2021 Speakers
Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are. He also created the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund to connect cultural leaders to the best new technology companies, and enable more young African Americans to enter the technology industry. Prior to a16z, Ben was cofounder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007. Previously, Ben ran several product divisions at Netscape Communications, including the widely acclaimed Directory and Security product line. Ben has an MS and BA in Computer Science from UCLA and Columbia University, respectively.
Mr. Calvin Choi is the Chairman and CEO of AMTD Group, and Founder of AMTD Charity Foundation, @-WISE Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence in Singapore, and Regional Banks + Strategic Cooperation Alliance. He is a globally recognized entrepreneur and philanthropist as well as a pioneer and contributor in promoting regional digitalization.
Calvin was named 2019 “Asia FinTech Leader” by the Singapore Fintech Association, selected as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in 2017, and awarded by the Institutional Investor magazine as one of the global “Fintech Finance 35” in 2016.
Calvin currently serves as the Chairman of the Group’s investment banking subsidiary AMTD international (NYSE:HKIB, SGX:HKB), the first company with dual class voting rights to successfully dual list on NYSE and SGX; Chairman of AMTD Digital, a one-stop digitally connected solutions platform headquartered in Singapore; Board Director of Bank of Qingdao (SEHK: 3866; SZSE: 002948). He also serves as Board Director of ASEAN Financial Innovation Network, which was founded by World Bank, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and ASEAN Bankers Association. Calvin is appointed by the HK Government as a member of HK Cyberport Advisory Panel and a member of Prisoners’ Education Trust Fund Investment Advisory Committee. He is also appointed as Vice Chairman of the China Young Entrepreneurs Association, and Vice Chairman of Greater Bay Area Homeland Youth Community Foundation.
Chia Song Hwee is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Temasek.
In February 2021, he was appointed to the board of A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research). Song Hwee also serves as a member of Singapore’s Advisory Council on the Ethical Use of AI and Data, established by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) since 2018.
Prior to joining Temasek in 2011, Song Hwee was the Chief Operating Officer at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Before the integration of GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd (Chartered), he served as Director of the Board, and President and CEO of Chartered from 2002 to 2009. Song Hwee also held various management positions at Chartered, including Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Administrative Officer.
Prior to Chartered, Song Hwee was Regional Controller for Asia, Australia, and the Middle East for the drilling group of Schlumberger, a global oilfield services group.
Song Hwee holds a Bachelor of Business (Accountancy) degree with distinction, from Edith Cowan University, Australia, and is a member of CPA Australia. He was honoured with the EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics Award for Executive of the Year in 2007.
Chuck Robbins is the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Cisco. He assumed the role of CEO on July 26, 2015 and was elected Chair of the Board on December 11, 2017.
As Chair and CEO, Chuck is focused on helping companies, cities and countries around the world as they look to Cisco to connect, secure and automate their organizations for a digital-first world.
Over his 20 years at Cisco, he has served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations, where he led the Worldwide Sales and Partner Organizations, and helped drive and execute many of the company’s investment areas and strategy shifts; Senior Vice President of The Americas, Cisco’s largest geographic region; Senior Vice President of U.S. Enterprise, Commercial and Canada; Senior Vice President of U.S. Commercial Sales; and Segment Vice President, U.S. and Canada channel organization, where he was instrumental in helping build the industry’s most powerful partner program.
Prior to joining Cisco, Chuck held management positions at Bay Networks and Ascend Communications.
Chuck is on the Board of Directors for BlackRock; Chairman Emeritus of the US-Japan Business Council; a Member of the International Business Council for the World Economic Forum; on the Board of Directors for the Business Roundtable; a Board of Trustees member for the Ford Foundation; a Member of the American Heart Association’s CEO Roundtable; a member of the International Council for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University; a member of the 2019 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and a Vice Chair on the Corporate Fund Board for the Kennedy Center.
Chuck holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a computer science concentration from the University of North Carolina.
