BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)

Koh Shiyan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Hustle Fund, a venture capital fund that invests in pre-seed software startups in the U.S., Canada, and Southeast Asia. Prior to that, she was the VP of Business Operations and Corporate Development at NerdWallet, a fintech startup that helps users with a range of financial decisions through content, community, and tools. Show notes at: www.jeremyau.com/blog/creative-founder-legacy

Eugene Cheah, is the founder of Uilicious.com - which helps automate UI testing at scale for development teams, with AI assistance. He was a software engineer, who dived early into the startup scene, before spending time in the enterprise financial space, before returning to the startup scene as a founder. All while working on his own set of opensource projects behind the scenes. Show notes at: www.jeremyau.com/blog/eugene-cheah

Brian is a 3x founder turned investor now spending the majority of his time as General Partner of Iterative Capital. Brian was previously the founder and CEO of Divvy Homes ($2B valuation), Weave (YC S14, acquired), and Decide (Series C company, acquired by eBay). In non-existent spare time, Brian enjoys dog parks with his German Shepherd mix, rides on his motorcycle, and aping into interesting crypto projects. Show notes at: www.jeremyau.com/blog/brian-ma

Kai Yuan Neo is the founder and CEO at Rocket Academy, a live-online coding bootcamp based in Singapore that helps career switchers become software engineers. Launched in 2020, Rocket has trained over 1000 students in its intro coding courses and over 100 students in its career conversion Bootcamp course. To date, 100% of Rocket's Bootcamp graduates have received software engineering offers within 6 months of applying, from companies such as Grab, Ninja Van, Zendesk, Foodpanda, Circles. Life and Decathlon. Prior to Rocket Academy, Kai studied Computer Science at Stanford University and worked as a software engineer at Meta, Alibaba, Nuna, and ErudiFi. He loves reading autobiographies, playing guitar, and enjoying a nice cup of tea with friends. Show notes at: www.jeremyau.com/blog/kai-yuan-neo

Kathryn Cross is the founder of Anja Health, which she founded in memory of her brother, Andrew, who had cerebral palsy. Kathryn has cultivated a pregnancy and cord blood banking community on TikTok as @kathrynanja, where she raises awareness about the importance of cord blood banking and other issues related to pregnancy. Originally from Los Angeles, Kathryn graduated from Wellesley, where she received a B.A. in Media Arts & Sciences and Economics. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/kathryn-cross

Florian is the co-founder & CEO of Midstay, a platform helping companies and individuals relocate easily to dreamy locations and work remotely. He is Belgian, formerly a product UX & UI designer and entrepreneur, and graduated from the College of Advertising and Design in Brussels. He founded a music festival in Belgium that reached 20k+ festival goers at the age of 23. He has traveled the world to work with startup founders and helped them reach their business goals with innovative user experiences and visuals. San Francisco, New York, Australia, Barcelona and Southeast Asia are some of the places where he has worked closely with Executives to help them design their product. He is a long-time traveler and remote worker. With a well-rounded blend of technical, design, marketing, and sales skills. He's passionate about all types of communication, art & technology. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/florian-jacques

Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. Nir previously taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Nir co-founded and sold two tech companies since 2003 and was dubbed by The M.I.T. Technology Review as, “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.” Bloomberg Businessweek wrote, “Nir Eyal is the habits guy. Want to understand how to get app users to come back again and again? Then Eyal is your man.” He is the author of two bestselling books, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. Indistractable received critical acclaim, winning the Outstanding Works of Literature Award as well as being named one of the Best Business and Leadership Books of the Year by Amazon and one of the Best Personal Development Books of the Year by Audible. The Globe and Mail called Indistractable, “the best business book of 2019.” In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir’s writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Harvard Business Review, Time Magazine, and Psychology Today. Nir invests in habit-forming products that improve users’ lives. Some of his past investments include Eventbrite (NYSE:EB), Anchor.fm (acquired by Spotify), Kahoot! (KAHOOT-ME.OL), Canva, Homelight, Product Hunt, Marco Polo, Byte Foods, FocusMate, Dynamicare, Wise App, and Sunnyside. Nir attended The Stanford Graduate School of Business and Emory University. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/nir-eyal

