Bio

Norman is the Senior Acting Group CEO in Cradle Fund Sdn. Bhd. He started his career as an auditor with KPMG, and has then, over 12 years, held various Finance, Accounting and Management positions in local as well as multinational Oil & Gas related companies and government agency. He holds an Accounting degree from University of Queensland, Australia and a Software Engineering degree from Multimedia University, Malaysia.

Bio

Dzuleira Abu Bakar is a seasoned personality in technology and venture capital. She is the CEO of the Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology & Innovation (MRANTI), the national research commercialisation agency through the convergence of Technology Park Malaysia and Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC).

She is focused to fast track innovations to market, taking ideas to impact through the commercialisation of homegrown technology, in our push to make Malaysia a high-tech, high-income nation.

Dzuleira is an influential voice in Malaysia’s innovation, start-up and entrepreneurship ecosystem. She is on the UTM Board of Directors. She was also the CEO of Cradle Seed Ventures, a growth stage venture capital fund, and a Council Member of the National ICT Association of Malaysia (PIKOM).

She has also served in various roles across government agencies, GLCs as well as the private sector such as Usaha Tegas, Malaysian Venture Capital Management Berhad, Khazanah Nasional; and has held multiple roles in technology & innovation, venture capital & private equity, corporate finance, legal & governance, deal structuring and stakeholder management.

Bio

Shailesh Grover, Chief Digital & Innovation Officer from Hong Leong Bank Berhad is a customer obsessed executive working on making banking #SimplySimple. He has been driving the journey to build a sustainable culture of customer centricity and innovation to ensure Hong Leong Bank continues to be the most Digital and Innovative bank.

Shailesh has over 3 decades of global experience working across multiple industries. Prior to Hong Leong Bank, he was with Capco, Barclays and AT&T and various startups in the Silicon Valley. During his journey, he has been responsible for many first-of-its-kind customer-centric Digital (Mobile and Online) and Service Innovations.

Bio

Managing Partner at Gobi Partners, Jamal is a supporter of Gobi’s efforts to expand in ASEAN since 2014, Jamal joined the firm in 2019 and is overseeing operations and investment activities at Gobi’s Kuala Lumpur office. He has 15 years of experience in equity research, investment evaluation, corporate finance, and M&A and an additional 14 years of experience in venture capital.

Prior to Gobi, he was the CEO of MAVCAP, Malaysia’s largest venture capital firm, which has directly and indirectly invested in over 1,100 startups since 2001. While at MAVCAP, Jamal shifted the company’s strategic direction to focus on raising funds from the private sector and managing funds with local and international VC partners, including 500 Startups, Elixir Capital, Gobi Partners, Vynn Capital and Intres Capital. He attracted a number of local corporates and sovereign funds to invest in VC funds, including Axiata, Johor Corporation, and Khazanah Nasional. In total, Jamal helped MAVCAP to create, manage, and participate in nine funds, with a combined size of over US$500 M. At Gobi, he successfully created and launched a US$20 M venture fund in Pakistan, in collaboration with the Fatima Group, one of the country’s largest conglomerates.

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Dan Toma is the author of 2 award winning books on the topic of innovation in large organizations, Innovation Accounting (2021) and The Corporate Startup (2017). His inspiration for the thought-leadership work comes from the work he is doing with his colleagues at the consultancy office OUTCOME, where they are helping large organization transform to become more innovative while effectively running their current core business.

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Chief Investment Officer of Penjana Kapital. Penjana Kapital was incorporated in July 2020 as part of Government of Malaysia’s initiative to accelerate the development of a future innovation economy. Its main role is to stimulate the economy through investments in innovative fast-growing businesses. Prior to his appointment, Taufiq was in Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) as Director of Research. He was also once Director of Equity. He had also served ValueCap Group as Chief Executive Officer of VCAP Asset Managers. Armed with 15 years of experience in the fund management business, he has a deep commitment to the development of viable as well as vibrant capital market in Malaysia. He read Law for his undergraduate and Management as a postgraduate, both at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE). He also went to Westminster Business School.

