger management and strategy development. Previously, she was a management consultant with Monitor Group, specializing in marketing strategy for clients across Asia, and a member of the corporate finance team with Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong. Pamela has a Law degree (first class honors) from the University of Hong Kong and an M.B.A. with honors in finance and management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Pang Lee is a founding partner of CYL & Partners, a firm of Hong Kong solicitors which practices in association with Cooley HK, a Hong Kong registered foreign law firm. His practice is focused on the formation and operation of various private investment funds, with a focus on venture capital funds, buyout funds and investment advisory businesses. He has been involved on behalf of sponsors and investors in the formation of some of the largest and most active funds and managers in the region. His practice is focused particularly on fund managers making investments around the Pacific Rim, with an emphasis on Greater China, Southeast Asia and India. Pang also has experience advising clients on a variety of issues including carried interest arrangements, co-investments and strategic joint venture arrangements.
Pang is a regular speaker and moderator at venture capital industry conferences.
Pang is fluent in English and is a native Cantonese speaker.
Education
University of Pennsylvania Law School
JD, 2003
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BS, 1997
Bar Admissions
New York
Solicitor of Hong Kong
Background
Originally from the Isle of Man, Patrick joined KPMG in Hong Kong in 1996, and leads KPMG’s Hong Kong based restructuring practice.
After several years leading KPMG’s ASPAC restructuring practice, Patrick was recently appointed as Head of our Global Restructuring Network, which covers some 70 countries and 1,100 professionals.
With almost 25 years of restructuring experience behind him, Patrick has been involved in all areas of Hong Kong and China restructuring practice, from formal restructuring and insolvency engagements, financial restructurings and back-door listings, to exit planning and implementation projects for KPMG’s MNC clients.
Professional experience
Over the last two decades, Patrick has been involved in some of the most significant cross border insolvencies the Asian market has seen. He was recently involved in the restructurings of the Noble Group Limited and Luckin Coffee, and is currently completing the liquidations of Lehman Brothers’ Hong Kong operations, having also undertaken significant cross-border roles in the MF Global and OW Bunker cases.
In addition to his multi-jurisdictional work, Patrick has been involved in a number insolvencies and restructurings where the Liquidator / Provisional Liquidator appointment was made by the Courts in BVI or Cayman, with the underlying assets being businesses in China. These cases have covered a wide spectrum of sectors, from real states to financial services, taking in manufacturing, telecommunications, transport and logistics along the way.
Patrick advises clients in all manner of situations, ranging from China focused supply chain concerns to options analysis in respect of investments in China and the broader Asian region.
Sector experience
Financial Services, Transport & Logistics, Real Estate, Retail, Industrial Markets.
Patryck Pimpao Merhy is a Partner and Head of Asia Pacific at Patria Investments. Mr. Pimpao Merhy is responsible for leading Patria’s franchise in the region, including managing key senior relationships, as well as delivering value creation opportunities between Patria’s broad portfolio of companies and partners in Asia. Mr. Pimpao Merhy is an active Board member at two of Patria’s key investments: Essentia Energia, one of the largest renewable energy platforms in Latin America, and Odata, a leading data center provider in Latin America. Before joining Patria in 2017, Mr. Pimpao Merhy spent over 18 years in the global financial services industry, holding senior leadership positions in Brazil, New York and Hong Kong at Bank of America Merril Lynch and more recently at Banco Santander. Mr. Pimpao Merhy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Fundação Getúlio Vargas and a Masters degree in Global Finance from NYU - Leonard N. Stern School of Business and HKUST.
Peter Lee is the Head of Family Advisory (Asia Pacific) with a focus on advising ultra-high net worth clients in Greater China. His team adopts a holistic approach to succession planning, assisting families define the purpose of their wealth, establish their family office strategy, develop their shared family values and establish a multigenerational family governance framework.
With over 30 years of experience in private equity, banking and consulting. Before joining UBS, Peter was a Big Four partner and was a managing director of a Swiss-headquartered Multi-Family Office and a Hong Kong based Single Family Office. He has worked for Lombard Investments focusing on mid-cap investments in Asia and Daiwa SMBC Ventures focusing on early-stage investments in China.
Peter holds a certificate in family business advisory and is a member of US Boston based The Family Firm Institute. He is a Past President and a fellow member of CPA Australia. He also teaches at City University of Hong Kong as an Adjunct Professor. He holds a Bachelor of Economics from University of Sydney, Australia. He served on the Steering Committee of the Asian Financial Forum.