Raagulan Pathy is the Vice President, Asia Pacific for Circle. Based in Singapore, his responsibilities include the go-to-market strategy, sales and representing Circle in the region. Raagulan was previously the Head of Enterprise for the Asia Pacific region at Zoom, and he brings over a decade of business and sales leadership experience within the Cloud and technology sectors. Prior to his role at Zoom, he held senior business roles at Workplace by Facebook, Amazon Web Services and as co-founder of a Cloud software company. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/raagulan-pathy

Jed is the Founder of AngelSchool.vc: the only program helping Angel investors build & grow syndicates. He is an active angel investor who has backed 2 seed stage startups to unicorn status. His syndicate is backed by 1000 LPs. As an operator, he built & ran the world's largest API Marketplace with a16z backed RapidAPI. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/jed-ng

Jeremy and Adriel reflect on 250 episodes of the Brave SEA Tech Podcast Adriel Yong joined the BRAVE Podcast team in the COVID summer of 2020 and has worked across multiple roles including co-authoring the BRAVE10 anthology, running community events, editing audio & transcripts and creating cover art. Adriel is a senior at Yale-NUS College, majoring in Global Affairs. He is an analyst at Orvel Ventures, a sector-agnostic early stage fund investing across Southeast Asia. Prior to joining Orvel Ventures, Adriel was a Venture Fellow at UK-based Hummingbird Ventures which was an early investor in Deliveroo, Kraken, Khatabook and Pristyn Care. He was one of the founding members of social mobility non-profit organization Access Singapore, which has ran career exploration programmes for underserved secondary school students across Singapore. He writes restaurant and bar reviews, scuba dives and volunteers with non-profit organizations in his free time. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/podcast-reflections

Herston is a Co-founder and Managing Partner at 1982 Ventures. As one of the most active fintech investors in Southeast Asia, he has led and executed notable investments across Southeast Asia and South Asia. Prior to founding 1982 Ventures, he was a Principal at tryb Group in Singapore and created and executed their early stage investment strategy. Before entering the private equity and venture capital industry, Herston was a banker at The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) with nearly a decade of global financial services experience. He spent 5 years in Hong Kong covering the China market and built their advisory platform for Asian clients. He has advised unlisted, pre-IPO and listed companies on capital markets, IPOs and US listings. Herston began his career in New York where he focused on connecting international companies with institutional investors. Herston has an Executive MBA from INSEAD and Master of Economics from Hunter College in New York City. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/herston-powers

World Traveling Storyteller, Author & Entrepreneur. Graham Brown is the founder of Pikkal & Co – Award Winning Podcast Agency – an AI Powered, Data Driven B2B Podcast Agency in Singapore. He is a published author on the subject of The Digital Transformation of Communication, works including “The Human Communication Playbook”, “The Mobile Youth: Voices of the Connected Generation” – documenting the rise of mobile culture in the early 2000s in Japan, China, Africa and India and “Brand Love – How to Build a Brand Worth Talking About”. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/graham-brown

Jeremy presents a question and answer session at the Singapore University of Technology & Design about the fundamentals of pitching. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/sutd-qna

