Professor Lily Kong is SMU’s President and Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor of Social Sciences.   

Professor Kong is SMU’s fifth President, and the first Singaporean to lead the 19-year old university.  She is also the first Singaporean woman to head a university in Singapore.  She was previously Provost of SMU, Vice Provost and Vice President at the National University of Singapore (in various portfolios), and Executive Vice President (Academic) of Yale-NUS College. 

Professor Kong is widely known for her research on religion, cultural policy and creative economy, urban heritage and conservation, and national identity. 

An award-winning researcher and teacher, Professor Kong has received five international fellowship awards and has also won the Association of American Geographers Robert Stoddard Award for Distinguished Service (Geography of Religion and Belief Systems).

Prof Kong was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2006.

B. Paul Santos is Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners and led the establishment of the venture capital firm’s Singapore-headquartered Southeast Asia office in 2012. Wavemaker Partners is Southeast Asia’s go-to VC firm investing in early-stage enterprise, deep tech, and sustainability startups.

Since 2012, it has backed 170+ companies, of which about 150 (>85%) are in enterprise, deep tech and/or sustainability. The firm has over US$300 million in AUM across four funds in the region, and has seen more than 10 exits with an aggregate enterprise value of over US$700 million. These exits include TradeGecko’s acquisition by Intuit, and Moka’s and Coins.ph’s acquisitions by Gojek. Notable active portfolio companies include Borneo, ecoSpirits, eFishery, Growsari, GudangAda, Iterative Scopes and Silent Eight. Today, 75% of Wavemaker’s active portfolio startups in Southeast Asia are aligned with at least one UNDP Sustainable Development Goal. 

Paul is also one of the founding partners of Wavemaker Impact, a Southeast Asian venture builder partnered with Enterprise Singapore (ESG) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), that aims to co-found climate tech startups. He also chairs the investment committee for Asian Development Bank (ADB) Ventures. Prior to starting Wavemaker Partners, Paul was an entrepreneur who co-founded six companies and sold three. He started his career as a product manager at Procter & Gamble. He graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University with a B.S. in Management Engineering and a Joint Minor in International Management with the University of Antwerp. 

David Su is a founding managing partner at Matrix Partners China, focused primarily on mobile Internet, software and medical technology investments. David has been investing in China since early 2000 and his investments include Baidu (NSDQ:BIDU), Bona Film (NSDQ:BONA), Focus Media (NSDQ:FMCN), Kanghui Medical (NYSE:KH), AAC Technologies (2018.HK), Heptagon (SIX:AMS), Kingnet Games (SZ:002517), Nanjing Kingfriend Biochemical (SS:603707), Didi Chuxing, Youzan Mobile, Reach Surgical.

Before Matrix, David was a founding general partner of TDF Capital and KPCB China. Prior to joining the venture capital industry, David worked at Lotus Development, IBM Software Group for more than seven years and was last responsible for Lotus’ software and services business in Greater China region. David graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Computer Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Jui Tan is a General Partner with BlueRun Ventures Aster China. He joined the firm in March 2001. He focuses on communications, software and semiconductor investments. 

Jui has 15 years of experience managing international investments and operations. Previous experience includes Director of Global Service Development at Singapore Telecom, responsible for SingTel’s managed data and voice services globally, and engineering management positions at IBM, focusing on computing and networking systems.
 

Jui received his B.S. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and M.B.A. from the International Institute of Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland.

Derrick is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder of Accredify. He oversees the entire process of Accredify's new products and features from ideation, to development and release. He is also responsible for the firm's technical roadmap, policy, operational processes, and growth of Accredify's tech team. 

Derrick began his career in tech at the age of 12 through a series of multiple entrepreneurial ventures. Past start-ups he founded were focused on tech solutions, where his experience spans across developing an online marketplace for website templates, app development, and a platform to facilitate Initial Coin Offerings. 

Derrick graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science (Information Systems) from Singapore Management University. He was awarded with the Lee Kuan Yew scholarship and National Infocomm scholarship for his undergraduate studies. Derrick was also recognised in Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2022.