As President and CEO of PayPal, Dan Schulman is focused on transforming financial services and e-commerce to improve the financial health of billions of people around the world. With extensive experience in payments and mobile technology, Dan is leading PayPal to reimagine how people move and manage money, and how merchants and consumers interact and transact. Under Dan’s leadership, PayPal was named one of the top companies on JUST Capital’s and Forbes’ JUST 100 list and as a Fortune Change the World company for its work to tackle the biggest challenges facing society today.
Dan has been recognized as one of Fortune’s top 20 Businesspersons of the Year and he is the recipient of the 2017 Brennan Legacy Award, given in recognition of his contributions to social justice. Prior to PayPal, Dan served in leadership roles at American Express, Sprint Nextel Corporation, Priceline Group, and AT&T. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and currently co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Steering Committee to promote global financial inclusion. Dan earned a BA from Middlebury College and an MBA from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He is also an avid mixed martial arts practitioner.
Dhivya Suryadevara is chief financial officer at Stripe, a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet.
As Stripe’s reach expands across the globe, Dhivya plays a crucial role in accelerating Stripe’s aggressive growth while maintaining the highest standards in discipline and fiscal
responsibility.
Prior to joining Stripe, Dhivya spent about 15 years at General Motors, most recently as chief financial officer overseeing the company’s global financial operations. She previously held various positions within GM’s finance function and outside GM at UBS Investment Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Dhivya has been recognized for her career accomplishments including Automotive News’ 2019 All Stars, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women to Watch, 40 Under 40 (Fortune magazine and Crain’s Detroit Business), World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders, and others. She previously served on the board of the Girl Scouts of Greater New York.
Dhivya has an MBA from Harvard University and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in commerce from the University of Madras in India. She is a Chartered Accountant and a CFA charterholder. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
Helen Wong has over 20 years of experience in the venture capital industry. Ms Wong was ranked among Top 100 VCs in China and Top 25 female VCs in China by Forbes.
Ms. Wong is a Founding General Partner at QR Ventures. She was a Partner at Qiming Venture Partners, focusing on its internet and consumer sectors. Ms. Wong’s exited deals include Mobike (acquired by Meituan), LuoJiSiWei (secondary share purchase by Tencent at unicorn valuation) and Lagou (acquired by 51jobs, Ticker: JOBS). Ms. Wong led the firm’s SE Asian investment strategy, and has invested in Akulaku (installment financing and digital bank), and RedDoorz (tech enabled budget hotel chain).
Prior to Qiming, Ms. Wong was a founding member at GGV Capital for approximately 10 years in China and Silicon Valley. At GGV, Ms. Wong was an early investor in Tudou (which went public on NASDAQ, merged with Youku, now under Alibaba).
Ms. Wong holds degrees from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, INSEAD and Oxford University.
Kevin O’Leary was born in Montreal, Canada on July 9th, 1954. As the son of a United Nations ILO official, he had the opportunity to live and be educated in Cambodia, Cyprus, Tunisia, Ethiopia, France and Switzerland.
Kevin attended the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada where in 1977 he received an Honors bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and Psychology. He attended the University of Western Ontario where he received his MBA in 1980.
After working briefly as an assistant product manager at Nabisco Brands, he left to pursue a career in television production and became a founding partner in Special Event Television, an independent production company that produced original sports programming such as “The Original Six”, “Don Cherry’s Grapevine” and “Bobby Orr and the Hockey Legends”.
Kevin co-founded SoftKey Software Products in Toronto, Canada in 1986. SoftKey was the first software company to apply the principles of consumer goods marketing to the software industry. SoftKey grew quickly as the price of personal computers declined and millions of North American families began to buy software for family education and entertainment.
