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

Alexandre (Alex) Lazarow has spent his career working at the intersection of investing, innovation, and economic development in the private, public, and social sectors. He is the author of Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs - from Delhi to Detroit - Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley (HBR Press). Alex is a venture capitalist with Cathay Innovation, a global firm that invests across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Previously, Alex worked with Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm that has invested over a billion dollars in hundreds of startups around the world. He has served as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company, a financial regulator with the Bank of Canada, and an M&A investment banker with the Royal Bank of Canada. Alex is an adjunct professor specializing in impact investment and entrepreneurship at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He is a Kauffman Fellow, CFA Charterholder, and a Stephen M. Kellen Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.Comm from the University of Manitoba. Alex is a regular columnist with Forbes, and his writing has been featured in the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly, Entrepreneur Magazine, TechCrunch, Fast Company, VentureBeat, Business Insider, and Quartz , among others. He speaks regularly on global innovation trends and has presented at Collision, Endeavor, InsureTech Connect, the Social Innovation Summit, SOCAP, and the Corporate Venture Capital Summit. He is most proud of having once been called a ‘sad, low budget Ryan Reynolds’ on Twitter.

Steven is co-founder and CEO of Aman, digital platform for employee benefts in Indonesia, empowering employers to conveniently find and manage health insurance for their employees. Prior to starting Aman, Steven lived in Beijing, building and leading business development team for ByteDance in Southeast Asia. Before that, he was based in Singapore for 4+ years, working on product partnerships for Google, helping to launch new products and features for Google Maps across the region. Shownotes at https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/steven-tannason You can find our community discussions on the podcast episode at https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/54-steven-tannason-on-google-vs-bytedance-culture-indonesia-zero-to-one-audacity-as-founder

Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh is the author of 'Floating on a Malayan Breeze: Travels in Malaysia and Singapore' and co-author of 'Hard Choices: Challenging the Singapore Consensus'. He is currently working on a book about China and India. From 2006-13 Sudhir worked for the Economist Corporate Network and Economist Insights [units of The Economist Group] in Hong Kong and Singapore. He continues to work freelance for the company. He has moderated and spoken on panels across Asia for the firm, most recently at The Economist’s Open Future Festival in Oct 2019 in Hong Kong. In his personal capacity as an author, Sudhir has spoken at numerous institutions and events around the world, including Columbia University, Harvard University, The World Bank, Yale-NUS, the Georgetown Literary Festival and the Singapore Writers Festival. He is currently a contract-based supervising editor at DBS’s Asian Insights Office, as well as a senior writer at WildType Media. Sudhir has written for a variety of publications, including The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Nikkei Asian Review and The Straits Times. He has appeared on numerous regional and international video shows, including CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. Born and schooled in Singapore, Sudhir has bachelor’s degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and a master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School. Shownotes at https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/sudhirtv

Jasmine Wang is the Co-founder & CEO of Copysmith, an AI brainstorming partner for marketers. Previously, Jasmine has been heavily involved in AI research at Partnership on AI, OpenAI and the Montreal Institute of Learning Algorithms (MILA). Jasmine started out in engineering and research for Lyft self-driving, and Microsoft Research’s Tech for Emerging Markets group. She also received engineering, research, and academic fellowships most notably by Interact, Kleiner Perkins, 8VC, Microsoft, and the Fulbright Foundation. Jasmine received her Bachelors in Computer Science and Philosophy at McGill University. In her free time, she plays the piano. Shownotes at https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/jasmine-wang You can find our community discussions for this episode at https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/52-jasmine-wang-on-ai-copywriting-replacing-vs-augmenting-human-labor-ai-trust-and-safety

Albert Lie is a deep lover of engineering with previous experiences in business development, civic technology, and product. He has experience working in non-profit, government, and start-ups (ideation, early-stage, series-A, and series-B) Albert was the 1st engineering hire for Xendit, an impact-focused FinTech startup and the 7th person in the company with a mission on making customers be able to seamlessly accept payments and disburse funds at scale in Southeast Asia. With side projects in various sectors but not limited to healthcare, legaltech, and deep tech, Albert loves building something that people want. Shownotes at www.jeremyau.com/blog/albert-lie You can find our community discussions on the podcast episode at https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/51-albert-lie-on-xendit-s-founding-engineer-unsexy-markets-and-indonesia-startup-culture