Jakob Rost is founder and CEO of Ayoconnect, Southeast Asia’s largest open finance API platform and the only licensed open finance player in Indonesia. Founded in 2016, Ayoconnect makes open finance accessible for businesses in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populated country. Under Jakob’s leadership, the company has become a pivotal player in the Indonesian economy. Ayoconnect is building critical infrastructure which is making it easier and faster for businesses of all sizes to launch new financial products and services, and in turn helping to drive both financial inclusion and greater access to innovative solutions. Ayoconnect serves more than 200 API customers, including some of the region’s largest banks, financial institutions, tech unicorns and fintechs, and offers more than 4,000 embedded finance products. Originally from Germany, Jakob began his career with JP Morgan and Boston Consulting Group, helping organisations navigate the challenges related to financial infrastructure limitations. Before founding Ayoconnect, he was a Director at Lazada, Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce company at the time, now wholly-owned by Alibaba Group. Jakob is an active angel investor, an advisor to early-stage startups and a respected mentor in the Indonesian startup ecosystem. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/jakob-rost

Huiting is a Partner at Altara Ventures and likes investing in founders solving real problems, that have the ability to positively impact millions of lives. She has led investments in the Consumer, Fintech and Enterprise/Deep tech space such as Tonik, Stashfin, Senseye, Sampingan and SATURDAYS. She is also a newbie angel investor and has invested in almost twenty startups across Southeast Asia and the US. Huiting started her career in investment banking in New York with Goldman Sachs IBD FIG. She then went on to Stanford Graduate School of Business for her MBA, thinking she wanted to build and run a luxury-budget hotel chain across Southeast Asia’s most remote communities and islands. This dream was refined during her MBA and refocused to being in Brand Management. She realised every business is ultimately a brand and there is more than just financials and metrics that make a business successful. Creating emotion, touching people’s hearts and having positive experiences with the brand is what truly makes a lasting brand. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/huiting-koh

Goh Wei Choon is the co-founder and artist at The Woke Salaryman. He trained as an animator but when he graduated with a hefty university debt, he waded into the world of personal finance to understand how to better chip away at his debt. In the process he learnt not just about money but also history, sociology, psychology and much more. He now uses his visual storytelling skills to communicate the things he's learnt on his journey. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/goh-wei-choon

Chia is an Investor at Pantera Capital, one of the first institutional investors in crypto. He was previously Principal at Saison Capital, a FinTech-focused venture capital fund Previously he was the fifth employee for Antler, the leading global pre-team venture builder. He also both invested and launched markets for them in Europe. He was also at Rocket Internet where he helped build out an eCommerce company in Pakistan and Sri Lanka that was bought by Alibaba. He also angel invests in the marketplace and consumer startups in emerging markets like Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Egypt. His educational background includes a law undergraduate degree from Cambridge. He likes indie music, and hiking and writes about venture capital on his website, which can be found at www.chiajy.com. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/chia-jy

Jeremy moderates a Clubhouse question and answer session about tech diversity, inclusion & accessibility Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/diversity-qna

Amanda Cua is the Founder and CEO of BackScoop, a free daily newsletter that makes it fun and easy to stay informed with everything Southeast Asian business and startups in minutes. Launched late last year, BackScoop is read by thousands of SEA’s top founders, execs, VCs and startup operators. Born and raised in the Philippines, Amanda is 20 years old and was previously the first employee at YC-backed edtech Avion School. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/amanda-cua

Jeremy presents a question and answer session about social enterprise incorporation Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/incorporation-qna

Arne is the Co-Founder and CEO of Parcel Perform, the leading delivery experience platform for businesses covering 950+ logistics carriers worldwide. Before founding Parcel Perform, Arne was Vice President for Business Development at DHL eCommerce Asia Pacific, where he led the development of e-commerce logistics products as well as market entries throughout Asia. Prior to that, he was Vice President at Singapore Post’s SP eCommerce, where he was responsible for the B2C e-commerce businesses including vPost and Omigo. In 2012, Arne was the founding CEO of ZALORA, South East Asia’s leading fashion e-commerce player across 8 markets. Arne was a long-time management consultant at McKinsey & Company where he worked on technology projects in Europe, Africa, and Asia. He is a trained economist and holds a Ph.D. in regulatory economics. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/arne-jeroschewski

Jeremy presents a Question and Answer session at Singapore Institute of Technology Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/sit-qna