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Encik Rashdan has 26 years of experience in the corporate finance and investment banking industry, corporate consultancy and the financial services sector. He served as Executive Director (Investments) of Khazanah Nasional Berhad from 2010 to 2012 and as Chief Executive Officer of Maybank Investment Bank Berhad from 2008 to 2010. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of BinaFikir Sdn Bhd from 2003 to 2008, and was Managing Director in QuantePhi Sdn Bhd, a boutique corporate finance advisory firm he founded in 2012, until December 2017. He was made the Gamuda Group Chief Investment Officer (CIO) from 1 July 2021 to lead the Group’s investment portfolios across all business units including building new opportunities in the green/tech space.

Bio

"Rafiza Ghazali has joined KAF Investment Bank as the Director of Digital Banking. As CEO Designate of the Islamic digital bank consortium being led by KAF Investment Bank, she will spearhead the project team for the incorporation and operational readiness process of the digital bank entity.

Prior to joining KAF Investment Bank, Rafiza was the Group Chief Executive Officer of Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, where she collaborated closely with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF), tasked in supporting and develop Malaysian start-ups and tech entrepreneurs. During her tenure at Cradle, Rafiza was instrumental in transforming Cradle to lead in the development of a sustainable ecosystem for the start-up community in Malaysia.

Rafiza’s wealth of experience in the innovation and digital economy, deep familiarity with various start-up businesses viability and its fund-raising journey and fostering partnership and collaboration with various stakeholders makes her uniquely positioned to drive the digital bank value proposition at providing a conducive open-banking platform-based ecosystem to its customers and partners.

Rafiza served in senior capacities for several industry leading-companies including as the Chief Financial Officer of RHB Investment Bank Berhad and Cagamas Berhad, the Finance Director at Bank Negara Malaysia, and the Head of Islamic Finance, Asia at Thomson Reuters. She also previously held the role of Head of Group Strategy and Innovation at Sime Darby Berhad.

Rafiza has been a speaker, moderator, and panel member at various international forums and speaking engagements, including IFN Asia Forum, MIFC Roadshow, Islamic Financial Intelligence Summit, WIBC Asia Singapore, Securities Commission’s Islamic Market Programme, Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference and 2014 Global Competitiveness Forum, to name a few. She has been a strong advocate for the advancement of women in the workplace and for leadership opportunities in the technology sector.

Rafiza’s academic career includes BSc Economics in Accounting and Finance from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment majoring in Corporate Finance from the Securities Institute of Australia. She is also a Fellow Member of the Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand (CAANZ). She also graduated from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford with a Post Graduate Diploma in Strategy and Innovation."

Bio

Owen has more than 12 years of working experience in the field of taxation, providing tax compliance and advisory services to both local and multinational corporations

In addition to executing and managing tax compliance assignments, he was involved in various tax advisory projects covering matters such as FATCA implementation, group tax efficiency structuring, tax due diligence, tax incentive identification and application as well as advising on corporate tax, withholding tax, stamp duty and real property gains tax matters.

Owen is a fellow member of Association of Chartered Certified Accountant (“FCCA”) and associate member of the Chartered Tax Institute of Malaysia (“CTIM”).

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Henry is a Member of the Fusang Exchange's Exchange Committee, and is the Chairman of its Listing Committee.

Henry works closely with global institutional investors and financial regulators to bring professionalism and structure to the industry, and is a regular keynote speaker on the subject of digital assets. He is also a member of the University of Oxford’s Digital Assets Project at the Commercial Law Centre.

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Tunku Danny is an ex-banker having worked in senior positions in London and Kuala Lumpur at Standard Chartered and BNP Paribas, from diverse fields such as Asset-Liability Management, Money Market Sales and Financial Institutions Coverage.

Tunku Danny had 15 years of financial services experience before he founded microLEAP, an Islamic & Conventional Peer-to-Peer (P2P) financing platform. microLEAP is a proudly Malaysian fintech company that helps underserved businesses access crowd-sourced funds and is regulated by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC).