Sherwin Ng is Managing Partner of Protégé Ventures, SEA's first student run venture fund. At Protégé Ventures, Sherwin leads a team of 30 student venture capitalists and heads the investment team. The mission of Protégé Ventures is two fold: (i) Train the next generation of VC leaders and (ii) Help student entrepreneurs build scalable ventures.

Sherwin has experience doing BD for a startup and Investment roles in several venture capital firms, with a keen interest in technology investing.

He is a final year Business Undergraduate from Nanyang Technological University and was the captain of NTU varsity badminton team.

Edison is the Co-Founder and CEO of BasedApp and Suberra. Both Suberra and BasedApp is on a mission to onboard the next million users to crypto by allowing people to spend and save easily with stablecoins. 
 
Previously, Edison was an early team member and Engineering Lead at Zilliqa, a high-throughput public blockchain platform. During his stint at Zilliqa, Edison has built a security tokenization platform, custodian software, and developer tools that thousands of developers worldwide use. Edison holds a M.Sc from Carnegie Mellon University.

Sun Sun Lim is Vice President of Partnerships and Engagement and Professor of Communication and Technology at the Singapore Management University.

She has researched and written extensively on the social impact of technology, including Transcendent Parenting: Raising Children in the Digital Age. She serves on thirteen journal editorial boards and on the Singapore Environment Council, Social Science Research Council and Media Literacy Council. She was Nominated Member of Parliament from 2018-2020 and a Singapore 100 Women in Tech 2020 honoree.

See http://www.sunsunlim.com

Benjamin is CEO and Co-Founder of Kinobi. He received his higher education at Singapore Management University majoring in science (economics) and has participated in an exchange program with the National University of Singapore (NUS). During college, Ben was very active in organization. He joined SMU Cognitare (Business Case Club), became a mentor and the founding father in the mentoring circle, Chairperson at Merdeka Collective, President at SMUpreneurs, and became co-founder at Atomos Watch Club.  

Beside that, Benjamin is also very active in business case competitions, he was 1st runner up of Chualalongkorn International Business Case Competition 2015. Ben's passion for Business Cases and economics led him to start his career in investment and private equity for approximately 3 years. Ben also has career experience in the e-commerce industry and management consulting.  

In 2021 he together with Hafiz Kasman and Joshua Phua founded a startup SaaS company called Kinobi with a mission to help students in Southeast Asia to prepare for their careers and get the jobs they want. With various collaborations, achievements, and milestones achieved by Kinobi have made Benjamin awarded as Prestige 40 under 40 and Forbes 30 under 30 for Asia for the category of consumer technology in 2022.  

Justin oversees ShopBack’s product organisation comprising product managers, product designers and data analysts. As a member of the company’s executive team since the early days, Justin played an active role in growing the company’s market footprint to 10 markets across Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific, as well as launching technology hubs in Singapore, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Some of Justin's fondest memories at ShopBack include launching the company's first iOS and Android apps, building tech partnerships with some of the region's biggest mobile-driven brands (such as Grab and Uber) and enabling the company's foray into the in-store rewards space with card-linked offers and digital vouchers.

Today, Justin and his colleagues are focused on the company’s vision to become the world's most rewarding way to shop, and aim to deliver this by ever-improving the user experience and investing in emerging technologies that bring innovative features to shoppers and brands. 
 
Prior to ShopBack, Justin was part of the digital commerce unit at Singapore Post, where he first met the co-founders of ShopBack. Justin started his career as a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company and graduated with first class honours from the University of Cambridge with a Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Psychology, Sociology.

Teo Swee Ann is the Founder and CEO of Espressif Systems. He is also a fellow of SAEng. 
  
He is a visionary entrepreneur and tech innovator, who stands at the forefront of revolutionizing the world of wireless communication and IoT technologies. His commitment to open-source development and collaboration has been instrumental in creating vibrant and engaged developer communities. He has been recognized as the "Outstanding Overseas Executive of the Year" at the esteemed Singapore Business Awards 2022/2023. 
  
See https://www.espressif.com

An industrial technologist for the built environment, Kyle believes that 360° virtual sites will enable efficient and evidential construction. He spent the last 6 years implementing A.I. & 3D virtualisation technologies for the built environment across Singapore, the Netherlands and United Kingdom. His academic background is from engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship having graduated from Imperial College London and Stanford University.