Yuying Deng is the CEO and founder of Esevel. Esevel is an all-in-one IT platform that helps companies with distributed teams manage their people, devices and applications on one platform. Esevel helps clients on/offboard employees, procure devices and manage and support their teams’ IT needs across 8 countries in APAC. Yuying started Esevel during COVID, and together with her team, grew revenue 36x within 9 months. In her spare time, she spends time with her 3 kids, husband and their Havanese dog called Marvel. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/yuying deng

Jeremy presents a Marketing New Ventures question and answer session at National University of Singapore (NUS) Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/marketing-qna

Leon is an investment professional with a track record of more than 10 years building, operating and investing in category-leading technology companies in Southeast Asia and Europe. He’s currently a Director at Rigel Capital, a Southeast Asia & India focused investment company, as well as Head of Corporate Development at Wingcopter. Prior to Rigel Capital and Wingcopter, Leon was a Venture Partner at Kejora Capital, where he launched a US$30 Million Early-Stage Fund in partnership with SBI Holdings to invest in technology companies in Indonesia. Before that he was with 500 Startups where he managed 15 GPs across 10 funds in Asia, MENA and the United States with combined more than US$300 Million in Assets Under Management. Before that, he led or participated in more than 30 investments (2 unicorns) in Southeast Asia for Global Founders Capital. He launched his career building eCommerce platforms in Asia Foodpanda and Zalora as well as Russian fashion eCommerce platform Lamoda. Leon is deeply rooted in the regional innovation ecosystem in Southeast Asia and Europe as lead mentor of the German Accelerator in Indonesia, Mentor at the GnB Accelerator, Mentor at MDI Ventures and frequent guest speaker across leading institutions and universities. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/leon-hermann

Valerie Vu was previously Vietnam Country Head of Venturra Capital, a Southeast Asia focused venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology-based businesses headquartered in Jakarta. Venturra’s primary investment focus is on internet companies, in sectors such as e-commerce, financial technology, marketplaces, healthcare and education amongst others. Valerie began her career at Deloitte U.S. where she provided clients in the asset management industry with the tax and deal advisory services. Raised by an entrepreneurial family, Valerie is fascinated by breakthrough technology and product innovation. She then joins the digital transformation of Southeast Asia by joining Venturra to empower and support entrepreneurs throughout their journey. Valerie was born and raised in Vietnam and was a first-generation college graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/podcaster-qna

Yolanda is a purpose-driven leader with 15+ years of building high-growth startups with companies such as Uber, Deliveroo, and Rocket Internet. Originally from Canada, she has lived and worked in every single continent, with the exception of South America, and is currently based in Singapore. At 18, Yolanda rented an abandoned industrial warehouse in her hometown of Toronto and got artists like Daft Punk and Major Lazer to play there by messaging them on Myspace. She went on to intern at the European Court for Human Rights and graduated top of her class at Oxford. Her early career included launching and leading the team for a Rocket Internet food startup in West Africa and working in market launch for Uber in Sub-Saharan Africa. After 3 years on the African continent, Yolanda expanded her experience to Asia where she built the Deliveroo partnerships team across APAC and the Middle East. Yolanda prides herself in her brave and unconventional approach to success and a lifelong growth mindset. She embraced entrepreneurship by setting up her own company, Uncommon, born out of her own experience as a female leader. Uncommon aims to build a more inclusive future of work through offering a private leadership network for women in Southeast Asia and beyond. It provides a strong and uplifting network of senior industry leaders, a personalized development roadmap, executive group coaching, masterclass workshops, and an enriching speaker series, all in one membership. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/yolanda-lee

Nadim Muzayyin is a Singaporean venture investor focused on the Southeast Asian region and its growing consumer market. After three years of consumer venture investing with DSG Consumer Partners, Nadim is now an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School, graduating in the Class of 2024. Nadim is also a member of the Milken Institute's Young Leaders Circle (YLC) where he contributes to consumer, health and food research and initiatives for the Asia Center. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/harvard-mba-application