Tunku Danny is also a Founding Member of iConnect – Fintech in Islamic Finance, a group made up of industry players, regulators and researchers tasked with the mission of making Malaysia a global Islamic fintech hub.

Tunku Danny holds an MBA from the Nottingham University Business School.

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Dr. Haniza Yon is the founder and CEO of Global Psytech. She provided the management and intellectual leadership in the development of various analytic solutions that have been used in Malaysia as well as internationally. Her past experience included as a psychometrician at ETS, Princeton, New Jersey, as a Vice President at IKS, Illinois, USA and as a Principal Researcher in the Artificial Intelligence Lab and a Director of the Psychometrics/Cognitive Analytics Labs at MIMOS Berhad, Malaysia. Her research and business objectives are centred around the application of behavioural science and technology to predict human potential and capabilities.

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Sam is the CEO and Co-Founder of pitchIN, a registered Recognised Market Operator (RMO) that offers an Equity Crowdfunding (ECF) and Initial Exchange Offering(IEO) platform for companies to raise funding and for the general investment community to invest. pitchIN is also the first RMO to receive approval to launch their Secondary Market for ECF.

Sam also co-founded WatchTower and Friends (WTF) Accelerator, that invest in early stage technology startups. Sam has a legal background, having stints in the Attorney General Chambers, the Securities Commission as well as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission in various position.

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Smita Kuriakose is a Senior Economist in the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice in the World Bank. She is currently based in the Malaysia Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Finance Hub, where she leads the work program on private sector development, innovation, digitalization and entrepreneurship. Her expertise is in science, technology & innovation policy, skills development, business environment and competitiveness and her work has covered over 20 countries. She has led regional publications in the Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and Pacific and Africa regions on innovation and entrepreneurship issues. In East Asia and Pacific region, she has led policy dialogues on innovation and entrepreneurship in China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.

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Naysan is the Co-Founder of MoneyMatch which is an award winning digital platform licensed in Malaysia, Brunei & Australia executing cross border trade payments and individual remittances. MoneyMatch is now executing over a billion ringgit annually across 110 countries and this rapid success has been driven by optimizing our treasury operations with proprietary machine learning algorithms as well as integrations with blockchain solutions which was the first in Malaysia for swifter global disbursements.

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Amran is the CEO for Etiqa Digital Solutions. EDS is a wholly owned company by Etiqa, and supports driving strategic initiatives for Etiqa. Prior to that, Amran was the Head of Innovation for Maybank. He was responsible for driving innovation, its strategy, fintech program & strategic digital initiatives across Maybank Group. With more than 20 years of experience in technology and innovation related practices, other roles held was CIO for Maybank International and Director and Senior Executive (Partner) of Accenture.

Bio

Before founding Agile In Tandem, I've managed a start-up and freelanced as a graphic designer and was with Accenture and other consulting companies in 5 different countries for over 15 years.

I started coding at the age of 16 and still in love with technology. For the last eight years, I found a passion for training and coaching Organisations on Innovation, Agile, Design Thinking, Lean Start-Up, and Digital skills like Data Analytics.

I am a father of 2 boys with some hard-earned free time to work on a book, sketch and learn a musical instrument.

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Dato’ Fadzli Shah is the Chief Executive Officer of MX Global Sdn. Bhd., one of the four Recognized Market Operators - Digital Asset Exchanges (RMO-DAX) registered under the Securities Commission Malaysia, since being appointed in August 2021. Besides, he is also the advisor for Zetrix, a layer-1 public blockchain that facilitates smart contracts and delivers privacy, security, and scalability.

He is armed with 18 years of working experience in the tech, startup, venture capital and national development sector. Amongst the prominent positions held prior to his current position was the Chief Strategy Officer for the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), one of the prominent parties consulted by the government during the drafting of the National Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) Policy that has resulted in its eventual launch in June 2021.