Shou Chew is the Chief Executive Officer of TikTok where he is responsible for leading the overall business and bringing the company's vision to life. Shou has been a member of the TikTok family since its inception, first having led a team of ByteDance's early investors. Prior to joining TikTok, Shou served as the Executive Director, President-International & SVP at Xiaomi Corp and as a Partner at DST Global.  

Born and raised in Singapore, Shou went to university in London following the completion of his mandatory military service. He holds an undergrad degree from University College London (UCL) and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He currently lives in Singapore with his wife Vivian, and their two children, but you can often find him on a plane or visiting TikTok offices around the world.  

Mr Heng Swee Keat is Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies.

Mr Heng chairs the tripartite Future Economy Council which oversees the on-going restructuring of Singapore’s economy, through upgrading the skills of workers and transformation of industry, to create better career prospects for Singaporeans. He leads a team to oversee the design and implementation of national strategies in areas such as skills and capabilities development, innovation and productivity as well as the internationalisation of companies.

He is also the Chairman of the National Research Foundation, which sets the direction for Singapore's research, innovation and enterprise (RIE) strategies. Mr Heng is overseeing the closer integration of Singapore’s RIE and industry transformation efforts.

Mr Heng served as Minister for Education from 2011 to 2015. He also led the year-long Our Singapore Conversation from 2012 that helped to engage more than 47,000 Singaporeans from all walks of life through dialogues.

He also served as Minister for Finance from 2015 to 2021, overseeing ten national Budgets including an unprecedented five Budgets to support Singaporeans and businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Mr Heng has an MA in Economics from Cambridge University. He also holds a Master in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Winston Chow is an Associate Professor of Urban Climate and Lee Kong Chian Research Fellow based at Singapore Management University’s (SMU) College of Integrative Studies.

He has been a Principal Investigator for the multi-institute Cooling Singapore initiative since 2017, and currently leads interdisciplinary research on how Singapore’s urban climate risks will change as its climate warms. His previous research projects focused on urban heat island science, impacts and mitigation, as well as on climate change vulnerability in subtropical cities. He has authored close to 50 peer-reviewed academic journal articles and book chapters on his research to date. Dr. Chow is also Associate Editor for the journal Climate Risk Management, and an Editorial Board member for Landscape and Urban Planning and PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.

Ms Poh was appointed Managing Director of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) on 4 October 2021.

She was previously Deputy Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office Strategy Group, which leads and organises the Public Service to develop and implement the strategic priorities of the Government. She also oversaw the National Population and Talent Division and the Centre for Strategic Futures.

Ms Poh was the founding Chief Executive of the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech), and was previously the Managing Director of the Infocommunications Development Authority (IDA). She has also held key positions in the Ministry of Manpower, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defence.

Ms Poh is an alumnus of Oxford, Cambridge , INSEAD (MBA) and Stanford. She has three teenagers and more patience than before she had them.

She currently sits on the Boards of SingHealth and St Luke's Eldercare, and is a member of the Young Presidents' Organisation and the World Economic Forum Global Futures Council.

Often referred to as “KC Koshijima,” Mr. Keisuke Koshijima has been spearheading and leading Kajima’s overseas businesses for more than two decades. He has been the General Manager of Overseas Operations Division based in Tokyo since 2010.

Concurrently holding the office of President of Kajima Asia Pacific Holdings, he transferred himself to Singapore in 2019 to increase his direct dialogue with the regional management and stimulate the construction and real estate business activities in Asia-Pacific.

After the pandemic, he has been actively flying around the world to reinforce the global business platform he has formulated over the years, linking company to company to generate more business opportunities with multinational clients his business style and personality have attracted.

Prior to his return to Japan in 2010, he spent more than a decade in the US from 1998 as President of Kajima USA, Inc., contributing to the solid foundation of success in both construction and real estate businesses the company enjoys today.

He holds Bachelor of Engineering at the Faculty of Architecture from University of Tokyo, followed by Master of Business Administration from Stanford University.  He enjoys sea-kayaking as well as refurbishing traditional Japanese houses in his native town of Kanazawa.