Peter is the co-founder of Science Inc., a Los Angeles-based incubator and venture fund focused on technology and internet companies that tap into societal shifts and disrupt entrenched markets. Founded in 2011, Science's portfolio has seen $1.3 billion in exits including Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever). It built two of the first & largest influencer networks on YouTube and Pinterest: FameBit (acquired by Google) and HelloSociety (acquired by New York Times). Today, Science’s portfolio includes notable companies such as PlayVS, Bird, Earny, MeUndies, Grove Collaborative, Grow Mobility (Yellow and Grin), Mammoth Media, Liquid Death, Empirical Spirits, and more.
He is currently on the board of SōRSE (Tarukino). Additionally, he was an adviser for Kabam and the only adviser for Ring, each of which were acquired for $1B. Peter has had more than $2.23B in exits and raised over $500M in capital across 12 different early stage startups from top Silicon Valley investors.
Prior to Science, Peter was the VP of Business Development at Photobucket, where, as part of the founding team, he drove growth to 61M users and led its $300M acquisition in 2007 to Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corporation. Prior to Photobucket, Peter was the CEO of BillShrink from inception to their 1st million users in a little over a year. BillShrink re-branded to TruAxis, which was acquired by MasterCard in 2012.
Peter earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and a minor in Business Management from the University of California, Irvine.
Petter Weiderholm joined EQT in Feb 2016 as the CIO and in June 2018 became the Global Head of IT Strategy.
Prior to joining EQT, Petter worked as Vice President of Business IT at Spotify for five years and before that at SapientNitro (NASDAQ:SAPE), a global e-commerce consulting company. He also spent several years in different tech startups in Stockholm and Linköping. Petter has more than 15 years of experience managing teams and delivering a wide range of IT projects, with a focus on supporting back-office automation and business intelligence.
Petter Weiderholm holds a M.Sc degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Linköping's Tekniska Högskola.
Mr. Pokman Yiu is the Chief Operating Officer of Basel Capital, a multi-family office based in Hong Kong specialized in asset allocation and manager selection.
Prior with Basel, Mr. Yiu was the Co-Founder and Deputy CEO of a private family office and the Investment Director and Portfolio Manager of Gopher Asset Management. He was primarily responsible for managing the endowment strategy and discretionary portfolios. In addition he drove the firm’s investment strategy and asset management business for its parent company Noah Holdings Limited (NYSE: NOAH, a Sequoia China portfolio company) in Hong Kong.
Prior to joining Gopher in 2014, Mr. Yiu held various investment banking positions in Hong Kong with Citigroup, Bank of American Merrill Lynch and UBS. He has more than nine years’ private equity and investment banking experience and executed a wide variety of corporate finance transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, and debt and equity financings across Asia Pacific region.
Mr. Yiu received both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is also a CFA and CAIA Charterholder.
Ranjit co-founded Gaja Capital and has been a managing partner since 2005. Ranjit has led several of the firm’s investments across clusters. Ranjit has 40 years of India based experience in multiple sectors including private equity, telecom, technology, luxury goods, financial services and consulting. He has held CXO level positions in significant Indian businesses. He has also been an entrepreneur building an asset financing company which he later took public and sold to a strategic investor. Ranjit holds an MBA from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and is a graduate in electrical engineering from IIT Bombay.
Raymond Svider is the Chairman and a Partner of BC Partners, a large international private equity firm with over $30bn assets under management. He joined the Firm in 1992 and is currently based in New York.
Over the years, Raymond has participated and led investments in a number of sectors including TMT, healthcare, industrials, business services, consumer and retail. He is currently Executive Chairman of PetSmart, Chairman of the Board of Chewy, Inc (NYSE “CHWY”), Chairman of the Advisory Board of The Aenova Group, and also serves on the boards of Altice USA (NYSE “ATUS”), Intelsat (NYSE "I"), Navex Global, GFL Environmental (NYSE/TSX “GFL”), GardaWorld, Presidio, Inc. and Cyxtera Technologies. Raymond previously served as a Director of Accudyne Industries, Teneo Global, Office Depot, Multiplan, Unity Media, Neuf Cegetel, Polyconcept, Neopost, Nutreco, UTL and Chantemur.
Raymond is also on the Boards of the Mount Sinai Children's Center Foundation in New York and the Polsky Center Private Equity Council at the University of Chicago.