Dato’ Fadzli is a graduate of 3 prestigious Universities, namely the University College of London, London Business School and also Harvard University. He was previously attached to Team Venture Capital where he managed to raise a US$ 50 million fund from High Net Worth (HNW) and family offices to make investments in startups at Series B, mostly focusing on energy, eCommerce, fintech and agriculture."

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Started off as an Finance & Procurement Exec and later went on to start a small medical device trading company. Sold that in 2017 and got the idea to start a B2B trading platform and launched Lapasar in 2018.

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Margie is the CEO of Thoughts In Gear (TIG), a Sustainability and Social Impact consulting firm. Her goal is to translate Sustainability intentions into actions - establishing clear strategies, frameworks, roadmaps and actionable plans. TIG works with corporations to include Sustainability and ESG principles into their core business; and with non-profits for strategic and systemic impact. Her team also works closely on reporting and measurement to global standards in ensuring that impact is well defined, tracked, and reported upon.

Graduated an Electrical Engineer, Margie has a Sustainability Leadership certification with the London Business School. Before founding TIG, she worked with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Intel, HCL Technologies and the CIMB Foundation. TIG’s achievements include setting up South East Asia’s first Sustainability Accelerator with 100 listed companies, producing Asia’s Best Sustainability Strategy and Report, setting up South East Asia’s largest Collective Impact Initiative for education, producing a Harvard-commended SROI Analysis, and most recently producing a COVID-19 Vaccine Management Country Guide that has been used in countries around the world.

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Dr Wong Huei Ching is a Director at the Securities Commission Malaysia who is responsible for corporate planning and strategy development for the organisation and the capital market, including the recently launched Capital Market Masterplan 3. She has been involved in various market development initiatives ranging from facilitation of market vibrancy to greater industry digitisation efforts. Dr Wong is currently a member of the Labuan Financial Services Authority as appointed by the Minister of Finance. Prior to joining the Securities Commission, she was with a global management consulting firm as part of their strategy practice, and one of Malaysia’s largest bank. Her experience in financial services sector spans across consumer, wholesale and international banking, particularly in strategy development and transformation.

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Bio

Alan Lim is the co-founder and CEO of MediaBanc Group; the biggest media monitoring and insights company in South-East-Asia since 1997. He fully exited the business in mid-2014 when the company was listed in the ASX as iSentia Group Ltd, formerly known as Sentia Media and before that Media Monitors.

Prior to MediaBanc Group, Alan, who obtained a BSC in Marketing and an MBA from the United States in 1987 worked in the advertising industry for close to 10-years at The Star media group in Kuala Lumpur, and at Asatsu, an international Japanese advertising agency in both Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo. An entrepreneur by heart, Alan Lim co-founded a market intelligence agency by the name of Pacific Forum (with offices in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Singapore and Tokyo) and an advertising agency called Grandmont in Kuala Lumpur before his exit in 1997 to start MediaBanc Group.

Today, Alan Lim has moved into the significant second half of his life where he spends most of his time; he is the Principal Advisor for Nexea Angels, a venture builder, and he mentors & coaches many young Entrepreneurs in his spare time as part of his ‘giving back to society’. He also gives his time to MBAN (Malaysian Business Angel Network) as the President and also participates as an investor in many startup companies in the SEA region.

Bio

Dr. Siva has been an Entrepreneur and Angel Investor for close to 40 years and has a Ph.D in Venture Capital from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

He is the Co-Founder and Senior Partner of “ScaleUp Malaysia” Accelerator, Malaysia’s first Accelerator for highly scalable, high growth regional companies. ScaleUp Malaysia has been ranked as the top 15 investors in South East Asia by Tech in Asia magazine. ScaleUp has invested in 30 companies and plans to have a portfolio of 50 companies by mid 2023.

He is also Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist of Proficeo Consultants, an Entrepreneur Coaching & Mentoring company that has coached more than 2,000 entrepreneurs in Malaysia over the last 12 years including the highly successful “Coach & Grow Program” (CGP) under Cradle Fund.

