Jie Gong Partner PANTHEON

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).

Emre Hidekazu Yuasa General Partner GLOBIS CAPITAL PARTNERS

Emre is General Partner at Globis Capital Partners, leading investments in IT startups targeting digital transformation of various industries. His portfolio includes Photosynth (TSE 4379), GLM (electric vehicle startup, acquired), Sensyn Robotics (drone software), MFS (mortgage technology platform), New Standard (digital media agency), Global Mobility Service (auto loan, IoT), Shippio (digital freight forwarder), CADDi (procurement platform for manufacturing parts), Matsuri Technologies (vacation rental operator), Estie (commercial real estate database), Leaner Technologies procurement and spend management SaaS）, Ascend (vertical SaaS for trucking companies), and Facilo (vertical SaaS for real estate brokers).

Prior to joining Globis Capital Partners, Emre worked for Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting (Tokyo) and KPMG Management Consulting (Tokyo), where he specialized in overseas expansion and Post Merger Integration.

He teaches at Globis University Graduate School of Management (MBA). Emre graduated from Harvard Business School (MBA) and Ohio State University.

Jai Das Partner, President & Co-Founder, Sapphire Ventures SAPPHIRE VENTURES

Jai is a partner, president, and co-founder at Sapphire Ventures. He invests in startups he believes are developing ground-breaking products and services, and have embarked on their journey to become a company of consequence. He has more than 15 years of experience helping companies innovate their product and marketing strategies in order to scale and become market leaders.

Fourteen of Jai’s investments have become publicly traded companies and more than 15 have been acquired.

Jai is currently a member of the board (director or observer) at Catchpoint, CircleCI, Clari, DataRobot, OpsRamp, PubNub, Splashtop, Tetrate, ThoughtSpot, UJET, Uptycs, Verbit, yellow.ai, and Yugabyte. He also led the firm’s investments in Blockdaemon, FalconX, JumpCloud, Privacera, Netskope, Tesseract and Zesty.

Jai’s previous investments at Sapphire include: AllyO (acquired by HireVue), Alteryx (NYSE: AYX), Apigee (IPO then acquired by Google Cloud), Box (NYSE: BOX), Connectiva Systems (acquired by Mara Ison), Cloudhealth Technologies (acquired by VMware), Control4 (IPO then acquired By Hellman & Friedman), Cyphort (acquired by Juniper Networks), ExactTarget (IPO then acquired by Salesforce), Five9 (NASDAQ: FIVN), GroundWork (acquired by Parallax), Ignite Technologies (acquired by Versata), Iron.IO (acquired by Xenon Technologies), Jaspersoft (acquired by TIBCO Software), JFrog (NASDAQ: FROG), JustDial (NYSE: JUSTDIAL), MuleSoft (IPO then acquired by Salesforce), Newgen Software (NYSE: NEWGEN), Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), Paytm (NYSE: PAYTM), Punchh (acquired by PAR Technology), Portworx (acquired by Pure Storage), Socrata (acquired by Tyler Technologies), Square (NYSE: SQ), Sumo Logic (NASDAQ: SUMO), and Tealeaf (acquired by IBM).

Prior to joining Sapphire Ventures in 2006, Jai worked at Oracle, Intel Capital, Agilent Ventures, and MVC Capital. He has a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Brown University and an MBA from University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Kosei Terami Senior Client Relations Manager IFC ASSET MANAGEMENT

Kosei joined the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, in 2005. Before joining the current team in Singapore, he was Deputy Representative in Tokyo and Investment Officer at Private Equity and Investment Funds Department in Washington DC. Previously, Kosei worked at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and the Sumitomo Bank (currently Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation) in New York, Osaka, and Tokyo. He holds an MBA from Yale School of Management and an LLB from Kyoto University.

Vishal Bakshi Founder and Managing Partner AVATAR GROWTH CAPITAL

Vishal is the Founder and Managing Partner at AGC (Avatar Growth Capital), a late stage VC / early growth fund focused on technology companies powered by India for the global market.

Prior to founding Avatar Growth Capital, Vishal was at Goldman Sachs for 16 years. As Managing Director, he led Goldman Sachs’ $1bn Private Equity business in India. He was responsible for successful investments across industries including in Max India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Renew Wind Power and Antuit.  

In New York, Vishal was Global Head of IT Services M&A and Corporate Finance as part of Goldman's Tech, Media & Telecom Investment Banking Division. He led over 20 M&A and corporate finance transactions valued at over $15bn. In the mid-90s, he led Private Equity syndication at the investment banking joint venture between ICICI and JP Morgan.

Vishal has an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School (4.0 / 4.0 GPA), a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM, Ahmedabad and a BA (Hons) in Economics from St Stephen's College, Delhi.

His passions include scuba diving, skiing and films that power change.