In January of 1994, SoftKey became a catalyst of consolidation in the software industry, raising over $ 1 billion in a series of debt and equity financings and completing the first trans-border three-way pooling, merging with Spinnaker Software and WordStar International. As a result of this merger the company moved its headquarters to Boston, Massachusetts. In late 1995, SoftKey acquired Compton’s New Media and The Learning Company. In early 1996, SoftKey completed the acquisition of the Minnesota Educational Computer Company. In late 1997 and early 1998, the company acquired three more of its competitors, Creative Wonders, Mindscape and Broderbund making SoftKey the world leader in the development of educational, reference and home productivity software and the world’s second largest consumer software company with annual sales over $800 million, two thousand employees and subsidiaries in 15 countries. In 1996 SoftKey changed its name to The Learning Company. In early May 1999, The Mattel Toy Company acquired The Learning Company for $4.2 billion.
In 2003 he became co-investor and a director in Storage Now, a leading developer of climate-controlled storage facilities. Through a series of development projects and acquisitions, Storage Now became one of Canada’s largest owner/operator of storage services with facilities located in eleven cities serving such companies as Merck and Pfizer when it was acquired by the In Storage REIT in March 2007 for $110 million.
In July of 2007 Kevin became a founding investor and Director of Stream Global Services Inc., focused on the growing outsourcing business services market.
Kevin O’Leary is the Chairman of O’Leary Funds the Manager of the publically traded family of O’Leary Global Equity and Income Funds. He also serves on the board of The Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. He is a member of Boston’s 107 year old Hamilton Trust. Kevin O’Leary is a contributing columnist to CTV, BNN and the Bell Media Radio Network. He is a contributor to CNBC, ABC News and Good Morning America and an entrepreneur/investor co-host for the Discovery Channels Project Earth series that explores innovative ways man could reverse global warming implementing large scale geo-engineering infrastructure projects. He is also an
investor/host of ABC Television’s Emmy Award winning venture capital reality program “Shark Tank” produced by Mark Burnet/Sony/ABC.
A seasoned company builder based in Hong Kong, Kris has grown multiple companies from $0 to $100m in revenue. Kris served as CEO at Ensogo, and Founder of BEECRAZY (sold for a reported US$21mm to iBuy Group in 2013)
Marc Benioff is Chair, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Salesforce and a pioneer of cloud computing.
Under Benioff’s leadership, Salesforce is the #1 provider of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software globally.
Benioff was named “Innovator of the Decade” by Forbes and is recognized as one of the World’s 25 Greatest Leaders by Fortune, one of the 10 Best-Performing CEOs by Harvard Business Review and as the CNN Business CEO of 2020. For his leadership on equality, Benioff has been honored by GLAAD, the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative and Variety Magazine with its EmPOWerment Award.
A member of the World Economic Forum (“”WEF””) Board of Trustees, Benioff co-founded 1t.org — the global movement to conserve, restore and grow one trillion trees — and the WEF Friends of Ocean Action. He also serves as the inaugural Chair of WEF’s Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco.
Benioff is the owner and co-chair of TIME, and the founder of TIME Ventures — a leading investment firm with over 200 investments. Benioff is author of the New York Times bestseller Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change.
Benioff received a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California, where he is on its Board of Trustees.
Dr. Marian Croak leads the center of expertise on responsible AI within Google Research. The center is responsible for ensuring Google develops artificial intelligence responsibly and that it has a positive impact. For almost seven years, she’s been at Google working on everything from site reliability engineering to bringing public Wi-Fi to India’s railroads. Marian joined Google in late 2014 after retiring from AT&T as an SVP responsible for advanced research and innovation, and designing and developing one of the world’s largest wireless and broadband networks. She managed over 2,000 world-class engineers and computer scientists.
Marian holds over 200 patents, mostly focused on IP technology. Marian has received numerous awards, including the 2013 and 2014 Edison Patent Awards, and was inducted into the Women in Technology International’s Hall of Fame in 2013. She is a strong supporter of STEM initiatives, served on many boards including NACME and Catalyst, and personally mentors many individuals in STEM. In 2021, it was announced that Marian would be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Marian attended Princeton University and University of Southern California, where she received her doctorate in quantitative analysis. She is currently a member of the Corporate Advisory Board for the University of Southern California.