Personally, Dr. Siva has invested in 16 companies as an Angel investor.

He is the Immediate Past President & currently Council Member of the Malaysian Business Angels Network (MBAN), Council Member of the Malaysian Venture Capital Association (MVCA), Adjunct Professor at Sunway University and the author of the books “Supercharge your Startup Valuation and “Blue Sky Innovation: Killer Innovations That Changed The World of Business”.

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He is passionate about getting Corporates to embrace change and use technology to innovate in this fast changing business environment. He advocates for corporations to learn and work with startups. In his 20 year stint in PwC both in Malaysia and in London, he helped corporates navigate the changing business landscape and when he was Managing Director of Ricoh Malaysia he brought about transformation of their business model to double their revenues in 6 ½ years. After that he was Group CEO at a local chemical manufacturer and distributor, and later as Group CEO of Rotiboy. He now runs his own consulting practice.

Peter has a Design Thinking certification from the MIT Sloan School of Management and has run sessions to help corporates innovate. He is now a coach at the MIT/Asian School of Business MBA program in Kuala Lumpur. He is also a Vistage CEO Chair and coaches CEOs to become better leaders, make better decisions and transform their lives. Peter has personally invested in close to 15 startups and mentors them under NEXEA Angels, an early stage VC of which he is a partner.

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Matt is Chief Innovation Officer of Sunway Group and Director of Sunway iLabs. Sunway iLabs is a smart partnership between Sunway University, Sunway Group and Sunway Ventures to foster entrepreneurship and stimulate market-driven innovations with the end goal to help entrepreneurs build their business and accelerate scale up. He is also an active Council Member of the Malaysian Business Angel Network (MBAN), the official trade association and governing body for angel investors and angel clubs in Malaysia.

Previously he was a commercialisation specialist in PlaTCOM Ventures (a subsidiary of the Innovation Agency Malaysia), and gained significant entrepreneurial experience through three start-ups he co-founded in the UK, Singapore, and Malaysia. Before he started out as an entrepreneur, Matt was a consultant at the Cambridge-MIT Institute and Library House in Cambridge (UK) and an Analyst at Imperial Innovations in London (UK), one of Europe’s leading Tech Transfer Offices.

Matt is trained at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), where he gained a BSc in Biomedical Sciences and a MSc in Science & Business. He was also a Research Scientist at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge and served as an Exco member of the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs Society.

Matt was recently recognised as one of the personalities of the year (2020) by PC.com and Business Today for the positive impact that he has created for the community through the various innovation projects in Sunway iLabs.

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Dr Melissa Foo is a global investor and portfolio manager focusing on impact investment, ecosystem development and innovation. Melissa was based in New York from 2013 – 2016 and worked on multiple earlystage deals in FinTech, Healthcare, Education, B2B, Real Estate Technology and Social Enterprise.

Melissa consults for the Malaysian government on Ventures and Corporate Entrepreneurship (Ministry of Finance – Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre) and Social Innovation (Prime Minister’s Department – National Innovation Agency).She is a speaker and mentor at MaGIC Academy and Lean StartupAsia. Melissa received an MBA from Columbia Business School with a dual-concentration in Family Enterprise Management & Impact Investing.

Melissa also serves on the board of her family healthcare company based in Malaysia. Prior to that, she obtained her dental qualifications from the University of Melbourne and was attached to the Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Department of Hospital Sungai Buloh, specializing in trauma and facial reconstruction. When she is not identifying the next big thing in impact and innovation, she is passionate about travel, meeting people, making connections and giving. Her philanthropic work with the family organization serves underprivileged communities across Southeast Asia.

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Former Vice President of Investment for Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, the Malaysia government agency that financially supported the entrepreneurship journey of more 1,000 technology startups. Xelia is now the Managing Partner of ScaleUp Malaysia, a hybrid growth stage accelerator cum venture capital overseeing investors relation and partnership. She hopes to continue using her understanding and passion for investment in startups to elevate the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Malaysia and the region.