Jackson Aw is a 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 honouree and Founder & CEO of Singapore-based Mighty Jaxx, a technology-driven integrated future culture platform that designs and manufactures collectibles and lifestyle products in partnership with the greatest talents in the world as well as global brands such as Hasbro, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, Toei Animation, Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers, DC Comics, Looney Tunes and more. Besides empowering future culture brands with the end-to-end supply chain of collectibles, Mighty Jaxx also manages a large scale, proprietary IP operation that delivers global consumer access via new retail technologies. Jackson has grown Mighty Jaxx from a S$20,000 startup into the multi-million dollar company it is today, and the company now ships millions of products yearly to collectors in over 60 countries with diverse offerings in collectibles, gaming, lifestyle and fashion. Shownotes on https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/jackson-aw You can find our community discussions on the podcast episode at https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/50-jackson-aw-on-solo-founders-pop-culture-leadership-fatherhood-stories

Paul Veradittakit is a Partner at Pantera Capital and focuses on the firm’s venture capital and hedge fund investments. Pantera Capital is the earliest and largest institutional investor in digital currencies and blockchain technologies, formerly managing over $1B. Since joining in 2014, Paul has helped to launch the firm’s second venture fund and currency funds, executing over 100 investments. Paul also sits on the board of Staked, Blockfolio, and Alchemy, is a mentor at The House Fund, Boost VC, and Alchemist, and is an advisor to Orchid, Origin, and AI Foundation. Prior to joining Pantera, Paul worked at Strive Capital as an Associate focusing on investments in the mobile space, including an early stage investment in App Annie. Previously, Paul was at Hatch Consulting and LECG and performed partnerships and growth for Urban Spoils, an early stage startup in the daily deal space. Paul graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. Shownotes at https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/paulv

Prior to Asia Partners, Mr. Nash was the Group President of Sea, Greater Southeast Asia’s leading internet company with a ~50Bn market cap, from 2014 to 2018. Mr. Nash led Sea’s landmark initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: SE), which raised approximately $1 billion of primary capital and which was the largest ever U.S. IPO of a company from Southeast Asia. Mr. Nash joined Sea after more than a decade with General Atlantic (GA), most recently as the co-founder and head of GA’s Southeast Asia business. Three of Mr. Nash’s successful investments while with General Atlantic are now multi-billion dollar NYSE publicly traded companies. Prior to GA, Mr. Nash was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York. Mr. Nash was a member of the World Economic Forum’s ASEAN Regional Strategy Group from 2017-2018, is a member of the global Kauffman Society for leadership in venture capital, is a member of the Young Presidents Organization, and is a board member of Endeavor Indonesia. He received an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2007, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in Chemistry and Physics, magna cum laude, in 2000. Shownotes at https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/nick-nash-1 You can find our community discussions on the podcast episode at https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/48-nick-nash-on-generational-lessons-world-s-greatest-injustices-and-curiosity-as-growth-hack

Ashwin Purushottam was an Entrepreneur in Residence with Entrepreneur First, the world’s leading talent investor. His role ended in October 2020. As General Manager of Lime and Deliveroo Special Projects, Ashwin oversaw operations, government relations, marketing, business development, and recruiting. He previously also led the Business Insights team at Shopee. Having built cloud kitchens in Singapore and set up warehouses in Germany, his role is constantly evolving. Ashwin holds a BSc with Honours in Biotechnology from the University of Windsor and a MBA at INSEAD. He enjoys working on awesome quick-adoption products to create meaningful work for Indian women from underprivileged backgrounds. Show notes at https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/ashwin-purushottam You can find our community discussions on the podcast episode at https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/ashwin-purushottam-on-market-launches-vs-general-managers-launch-to-profitability-and-collaborating-with-regulators

Sandra has been working in C-level positions in Fintech companies in Singapore for the last 5+ years. Before that, she worked in private-equity real estate in Malaysia and started her career in a German bank belonging to Europe's biggest cooperative banking network in 2001.   She gets her energy from working with smart people towards a shared goal to create an impact and has expertise in founding and operating companies, pivoting when required in order to scale quickly, and hiring capable teams.  Sandra completed both her masters and bachelors on a full tuition and lodge scholarship from the Foundation of German Business. She holds a MSc in Arab World Studies (Minor in Islamic Finance and Arabic) from Durham University (of which the first year was spent at the University of Edinburgh). In her free time, she loves to hike in the mountains and read books - preferably both with a Weissbeer. Shownotes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/sandra-ernst