Raymond received an MBA from the University of Chicago and an MS in Engineering
Rishi joined the Aware Super Private Equity team in 2019. His experience includes manager research, co-investment assessment, portfolio analysis and investment strategy development. Aware Super is one of Australia's largest superannuation (pension) funds, with more than $150bn in funds under management. Prior to Aware Super, Rishi worked in the Private Equity team at the Future Fund, where he helped manage its private equity portfolio. Rishi started his career in the Corporate Finance team at KPMG primarily focussed on Mergers and Acquisitions. He holds a Bachelor of Laws and Commerce and a Graduate Diploma in Chartered Accounting.
Robin oversees Asia-Pacific coverage for Inframation. A 22-year news veteran, with 13 of them spent editing financial news, Robin has worked for the world's leading news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. He has been a regular on live television, commenting mainly on Chinese government and central bank policy. At Inframation he is responsible for daily news coverage and analysis written by a team of journalists spread across Greater China, Japan, India, Singapore and Australia.
Roderick Purwana is Managing Partner of East Ventures. Roderick is an active investor with a diverse background of working in operations and investments in the VC and PE industry. Previously worked as Managing Partner of SMDV Indonesia based venture capital firm focusing growth stage companies in Southeast Asia.
Roderick has experience in management, operations, investment and portfolio management through his work in multiple industries in Silicon Valley and in Southeast Asia. His exposure in Silicon Valley was primarily around the technology and life science industry. Originally from Indonesia, He returned home in 2009 where he joined Quvat/Principia Management Group. Quvat is a private equity firm, specializing in early-stage and growth-stage investments into mid-market companies in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. During his time there, Roderick managed and led several strategic initiatives of one of the portfolio companies, including strategy, M&A and IPO. Since returning to Indonesia, he has also served in various management capacities for companies in aviation infrastructure, food & beverage, and chemicals distribution sectors. Roderick is also a co-founder of Bobobobo.com, a lifestyle e-commerce company.
Roderick received his M.S from Stanford University and his B.S from Cornell University.
Ron Thompson is a Managing Director of Alvarez & Marsal Asia and leads Asia’s Restructuring Practice. Mr. Thompson is based in Hong Kong.
With close to 30 years of experience in China and Asia, Mr. Thompson brings expertise in finance, credit and restructuring in Asia. Mr. Thompson’s primary expertise lies in financial restructuring and has significant experience acting in the capacity as a creditor, investor and advisor related with in court restructurings and liquidations as well as out of court processes or government influenced restructurings. Mr. Thompson has extensive experience as an investor in sourcing, valuing, acquiring and managing NPL portfolios in addition to having managed the sale process of individual credits as well as non-performing loan portfolios. Mr. Thompson, in the capacity as an investor and as a board member, has participated in multiple operational turnaround situations. Mr. Thompson’s has broad industry expertise including fast moving consumer goods, power generation, metals and mining, construction, manufacturing, telecom and technology and financial institutions.
Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Thompson was at Standard Chartered where he headed the workout team in Taiwan, worked in the Mezzanine and Alternative Solutions Team for Principle Finance and most recently was the Chief Credit Officer for China. Prior to Standard Chartered, Mr. Thompson worked in corporate finance at Bear Stearns and Bank of China International and oversaw the China business for Clearwater Capital.
Mr. Thompson graduated Magna Cum Laude from Colby College, studied Chinese literature at Peking University and holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Mr. Thompson is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
Saiful joined KWAP in 2012 and currently leads the organisation’s Private Equity and Infrastructure activities. Prior to joining KWAP, Saiful worked for the Malaysia Venture Capital Management Berhad (MAVCAP) as the Vice President of Investments.
Saiful holds a Master’s Degree in Management from the International Islamic University, Malaysia and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA.
Mr. Samson Wong is responsible for managing all private markets investments at the Exchange Fund Investment Office of the HKMA. Mr. Wong currently leads a team of more than 30 professionals covering investments across private equity and real estate.
Mr. Wong has more than 20 years’ experience in the financial and investment industry. Prior to the HKMA, Mr. Wong held various positions at major investment banks including RBS, UBS and JPMorgan.
Mr. Wong is a graduate from the Kellogg-HKUST Executive MBA program and received his B.S. in Finance and Information System from Boston College.
Mr. Sanjay Kukreja joined ChrysCapital in 2000 and has been a Partner at the firm since 2012. He is currently the Chief Investment Officer at ChrysCapital, overseeing all of the firm’s investment activities. Prior to his CIO role, Mr. Kukreja led the Financial Services and Business Services sectors, which together accounted for over $1.5 billion of invested capital and almost $3 billion of realizations for the ChrysCapital funds.