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Elain is a Co-Founder and Director in Ata Plus, a Malaysian licensed Equity Crowdfunding platform. Upbeat and optimistic, she believes nothing is impossible and all challenges are just another form of opportunities. This proves to be the fuel in her 23-year career in the areas of management, business strategy, human resource, business development, relationship management, marketing and corporate communications.

She has served notable organisations, namely Petronas, MDeC, Malaysia Debt Ventures, DiGi Telecommunications and Packet One Networks. She currently sits on the Board of Western Union Payments Malaysia and the Chairman of Western Union Internal Audit Committee, while being actively involved in the start-up community, advising entrepreneurs in funding, strategy and operations. Elain is instrumental in establishing Ata Plus’ partnerships, deal screening and operations framework. Elain graduated from the London School of Economics with a BSc in Actuarial Science and MSc in Operational Research.

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Experienced Fintech ecosystem builder based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Karen has over 20 years of experience in Strategy, Communications and Marketing.

She is the Head of Malaysia for She Loves Tech, the world's largest pitching platform for women-led and women-impact entrepreneurs. Most recently, GSMA Foundation appointed Karen to be one of their mentors for the Pacific Islands/Myanmar region startups program, a yearly initiative with the Australian government.

Karen is the current President of the Fintech Association of Malaysia, a national platform to support Malaysia to be the leading hub for fintech innovation and investment in the region.

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Nguyen Phi Van holds an MBA from Australia majoring in marketing communication. Her experience spans over 20 years as a senior executive in brand, retail, and franchise development across global emerging markets in Asia, The Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

She is currently advisor to Project 844 under the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam on startup & innovation, chairwoman of Vietnam Business Angel Network, Open Innovation Vietnam, and Board Director of Asean Business Angel Alliance. Phi Van is 2015 award winner of Retail Leadership presented by Asia Retail Congress, and 2017 & 2018 award winner of 100 Top Great Retail Minds presented by World Retail Congress, 2019 award winner of ASEAN Outstanding Business Award, and presented on 2019 & 2020 of 100 Most Influential Women in Global Franchise.

Phi Van is the author of five books, “Franchising – The Short Route to Global Markets”, “Cross The Rice Field, Reach The World”, “Go Global: An MSME’s guide to global franchising”, and “I, The Future and The World”, “In Search of Myself”, and the first ever AI-human collaborated book in Asia titled “Nym - My Future Self”.

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James is a member of the Manila Angel Investors Network, the largest committed private investors network in the Philippines. James has syndicated seed investments into more than 25 startups , and grown MAIN to a network of over 100 HNWI investing in the Philippines. James also designed and raised funds for Kerubin Capital, MAINs blended finance sidecar, which leverages private capital into female founders in the Philippines. He is an award winning social sustainability technical specialist, with over 25 years of experience on major UN, government and corporate projects internationally.

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Phey Teck Moh is a mentor and angel investor in the Singapore entrepreneur ecosystem. He co-founded AngelCentral, to build a community of angel investors; offering education workshops and curate startups for angel investments. At Entrepreneur First, Teck Moh is a mentor to extraordinary people to build amazing startups from scratch. Xpanasia is an advisory company specializing in Telecommunications and Information Technology companies in Asia Pacific.

He had retired as Asia President, Motorola Solutions in May 2013. During his tenure, Motorola Solutions Asia Pacific grew to more than US$1B. Prior to Motorola, Phey was the President & Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Internet, a NASDAQ- listed Internet service provider in Asia Pacific. He started his career at IBM and moved to Compaq.

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Envisioning a world where knowledge, action and capital complement, Jian dedicates her career to the impact sector. Being a leader in the impact investment field, she is the Chief Executive Director of Citrine Capital, a firm that aims to achieve both financial returns and positive developmental outcomes through investment activities. Previously, Jian was involved in several impact-orientated institutions, including non-profit entities, social enterprises and research centre. In every role, she collaborates with impact partners across sectors and industries to seize opportunities and achieve common goals.