Charlotte is the co-founder and CEO of Jackett, a Singaporean edtech startup - building an operating system for personalised assessments. She grew up in Phuket, graduated Law from London, built a career at Meta and Grab, worked across eight countries in APAC, and is on a mission to make personalized education universally accessible with AI and automation. Jackett is present across eight countries in South Asia, SEA and Africa regions. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/charlotte-trudgill

Hsiang Low is Head of Asia-Pacific at SeedLegals, one of the hottest legaltech offerings which provides the legals for creating, funding and running startups. Hsiang oversees SeedLegals' operations and strategy across Hong Kong and Singapore. He is also a qualified solicitor in England & Wales, having trained and practiced for over a decade at magic circle lawfirm Linklaters. Previously, Hsiang was a founding member and Co-Head of Asia at Nakhoda, an in-house legal tech startup at Linklaters. He led the roll-out of ISDA Create (now CreateIQ) across the Asia Pacific region, an industry-leading and award winning online negotiation platform built in partnership with the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). He also serves as a steering committee member of the Asia-Pacific Legal Innovation and Technology Association (ALITA). With over a decade of a unique combination of international legal practising experience and technological product expertise, Hsiang has helped to deliver cutting-edge and game-changing products In London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and across Asia. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/hsiang-low

Willy Arifin pioneered Indonesia’s SME focused neobank, KoinWorks, in 2015. As the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of KoinWorks, Arifin is tackling financial inclusion for 65 million entrepreneurs in Indonesia. Additionally, he is a vivid angel investor known across South East Asia through his Alternative Ventures arm, supporting founders with technology centric solutions that disrupt traditional industries. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/willy-arifin

Joshua Wang, PhD is the Founder & CEO of VerImmune, an early biotechnology startup company developing a novel virus-inspired particle (ViP) technology platform that can be used as a delivery system to target multiple diseases. VerImmune’s first focus will be in Oncology whereby the ViP will enable the redirection of immune memory from past infections or childhood vaccinations to target cancer. His initial primary interest was in vaccine development and that led him to pursue an education at Imperial College London, UK and then later graduate training at Johns Hopkins. It was during this period where Joshua caught the “entrepreneurial bug.” Joshua also previously worked as a Venture Labs fellow at Flagship Pioneering, a world class venture creation firm focused on developing innovative companies with first-in-class medicines to serve critical unmet needs. Joshua considers himself an “accidental" bio-entrepreneur. He never intended to pursue biotech or start a business in drug development. Through serendipity and chance however, he found himself on this life-changing journey which has given him the privilege of developing potentially game changing treatment options to patients through the co-founding several startups, advising fellow aspiring founders, securing early-stage financing, partnerships with pharmaceuticals and operating early-stage biotech companies. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/joshua-wang

Dr. Reza Abraham is a Persian author, speaker, ultra-high-performance coach, and the founder of InControl Group. He spent the past 20 years studying and working with individuals from different fields and stages of life and concluded that the system to a successful life is the ability to be in control. This results in the launch of his first book entitled INCONTROL. His distinctive ideas on personal growth and leadership has garnered him invitations to coach organizations such as AIA, Boehringer Ingelheim, Dell, DHL, Honda, KPMG, L'Oreal, Maybank, Shell, McDonald's and many others. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/reza-abraham

A digital transformation evangelist that loves to build platforms that would enrich people's lives and enhance corporate efficiency. He helped organizations large and small in several countries with their digital transformation. Received numerous awards most notably the prestigious 100 Most Influential Young Entrepreneur Award. Currently, the CEO of Nexible Solutions, a technology company based in Malaysia that helps companies automate their sales and marketing via a cloud leads management platform called Outperform. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/anan-saminathen