Michael Miebach, President of Mastercard, is responsible for overseeing the sales, marketing, products, services, and technology organizations for the company. Mastercard’s Board unanimously elected Michael to succeed Ajay Banga as Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2021.
Michael brings deep expertise in digital innovation, emerging technologies, regulation, fintech, and financial services to forge innovative partnerships across the ecosystem. He has a wealth of insights and global experience from a 25-year career spanning payments and banking services and technology.
As Chief Product Officer, Michael helped transform the company’s offerings from consumer cards to providing a variety of multi-rail payment solutions. Michael has been a key driver in developing and executing the strategy to evolve and diversify Mastercard, leading the acquisition of Vocalink and the pending transaction with Nets–to address a broader set of payment flows.
His collaborative approach creates scalable and trusted solutions for the exchange of payments and data towards a more inclusive digital economy where everyone is connected, and everyone can thrive.
He previously led Mastercard across the Middle East and Africa and held senior roles at both Barclays Bank and Citibank.
He is a member of the digital advisory council of Fannie Mae, which makes sustainable homeownership and workforce rental housing a reality for millions of Americans, and a member of the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Accion which gives people across the world the financial tools and services they need to prosper. Both roles give Michael the opportunity to pursue his passion for bringing more people greater opportunities in the formal economy. Michael is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Ronald McDonald House New York City, a charity that offers vital resources and compassionate care to children and their families being treated by the world’s leading pediatric cancer hospitals.
Michael holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Passau in Germany. He lives with his family in New York.
Shinoda, who founded Linkin Park around the time he started at Art Center College of Design in 1996, did what he has always done to process his emotions: he made art. “I wasn’t eating or sleeping well, so I eventually started making some music and painting. It was meditative in a way, but also scary. For so long, all my creative output was focused on the band. But I reminded myself that I had made music and art all my life before Linkin Park. Not only could I do it, this was necessary in order to move toward recovery.”
Read full bio: https://press.warnerrecords.com/mikeshinoda/
Mike Wells has been Group Chief Executive of the international financial services group Prudential plc since June 2015.
Founded in London in 1848 and based in the UK, Prudential provides long-term savings and protection products, retirement income solutions and asset management through its businesses – Prudential Corporation Asia and Eastspring Investments in Asia, Jackson National Life Insurance in the US, and Prudential Africa.
Since becoming Group Chief Executive, Mike has overseen continued growth across Prudential’s key metrics. In 2019, he led the successful demerger of M&G plc from the Prudential Group and now oversees a global portfolio of businesses, each of which is executing on meeting a large and growing consumer need.
Mike joined Jackson, Prudential’s North American unit, in 1995, and became Jackson’s Chief Operating Officer and Vice-Chairman in 2003. In 2011 he was appointed President and CEO of Jackson and joined the board of Prudential. He has more than three decades’ experience in insurance and retirement services, having started his career at the US brokerage house Dean Witter before becoming a managing director at Smith Barney Shearson.
Mike was born in Ontario, Canada, and earned a Bachelor of Sciences in Economics from San Diego State University.
Morgan is a General Partner at NFX, a seed-stage venture capital fund.
Most recently, Morgan was at Facebook where she originally joined as part of the Corporate Development team in May 2017. Her main project was trying to answer the question “how should Facebook be thinking about blockchain?” This evolved into the creation of the dedicated blockchain team which later became Diem and Novi. Morgan was Head of Strategy for Facebook’s Novi.
Prior to Facebook, Morgan ran Corporate Development at Medium where she led the Embedly acquisition and helped develop the subscription strategy. Before that, Morgan was on the Deal Team at Andreessen Horowitz. For the latter half of her time there, she was solely focused on the early stage ecosystem.
Morgan graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor’s in Statistics and Information Science.