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Zalman Zainal is Hong Leong Bank’s Chief Marketing and Communication Officer. He is also the Co-Chair of the Bank’s Sustainability Steering Committee. In this role, Zalman oversees the strategy and delivery of the Bank’s brand promise to various stakeholders through Marketing, Analytics, PR, CSR and Sustainability efforts in a cohesive and holistic manner.

Zalman has more than two decades of experience in branding and marketing, starting off his career in the telco industry. His industry experience has allowed him to amass a successful track record in strategic marketing to achieve commercial and business objectives.

In this day and age of brand homogeneity, Zalman believes that marketing and branding efforts should reflect the value and sustainability program of a business, not only to achieve brand authenticity, but also the double-bottom-line accountability of achieving both business objectives and meeting social and environmental obligations.

Under his leadership, the Bank has developed two key award-winning Community Investment platforms that reflect the Bank’s core business – HLB JumpStart, a program empowering Social Enterprises in Malaysia as well as HLB DuitSmart, a financial literacy program focusing on delivering financial literacy as a life skill for Malaysians, especially students and underserved communities.

Bio

Encik Sudarnoto Osman earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tohoku, Japan in Electronic Engineering and after graduating he started his career with Matsushita Air-Conditioning R&D Sdn. Bhd (Electrical and Electronics Development) in 1993.

His mobility career started in 1994 with Celcom Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. He was instrumental in expanding Celcom network and initiated the 2G network rollout throughout Sarawak. He was also appointed on ad-hoc basis as a consultant on several international assignments under Celcom International Ventures. He left Celcom Malaysia Sdn. Bhd in September 2000 to join Maxis Mobile Sdn. Bhd. and he embarked on Maxis network rollout in East Malaysia. He left as Regional Network Head at Maxis Broadband Sdn. Bhd. in March 2013.

He continued his career by venturing into telecommunication infrastructure business when he was appointed as Chief Executive Officer at SACOFA Sdn. Bhd. (“SACOFA”) in April 2013. During his tenure at SACOFA, he expanded SACOFA’s business and network beyond Malaysia. He was also appointed in various capacity in other organisations such as PT SACOFA Indonesia, PT BINA Indonesia, DSTA Sdn. Bhd., Malaysian Access Forum Bhd., Persatuan Infrastruktur Telekomunikasi Malaysia, and Konsortium Rangkaian Serantau.

He was later appointed by the Sarawak Government to spearhead Sarawak digitalisation initiatives as Chief Executive Officer of Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation Berhad on 15th May 2020.

Bio

Dr. Ng is well experienced in the translation of R&D investment into revenues. He is analytical, creative and is well experienced in early stage investment, technology evaluation, market due diligence and facilitation of commercialisation activities. A graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr. Ng has more than 14 years’ experience in innovation and technology investment.

As the Vice President of Investment & Venture Building, Dr. Ng holds overall responsibility in assessing investment performance, guiding investees on developing achievable goals and maintaining sustainable competitive advantages. He also holds the position of Acting CEO of Cradle Seed Ventures (Cradle’s VC arm). Apart from investment, he is equally responsible for a multitude of initiatives under the Venture Building agenda in building resilient startups.

Before joining Cradle, he was the Head of Technology Commercialisation at PlaTCOM Ventures Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM). He managed a national funding programme for SMEs, overseeing a portfolio of RM 100 Million commercialisation fund under PlaTCOM. He administered the evaluation of new technologies through technical & market due diligence, identification of investment risks and business planning analysis.

Dr. Ng is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP). He is well experienced in grasping technology and business concepts quickly and helps translate them into practical commercial solutions that are commercially viable.

Before returning to Malaysia, Dr. Ng worked as a Knowledge Transfer Associate under the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) in the UK. Dr. Ng holds a PhD in Microwave Instrumentation from Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom) and a Bachelor of Electronic & Telecommunication Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).