Thibault is the CEO and cofounder of Capssion. Capssion is an all-in-one influencer marketing platform for e-commerce brands in Southeast Asia. Leveraging 4 years of experience spent in the e-commerce industry at Lazada as Head of Operations to bridge social media and digital commerce across borders in Southeast Asia. In his spare time, he takes black and white street photographs. A huge cinema addict, he also loves to binge movies on weekends. Having lived in 12 different countries, he also cannot imagine his life without travel. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/thibault-couperie

Proud is Chief Marketing Officer of Zipmex. As a trained economist with both strategy and operational experience, Proud brings deep expertise in tech strategy and marketing to make finance fun. She has worked with private equity firms and multimillion dollar companies across nine countries, as well as invested in and built companies from scratch. She grew her latest manufacturing company by 16x in revenue within 3 years. Prior to Harvard Business School, she was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, focusing on establishing strategic initiatives for C-suite clients. This podcast was recorded on June 24 2022 Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/proud-limpongpan

Christophe is the investment director of LEAP201, a venture philanthropy foundation based in Singapore which focuses on improving the lives of vulnerable households in South East Asia in a sustainable manner. By providing early financial support to impact projects which do not yet meet the requirements of the traditional lenders and investors, LEAP201 fills up a critical missing gap in the South East Asian SMEs ecosystem while impacting hundreds of thousands of lives. From setting up microfinance banks in Madagascar and Mexico, starting a clean water company for rural households or establishing one of the first SME focused Fund Management Company in Cambodia, Christophe has spent the last 15 years focusing on the “access to finance” problematic for impact SMEs in developing markets. Apart from his Impact related and foundation work, he is the Managing Director of Strategic Hospitality REIT, a Thai listed REIT with hotels in ASEAN. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/cristophe-forsinetti

Mr. Alvin Tan was elected as a Member of Parliament in July 2020, and was shortly appointed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as Minister of State for the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, and the Ministry of Trade & Industry. He assumed these appointments on 1 Sep 2020. Mr. Tan has worked in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Before joining the government as Minister of State, he served as LinkedIn’s Head of Public Policy & Economics for the Asia Pacific, where he and his team help economies prepare for the rapidly changing nature of work using analytics and data solutions. Mr. Tan has been an active community leader in Singapore since 2005, serving youth, seniors and vulnerable families in both the Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng and Moulmein-Cairnhill constituencies. He was also Chair of the Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circle (IRCC). Mr. Tan holds a First Class Honours in Economics from Sydney University and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University. He was awarded the 2008 Tan Kah Kee Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship, and the International and Global Affairs Fellowship from the Belfer Centre of Science and International Affairs at Harvard. Nurul Jihadah Hussain is the Founder of The Codette Project, which has been operating since 2015. The Codette Project is a non-profit ground-up initiative with a mission to improve access and opportunities for minority and Muslim women in technology. The Codette Project runs classes, workshops, panels, networking sessions and social events regularly, including Singapore’s only women’s hackathon. Nurul wants to create better communities and opportunities, and diversify what success means in society to show that anyone can be successful. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/brave-leaders

Nurul Jihadah Hussain is the Founder of The Codette Project, which has been operating since 2015. The Codette Project is a non-profit ground-up initiative with a mission to improve access and opportunities for minority and Muslim women in technology. The Codette Project runs classes, workshops, panels, networking sessions and social events regularly, including Singapore’s only women’s hackathon. Nurul wants to create better communities and opportunities, and diversify what success means in society to show that anyone can be successful. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/diversity-panel