Dr. Patrick Njoroge is the ninth Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), and has been in office since June 19, 2015. He has overseen a significant overhaul of the banking system in Kenya, including the launch of the first Kenya Banking Sector Charter. He also led the country in the launch of the new generation currency banknotes and coins, thus fulfilling a much-anticipated constitutional requirement. Dr. Njoroge has been keen on facilitating the growth of the Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (MSME) sector, which has been the engine of growth of the Kenyan economy.
Dr. Njoroge joined CBK after a twenty-year career at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC. Prior to his appointment as Governor, Dr. Njoroge was Advisor to the IMF Deputy Managing Director from December 2012, where his responsibilities included assisting in overseeing the IMF’s engagement with a large swath of IMF members. He also served as Deputy Division Chief in the IMF’s Finance Department (2006-2012), IMF’s Mission Chief for the Commonwealth of Dominica (2005-2006) and in other capacities since 1995. Prior to joining the IMF, Dr. Njoroge worked as an Economist at the Ministry of Finance (1993-1994) and as a Planning Officer at the Ministry of Planning (1985-1987).
He holds a PhD degree in Economics from Yale University (1993), a Master of Arts degree in Economics (1985) and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics (1983) from the University of Nairobi. Dr. Njoroge’s professional and research interests lie in Macroeconomics, Economic Policy, International Finance, Development Economics, Econometrics and Monetary Policy.
Since 1 September 2019, Philipp Rickenbacher has been CEO of Julius Baer Group Ltd. and Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd.
Philipp Rickenbacher joined Julius Baer in 2004 and subsequently held various senior leadership roles, including the responsibility for the Structured Products area. In 2016, he was appointed to the Bank’s Executive Board and became Head Advisory Solutions. From January until the end of August 2019, he was Head Intermediaries & Global Custody and Member of the Bank’s Executive Board. Before joining Julius Baer, Philipp Rickenbacher was employed with McKinsey & Company in Zurich and London from 1997 to 2004, amongst others as Associate Principal. He holds a Master of Science in Biotechnology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. Additionally, he is a graduate of the Swiss Finance Institute and of the Advanced Management Program of Harvard Business School.
Philipp Rickenbacher is Chairman of the Association of Swiss Asset and Wealth Management Banks and a member of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Bankers Association.
Mr. Piyush Gupta has been Chief Executive Officer and Director of DBS Group since 2009.
DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia, headquartered in Singapore. Recognised for its global leadership, DBS has been named “World’s Best Bank” by several global publications like Euromoney and Global Finance. The bank is at the forefront of leveraging digital technology to shape the future of banking, and was also named “World’s Best Digital Bank” by Euromoney. In addition, in 2019, DBS was listed among the top ten most transformative organisations of the decade by Harvard Business Review.
Ms. Peng joined Alipay in November 2012 and had served as vice president and general manager of the international business group, where she laid the foundations of Alipay’s international businesses.
From 2018 to 2020, Ms. Peng served as Chief Marketing Officer of Ant Group. In August 2020, Ant Group established its Social Good and Green Development Business Group, for which Ms. Peng served as President, responsible for corporate social responsibility. Prior to Ant Group, Ms. Peng joined Alibaba in May 2000 and served as its vice president from January 2008 to February 2012, when she was responsible for Alibaba’s divisions for the domestic and international B2B marketplaces. In addition, Ms. Peng was the product founder of AliExpress, a global retail marketplace. Ms. Peng obtained a double degree in technical English and international trade from Xi’an Jiaotong University in July 2000, and an EMBA degree from China Europe International Business School in September 2010.
Before founding Alameda and then FTX, Sam was a trader on Jane Street Capital’s international ETF desk. He traded a variety of ETFs, futures, currencies, and equities, and designed their automated OTC trading system. He graduated from MIT with a degree in physics
Vitalik is the creator of Ethereum. He first discovered blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies through Bitcoin in 2011, and was immediately excited by the technology and its potential. He cofounded Bitcoin Magazine in September 2011, and after two and a half years looking at what the existing blockchain technology and applications had to offer, wrote the Ethereum white paper in November 2013. He now leads Ethereum’s research team, working on future versions of the Ethereum protocol.