Over the years, Mr. Kukreja has been instrumental in leading several high-profile investments and has also worked extensively on managing exits for ChrysCapital, where ChrysCapital is an industry leader.
Mr. Kukreja currently serves on the Boards of Hero Fincorp, GeBBS Healthcare Solutions, Infogain, Intas Pharmaceuticals, and has previously also served on the boards of several other companies such as KPIT Technologies, LiquidHub, and Shriram Transport Finance Company.
Mr. Kukreja holds an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Shriram College of Commerce, Delhi University. He has also attended the Executive Leadership Course for top management at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.
Sarah is the Head of Private Equity for Europe and Asia at Allstate Investments, covering primary fund commitments and co-investments alongside growth equity and buyout managers. Prior to joining Allstate Investments, Sarah was running the international private equity platform of a large American family office based out of Switzerland. Sarah is originally from a direct investing and investment banking background and has worked in private equity for more than 20 years. She is a Chartered Accountant.
Satoru Arakawa has been an investment professional at J-STAR since 2007, and has focused on small-cap buyouts in Japan. Based in Tokyo, he has been involved in nine transactions and value-added activities for portfolio companies in the industrial and healthcare sectors.
Prior to joining J-STAR, Arakawa worked for eight years in strategic consulting at Nomura Research Institute, where he engaged in strategic advisory and business improvements for a broad range of sectors, including PE-backed companies.
Sean Sehoon Ham joined EQT Partners' Investor Relations team in January 2016. Sean is a Managing Director and Head of Investor Relations Asia based in the Hong Kong office.
Prior to joining EQT Partners, Sean worked at The Blackstone Group in Hong Kong where he focused on investor coverage and business development. Before Blackstone, Sean was with UBS and Merrill Lynch where he focused on private funds placement. Sean was also with Cornerstone Equity Partners and Vogo private equity fund where he focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments.
Sean holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School, studied an M.S. in Business Administration from Seoul National University.
Shane is a Principal and leads the Portfolio Group in Asia for Permira, where his primary focus is on value creation and due diligence of new investment opportunities from a commercial and operational perspective. Shane has worked on a number of transactions including I-MED, Tricor, Topcast, and EF Kids & Teens. Prior to joining Permira in 2017, Shane worked for KKR Capstone for six years and previously worked with McKinsey and Company in Japan and Australia. Shane holds degrees in Computer Engineering and Japanese Language from the University of Wollongong, Australia, and has an MBA and MS from Stanford University, USA.
• Shaun is Managing Director, Head and Investment Committee member of HOPU-Arm Innovation Fund (HAIF),an Asian based technology fund focused on mid-staged growth and buyout opportunities, since 2018. In addition, he is also an Investment Committee member of HOPU Investments. Shaun is responsible primarily for HAIF’s investments, portfolio management and LP relationships.
• From 2015 to 2018, Shaun spent time in Shanghai as a technology entrepreneur, where he partnered with Pico, one of the world’s leading marketing firms, to build their innovation and transformation platform, including serving as founder CEO for two of their technology start-ups and incubator
• Prior to 2014, Shaun was Managing Director at Blackstone, Head of China Financial Institutions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Vice President at ABN AMRO Principal Investments
• Shaun holds a Bachelor of Science (Economics) (1stClassHonors) from the London School of Economics and Political Science
Shin is Managing Partner at GLOBIS Capital Partners. Shin leads GLOBIS’s investments in mobile, digital media, and web services. Shin takes a hands-on approach to his portfolio companies initiating strategy development, organization/process development, partnership development, and global expansion.
His track record includes: IPO iStyle (ticker TSE 3660), Aucfan (3674), Kayac (3904), Pixta (3416), and Mercari (4385); M&A Shimauma Print System (acquired by CCC), and nanapi (acquired by KDDI). His portfolio includes Lancers, Viibar, Timers, Coubic, Reblue, and Mirrative etc. Selected as Forbes Japan Midas List Most Influential Venture Investor 2018.
Prior to Globis, Shin led management consulting projects at Arthur D. Little where he developed corporate strategy, new business strategy and innovation strategy for leading IT service providers and software companies. Shin received BA in Economics from University of Tokyo (graduation thesis with Honor), and MBA from Harvard Business School (Second Year Honor). Shin has 8 years of overseas experience in England, Holland and the US.