Tanya’s 15-year legal career at some of the world’s largest law firms has honed her ability to influence and collaborate with people from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, Tanya spent 7 years in Real Estate legal teams before moving into legal team management. Tanya spent 8 years in Corporate M&A at both Simmons & Simmons and Norton Rose Fulbright in London. Tanya founded the Ladies Investment Club in Singapore and grew a team of 40 female investors which enabled female investors to build their investment portfolio and credentials, while providing hard to access funding to female founders. Tanya went on to launch a venture capital fund for women entrepreneurs and during her time at the fund, discovered the need for both more women investors and women entrepreneurs to be supported. Tanya believes in tapping into the largely untapped capital held by women through education and empowerment to both increase wealth held by women and to drive more capital towards diverse founders. Sophia was built to facilitate both of these things through it’s platform. Outside of Sophia, Tanya is an avid cyclist and yoga enthusiast. Tanya also advises two start ups and mentors young founders. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/tanya-rolfe

Dr. Sandhya Sriram, PhD is the CEO and co-founder of Shiok Meats, a cultivated meat and seafood company in Singapore. Their mission is to bring delicious, clean and healthy seafood and meats by harvesting from cells instead of animals. Shiok Meats brings cell-based crustacean meats like shrimp, crab and lobster to your table. They have been featured in media including The Economist, Forbes, World Economic Forum and Channel NewsAsia. Their investors include Y Combinator, Big Idea Ventures, Beyond Impact and Boom Capital. John Tan is the founder of Saturday Kids, a curiosity school for children, and Doyobi, an EdTech startup setting out to help kids grow into original thinkers and develop a sense of purpose. He is also an investor in tech startups, in particular those reimagining the future of work and learning such as Padlet, Galileo, Contra and Beanstalk. Saturday Kids runs Code In The Community, a Google and Singapore Government-supported initiative that is the largest free coding programme in Singapore. John is an Obama Foundation Asia-Pacific 50 BRAVE 10 Leader, Transcend Fellow, and an Ashoka Changemaker. He sits on the board of Ninja Van and ErudiFi. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/founder-mission

Koh Shiyan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Hustle Fund, a venture capital fund that invests in pre-seed software startups in the U.S., Canada and Southeast Asia. Prior to that, she was VP Business Operations and Corporate Development at NerdWallet, a fintech startup that helps users with a range of financial decisions through content, community and tools. Yiping Goh is Partner at McKinsey & Company and the former partner at Quest Ventures, a top venture capital fund in Asia. Prior to this, Yiping was the co-founder and chief product officer at MatahariMall.com, the largest omnichannel fashion e-commerce site in Indonesia, backed by the Lippo Group. Lippo Group also acquired All Deals Asia, the Southeast Asia e-commerce aggregator and group-buying platform that was also co-founded by Yiping. Mohan Belani is the Co-founder and CEO of e27, a startup and tech ecosystem platform focused on helping startup founders build and grow their companies. He is also a Partner at Orvel Ventures. He believes that startups can make the world a better place, and in order for Southeast Asia's tech ecosystem to be relevant, it needs to be driven by sustainable and impactful companies solving problems at scale. He enjoys working with Founders and helping them alleviate the challenges of building great companies specifically around the areas of talent, funding and market access. The BRAVE 10: The Singapore Edition anthology showcases the top 10 journeys of Singapore's technology leaders. We aim to inspire the next generation of leaders to tackle our region's challenges. Profits from the book sales are donated to The Codette Project, which helps minority women break into tech and improve the diversity of our startup ecosystem. Get a limited hardcover copy here at www.jeremyau.com/book Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/panel-vc-outlook

Melissa Ng is the CEO of Bravely, a mental health startup that supercharges therapy by making data actionable and learning easy-peasy. Before that, she was the founder of a fully remote product design agency Melewi that worked with clients like Visa, Samsung and McDonalds (She's helped make the McDelivery app available in over 40 countries). She's also been featured on the front page of The Straits Times, as well as on Forbes, Channel News Asia, Les Echos and more. Most recently, she's been one of The Robb Report's '30 Thought Leaders' and LinkedIn's 'Top Mental Health Experts to Follow'. She's travelled to over 40 countries while building her remote businesses, spoken at events across 4 continents as a remote work expert; and the best compliment she's received is ""defiant in the face of adversity"". As someone who has struggled with mental health for most of her life — most recently while fighting leukaemia — Bravely was born out of her determination to create something that will truly make a difference for people going through the same pain and challenges. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/melissa-ng

Michael Milne is Co-Founder of Kaishi Partners, a recruitment firm for the startup ecosystem in South-East Asia that he launched alongside Ben Poh 5 years ago. He started his career in 2007 working in BD for a tech startup in London that was acquired by DHI, before moving to Hong Kong in 2009. In Hong Kong he started his recruitment career focused on hiring for PE funds investing into China, before transferring to Singapore in 2012. In 2015 he hired his first talent within VC, and with those candidates' encouragement started Kaishi the next year. A University of Southampton graduate whose dad is a tech entrepreneur, he's a proud husband and dad of 3 boys. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/michael-milne

Former intellectual property litigator turned in-house counsel for an international conglomerate in the areas of telco, utilities, construction, hospitality, land & development, NGOs and more. Host and producer of the So This Is My Why podcast, that features inspiring people about how they found their why and turned them into reality. Past guests include Olympians, Michelin-starred chefs, FAANG executive, retired four star general & Chief of Army, Hollywood actresses, US late night TV executive, prominent VCs, founders and more. Fun fact: The podcast was featured multiple times on the Late Late Show with James Corden (see here)! Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/ling-yah

An ex-Google pioneer of 9 years, with an expertise in launching new products and building ecosystems from the ground up (0 to 1 to 10 to 100). These include launching Google Assistant, Progressive Web Apps, Accelerated Mobile Pages and Firebase in APAC from zero to 100s of partners and millions of users. Prior to this, he launched Youtube in APAC. His last role at Google was to Head Google Search for the APAC region. Prior to this Anuvrat was a Strategy consultant with OC&C Strategy Consulting in London and an Investment Banker with WP Carey in London/New York. Anuvrat has a triple masters in Engineering, Economics and Management from the University of Oxford. He is a local Singaporean who went to Victoria School (Top 10 student in O Levels) and Victoria Junior College (4A's in A Levels). Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/anuvrat-rao

Kim is cofounder and Artistic Director of The Improv Company and has taught and performed improvised theatre for ten years. He has studied improv in Chicago, London and Oxford under some of the most venerated instructors still alive, and as a former board member of the Applied Improvisation Network, he is engaged in keeping up with current trends of improv training, facilitation and performance. As Artistic Director of the Company, he ensures the quality of the Company’s instruction and performances. Over a thousand people have had their first contact with improv through the programs he designed for the Company, and it was his vision, determination and desire that led to the establishment of a thriving improv scene in Singapore, including the internationally acclaimed Singapore Improv Festival. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/kim-tan

Hannah is the author of Founder to PM and the CEO and Founder of TheShareWay. Founder to PM is the first detailed guide on how ex-founders can land their first product management jobs. TheShareWay is a directory of companies that donate food and raffle items to nonprofits. Previously, she worked in Product at Oscar Health and started her career as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/hannah-yang

Todd Schweitzer is co-founder and CEO at Brankas, the leading Open Finance technology provider in Southeast Asia. Todd has held senior roles in private equity and management consulting, spanning technology, the public sector, and financial services. Todd and co-founder Kenneth Shaw launched Brankas in 2016 to address the technology gaps that hindered fintech-bank partnerships. Brankas provides Open Finance technology to banks, insurers, mobile wallets, alternative lenders, and other suppliers and users of financial services APIs. He holds dual Bachelor's degrees with honours in Economics and International Studies from the University of California, Irvine, and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/todd-d-schweitzer

Charmain Tan is the Founder & CEO of QuickDesk which provides one-stop digital sales and marketing solutions as well as digital training for SMEs and business professionals. She made Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 list for Enterprise Technology in 2019 and Singapore’s inaugural top 100 Women in Tech List in 2020. Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/charmain-tan