Shota Kuwaki currently serves as Executive Director of CLSA Capital Partners Japan. In this capacity, he is responsible for the overall investor relations activities of the firm. Prior to joining the firm in 2016, Mr. Kuwaki previously worked as an investor relations professional at domestic buyout fund, Advantage Partners, where he engaged with both overseas and domestic investors. Prior to his tenure at Advantage Partners, he was involved in equity research at Macquarie Securities and Mizuho Securities. Additionally he has experience in the field of insurance at AIG. Mr. Kuwaki received a B.A. in Economics from Keio University.
Simone Song is the founder of ORI Capital, and the senior partner of ORI Healthcare Funds which focus on investing in early stage and innovative healthcare companies globally.
Simone is the architect of ORIzon, a big data driven AI research platform which enables ORI Capital to become a quantitative venture capital fund manager that combines quantitative analysis with fundamental research.
Simone serves on the boards of directors of various investee companies of ORI Healthcare Funds, including being the chairman of AffyImmune and being the directors of CG Oncology, Enable Injections, Pillar Biosciences and TriSalus.
Simone was the former Head of Goldman Sachs Healthcare Investment Banking for Greater China. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, she was a Managing Director of Cowen Group; a member of the advisory board of AXA Investment Managers, and an executive board advisor to AXA Asia Pacific Holdings.
Simone received a BA in Economics from Fudan University in China and a MA in Economics from Claremont Graduate School.
Stefano Ghezzi joined OTPP in 2017 and is member of the Infrastructure and Natural Resources team based in Singapore covering the infrastructure and renewable sectors across Asia Pacific. During his time at OTPP Stefano has been involved in investments globally including the recent acquisitions of Caruna Networks, SGI and IDEAL, amongst others. Prior to joining Ontario Teachers', Stefano worked in the infrastructure and energy group at Citigroup and in derivatives trading at Commerzbank in London.
Stefano holds a M.Sc. in Finance from Warwick Business School and a B.Sc. in Economics from Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.
Sudhir is a Managing Director & Deputy CEO with Multiples Alternate Asset Management Private Limited, a leading Indian mid-market private equity fund. He has over two decades of experience in financial services of which the last ten years has been in private equity. He has a strong investment track record and has lead investments across a range of sectors including financial services, health care, logistics and infrastructure services. Prior to private equity he has experience across investment banking, lending and structured finance.
Sudhir holds a post graduate degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT, Varanasi.
Sylvain is the CEO of SESAMm, an innovative company specializing in big data and AI for investment. Founded in 2014, SESAMm specializes in natural language processing and machine learning to provide investment insights, dashboards and analytics from billions of news, blog posts and messages from the internet.
Clients include leading asset managers, insurers and private equity firms. Sylvain’s passion for new technologies and entrepreneurship led him to start SESAMm, scaling it into an international company with offices in Paris, London, New York and Tokyo.
Sylvain holds a dual engineering in engineering from HochSchule Karlsruhe (Germany) and INSA (France).
Tadashi Nishizawa is an Executive Director of Private Equity Investment Department of Japan Post Bank (JPB). He has over 15 years of private equity investment experience. Before joining JPB in 2016, he was the Head of Private Equity Division of Daido Life Insurance Company between 2013 and 2016. Prior to that, he spent about 8 years at Alternative Investment Capital Ltd (AIC), an investment advisory firm in private equity investments, where he was most recently Senior Vice President and involved in the management of more than 100 private equity funds portfolio globally. Earlier in his career, he was with Daido Life Insurance Company where he had been in charge of private equity investments since 2002 as well as foreign government bond investments since 1997. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Hokkaido University.
Ted joined BCP Credit in New York in 2017 to lead BCP Credit. Previously, Ted was President at Apollo Investment Corporation and the Chief Investment Officer of Apollo Investment Management where he was the head of its US Opportunistic Platform and also oversaw the Private Origination business, serving as a member of the Senior Management Committee. Prior to Apollo, he worked at Goldman Sachs for 13 years where he most recently ran the bank loan distressed investing desk. He was previously the head of Principal Capital Investing for the Special Situations Group.
Tom has served as the Chief Investment Officer of The Wallace Foundation since 2021. He manages all aspects of the $2.0 billion investment portfolio. Previously, he served as the Deputy Chief Investment Officer of the Rockefeller University starting in 2011. Prior to Rockefeller, Tom was a Director at Commonfund Capital starting in 2005, where he primarily focused on manager commitments on behalf of endowment and foundation clients in the private equity, venture capital and natural resources sectors globally. He also led that firm’s secondary investment effort. Prior to Commonfund Capital, Tom worked as a direct private equity investment professional for Vista Equity Partners in San Francisco, CA and Stone Point Capital (fka, Marsh & McLennan Capital, Inc.) in Greenwich, CT. Tom began his career as a financial analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in the Investment Banking Division in both New York and London.
Tom received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Georgetown University, where he graduated summa cum laude and valedictorian, and a M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. Tom currently sits on the Advisory Boards of Greenspring Associates and Felicis Ventures, the Investment Committee of The Peterson Institute for International Economics, and the Board of Trustees and Investment Committee of The Wenner-Gren Foundation. Previously, he served on the Investment Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies. He was also selected as a Top 30 University Endowment Chief Investment Officers by Trusted Insight in 2019 and 2020.
Thomas von Koch was part of the team that founded EQT in Stockholm in 1994. He headed EQT's Equity business line between 2008-2011 and as of March 2014, Mr. von Koch assumed the role of CEO and Managing Partner. He also became a board member of EQT AB. As of January 2019, Mr. von Koch is Chairman of EQT Asia and Deputy Managing Partner of EQT. He is also Chairman of the business lines EQT Mid Market Asia, EQT Ventures and EQT Public Value.
Previously, Mr. von Koch worked at Investor AB, a Swedish investment company controlled by the Wallenberg family, which he joined in 1992. At Investor AB, he worked within equity research, corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions. Mr. von Koch graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics with two majors (Financial Economics and Accounting & Finance).
Thomas has been in the finance industry for 25 years, and have worked across direct investments, capital raising, banking, advisory and corporate governance. He heads the Asia Pacific Business for Eaton Partners, responsible for the private markets origination, execution and distribution of primary fund raisings and secondary transactions in the region. Thomas sits on the APAC, North America, EMEA Private Funds Investment Committees at Eaton Partners.
Prior to joining Eaton Partners, Thomas was with UBS Asset Management for over 13 years, where he was Executive Director and Portfolio Manager for Asia Pacific of the Infrastructure and Private Equity business. He was a founding team member that incubated UBS' global infrastructure funds management business in 2005. Prior to this, Thomas was with UBS Investment Bank, Andersen, PricewaterhouseCoopers and National Australia Bank.
Thomas earned his Bachelor of Commerce with Majors in Finance and Accounting from the University of Sydney, and his Masters of Business Administration (Executive MBA) from the Australian Graduate School of Management. Thomas is a qualified Australian CPA.
Tim Burroughs is managing editor of Asian Venture Capital Journal, having joined the publication in May 2011. He is responsible for all editorial content put out under the AVCJ brand, including Asian Venture Capital Journal, AVCJtv, AVCJ Awards and AVCJ.com. Tim previously spent five years at China Economic Review, serving as editor-in-chief and then editorial director. Located in Greater China since 2003, during which time he has lived in Beijing, Qingdao and Hong Kong, Tim has been a China-based contributor for publications including The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, BBC and China Daily. Prior to moving to China, he trained and worked as a journalist in the UK. He was honored at the Society of Publishers in Asia awards in 2007, 2008 and 2010, and at the State Street Institutional Press Awards - Asia in 2012.
Tony Jiang is a co-founder and partner at Ocean Link. He leads all of Ocean Link's investments, and he currently serves on the board of eLong, Mafengwo, Yitiao, New Century Kaiyuan Hotels, Ruby Hotels & Resorts, and Mind Education. Prior to founding Ocean Link, Mr. Jiang was with The Carlyle Group from 2006 to 2016 focused on private equity investments in Asia. Earlier in his career, Mr. Jiang worked in the investment banking division of Deutsche Bank. He received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University with full scholarship.
Mr. Tsukahara received his BA degree in Law from Waseda University and holds an MBA degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He began his career at Fuji Bank (Current Mizuho Bank), where he worked as an account manager, loan officer and M&A advisor. He left Fuji Bank to join McKinsey & Company, where he spent 10 years in projects for strategy development, organizational design, marketing, sales force productivity, enhancement in industry sectors such as retail, consumer goods, finance, pharmaceutical, and medical devices. While serving as co-head of the Healthcare Practice and Sales and Marketing Practice at McKinsey, he also led internal training initiatives for consultants. He joined Advantage Partners in June 2007 as one of the starting members of the Portfolio Team to lead PAM (Post Acquisition Management) activities mainly in B2C sectors such as retail, e-commerce, and banking. After managing one of the portfolio companies as a CSO/COO from 2012, he changed his role to investment professional from 2016. He currently assumes a deal team leader role for portfolio companies such as speciality retailer, educational service provider, and funeral service provider.
Vincent joined ALPS Advisory, a multi-family office, in 2018 as Managing Director and is the Chief Investment Officer. His main focus are designing and developing investment strategies and solutions for UHNW & HNW clients, and actively managing ALPS’s multi-asset portfolios and global equity mandates. Prior to joining ALPS, Vincent was a senior portfolio manager at Asia Capital Re in Singapore, an alternative investment portfolio manager at Aerion in the UK, a multi-asset portfolio manager at MMC UK pension fund and a G7 bond fund manager at British Airways Pension. Skilled in Credit Research, Equity Research, Asset Management, Portfolio Management, Capital Markets, Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds. A holder of a master’s degree in International Trade and Finance from Lancaster University, UK. A CFA Charterholder.
Wen Tan is the founder of Azimuth Asset Consulting, providing strategic, organisational and operational advice to guide asset owners and asset managers towards their long-term goals. Wen specialises in complex situations such as redesigning governance structures, conflicts of interests resolution (whether between investors, between managers and investors, within captive managers, or within family structures), succession planning, strategic growth opportunities, spinouts, and post-merger/acquisition integration.
Wen formerly headed Aberdeen Standard Investments’ Asia Pacific private equity platform, and has unique insights into the investment management industry, having viewed the sector from multiple perspectives: as a financial sector specialist at KPMG in London, as an M&A investment banker with Lazard focusing on financial institutions, from an LP perspective on behalf of various types of institutions (Search Investment Group – a family office; Squadron Capital and FLAG Capital – both boutique private equity firms; Aberdeen Asset Management and Aberdeen Standard Investments – both global investment management firms), from a GP perspective at the above firms, and from an operational perspective as de facto local COO dealing with post-M&A integration through multiple acquisitions and mergers.
Wen is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, and is a member of the ICAEW and HKICPA.
Wendy Zhu is a Managing Director at AlpInvest Partners and responsible for primary and secondary investments in the Asia Pacific region. She is also a member of the Operating Committee.
Ms. Zhu joined AlpInvest Partners in 2007 from Macquarie Funds Management, where she was Senior Vice President of Asia-Pacific regional private equity fund investments and co-investments. Previously, Ms. Zhu was a Director with Deutsche Bank Asset Management and an Associate Director at MetLife.
Ms. Zhu received a BS in Business Administration and an MS in Accounting from the University of Southern California and is a CFA ® Charterholder. She represents AlpInvest Partners on various Advisory Boards.
Will Cai is a corporate partner and the head of Cooley Asia capital markets. His practice focuses on cross-border China-related legal matters. He represents issuers and global investment banks in US and Hong Kong capital market transactions. He also advises private equity funds and multinationals in their investments in the Greater China region, as well as Chinese companies in their cross-border M&A activities.
Will has worked on 50+ successful IPOs in the US and Hong Kong capital markets in the last decade, with a focus on life sciences, technology and new economy companies. In addition, Will has represented a significant number of leading new economy companies in their M&A transactions, including a number of landmark deals.
The deals Will has worked on over the years have garnered a number of rankings and accolades including the ‘Best IPO of 2017’ by FinanceAsia Magazine, ‘Equity Deal of the Year for 2017’ at the IFLR Asia Awards in 2018, the largest technology IPO in Hong Kong in 2017, one of China Business Law Journal’s Deals of the Year in both 2016 and 2015 and one of Asian-MENA Counsel magazine’s Deals of the Year for 2015.
From 1997 to 2003, Will worked for the Supreme People’s Court of China, where he acquired extensive experience and knowledge of the Chinese judiciary.
Will received his JD from Stanford Law School and LLB from China University of Political Science and Law. He is a native Mandarin speaker and is fluent in English. He is admitted to practice in California and Hong Kong.
Will is an Investment Principal responsible for origination and execution and is based in the firm’s Hong Kong office.
Prior to joining Coller Capital in 2011, William was a Financial Accountant at Thames Water.
William has a BA (Hons) from the University of Manchester, an MSc in Finance from London Business School, and an MBA from the University of Oxford. He is a Chartered Management Accountant.
Wilson Warren is the President of Lexington Partners and Co-Chair of the Secondary Investment Committee. Mr. Warren is primarily engaged in the management of Lexington’s investment operations and oversight for the secondary and co-investment funds. During 26 years at Lexington, he has been actively involved in more than 100 completed secondary transactions – including complex partnership portfolios, direct secondary investments, hedge fund private equity assets, institutional equity co-investments, and GP solutions transactions, committing more than $18 billion of invested capital including syndications to LPs and other investors. Prior to joining Lexington in 1994, Mr. Warren was an associate at Landmark Partners and prior to that he was an analyst in investment management at LaSalle Partners. Mr. Warren graduated from Williams College with a BA in economics.
Xiang-Dong (X.D.) Yang is a Managing Director and Chairman of Carlyle Asia, leading all Corporate Private Equity investments in Asia (ex-Japan). He joined Carlyle in 2001 as a Co-Head of the Asia Buyout advisory team. Carlyle has been investing in Asia for over two decades and is one of the largest private equity investors in Asia. Carlyle Asia has invested over US$15.5 billion in more than 150 companies in corporate private equity, and has current assets under management of more than US$11.8 billion, as of June 30, 2020. Mr. Yang is based in Hong Kong.
Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Yang spent nine years at Goldman Sachs, where he was a Managing Director and Co-Head of Private Equity Investment Asia ex-Japan.
Mr. Yang serves on the boards of Grand Foods Holdings Limited (McDonald’s China) and Du Xiaoman Financial. Mr. Yang is also a member of the Global Advisory Council of Harvard University and a trustee of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.
Mr. Yang received his BA in economics from Harvard University and MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a native of China.
Xun Zeng is an investment funds partner of Cooley’s Beijing office. Her practice focuses on the formation, structuring and operation of a wide variety of investment funds, including venture capital, private equity, real estate, hybrid and co-investment funds. She advises fund sponsors on the marketing, formation and operation of their funds, as well as upper-tier arrangements, carried interest plans, strategic joint venture arrangements and various governance matters. Xun represents China-based venture capital and private equity fund managers, and also has extensive experience in representing institutional investors (including sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies and funds of funds) in connection with investments in private funds, including buyout funds, venture capital funds, credit funds, hedge funds and separately managed accounts.
Xun is a lecturer in Law on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She teaches Private Investment Funds.
Xun started her legal career as a fund formation lawyer in the New York office of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison LLP, and prior tojoining Cooley, Xun was a counsel in the private funds group of the Hong Kong office of Ropes & Gray LLP.
Xun has been shortlisted as “Investment Funds Lawyer of the Year” by Asia Legal Awards in 2020.
Xun is a native Mandarin and Cantonese speaker and is fluent in English. She received here JD and LLM from University of Pennsylvania Law School and LLB with honors from Sun Yat-sen University School of Law. Xun is admitted to practice in New York and Hong Kong.
Yann Robard is the managing Partner at Whitehorse Liquidity Partners and has over 20 years of private equity and investment banking experience.
Established in 2015, Whitehorse Liquidity Partners is a private equity firm focused on providing structured liquidity solutions to the alternative asset class. As of August 31, 2021, Whitehorse Liquidity Partners has raised over US$7.9 billion in commitments and has deployed approximately US$8.5 billion across 105 transactions since inception. Additionally, Whitehorse Liquidity Partners consists of98 professionals.
Prior to founding Whitehorse Liquidity Partners, Mr. Robard spent a cumulative 13 years at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (“CPPIB”), most recently as managing director, Head of Secondaries and Co-Investments. In this capacity, Mr. Robardwas responsible for a team of 15 professionals investing in private equity secondaries and co-investments on a global basis. Mr. Robard joined CPPIBduring the inception of its private equity investment program and in 2007, was mandated to establish a principal secondary program within CPPIB, which was later expanded to include co-investments. During his tenure at CPPIB, Mr. Robard held several roles and positions, all focused on private equity, namely in its private equity funds, secondaries and co-investments activities, including roles on several investment committees of the firm.
Yar-Ping Soo is a Partner primarily specializing in Asian pan-regional leveraged buyouts as well as country focused funds, specifically in Greater China, Japan, Korea and Indonesia. She leads the Asian practice, and actively participates in all fund investment decisions at Adams Street and is responsible for managing relationships with several of Adams Street's managers. Ms. Soo is a member of the Adams Street Primary Investment Committee.
Prior to joining Adams Street, Yar-Ping was a Senior Vice President of GIC Special Investments (GICSI), which is the private equity arm of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation. She spent more than a decade at GIC and worked in their New York, Redwood City and Singapore offices. Ms. Soo was the Head of Asia/Emerging Markets based out of Singapore, leading GICSI’s investments in leveraged buyout funds, growth capital funds and co-investments.
Ms. Soo is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Malay.
Speaker bio coming soon