Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong

Alan Soon, co-founder and CEO of Splice Media joined us in a conversation about Splice Media and their latest conference, Splice Beta, and offered his perspectives on how the media businesses are now in the transformation mode across Southeast Asia. We discuss the interesting media companies and the non-traditional business models in the media business. Alan also shared his thoughts on how the duopoly of Google and Facebook affects the advertising supply chain of media properties and the challenges of journalism in the region.  

Simon Kemp, founder and CEO of Kepios joined us in a conversation on the global digital report 2019 and what it has installed for Asia Pacific in 2019. We start with the global trends of the report and zoomed it down to Asia Pacific, with the surprise that growth is still accelerating in the region particularly with India, the rise of Tik Tok by ByteDance and the hard truth that Facebook is not declining. We discuss whether there are new entrants in social media for Asia Pacific and the attitude towards privacy in the region as well.

Graham Brown, founder of Asia Tech Podcast and Pitchdeck Asia TV joined us in a conversation about his current focus in the podcasting and video media business and his thoughts on the recent major announcements that shook the podcasting world and its impact to Asia Pacific. We first dived into his background and how he has decided to go into the podcasting business. We discuss the Asia Tech Podcast and its intended audience, and how he focused on the storytelling aspect of his media business. Last but not least, Graham discuss the general market trends for podcasting in Asia Pacific, and where it will be heading in the next 3-5 years.

Joyce Yang from Global Coin Research joined us in a discussion to review Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange globally, its rapid rise and current lead in the industry. We began the chronological history of the company and  how the founders Zhao Changpeng and He Yi built up the cryptocurrency exchange from 2017 to now the leading player with 40% of the market share globally. We discuss their current business footprint, their current projects from the stable coin project to the recent announcement of the Binance chain.

James Chau, news anchor and editor at China-US Focus and World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador, joined us to discuss the current China and US relationship. We began with his background as a news anchor with Hong Kong TVB, BBC and CGTN (former CCTV news) and discuss his insights from his recent conversation with former US President Jimmy Carter. We dived deeper into the China and US relationship starting from 1979 and discuss how the escalating trade skirmishes between both countries might push them towards a trade war. Last but not least, we hear his perspectives on the recent detention of Huawei's CFO and the potential implications to world politics upon the calibration of US and China relationship based on the current trade talks. 

Matt Harty, senior vice president of Asia Pacific for The Trade Desk, joined us to discuss the footprint of the programmatic advertising company and the major trends on digital advertising across Asia Pacific. From the start, Matt introduces the concept of programmatic advertising and explains how The Trade Desk works with their customers and expands their business offerings across Asia Pacific. We dived deeper in the importance of brand safety in programmatic advertising, the key trends in digital advertising in Asia Pacific and whether humans or AI should decide what we want to advertise in the future.

Molly Shea, general manager of Asia Pacific from Western Union joined us to discuss the business and distribution footprint of the company across Asia Pacific. We begin the conversation with Molly's career story, and subsequently leading into the discussion on Western Union's focus on digital services and geographic expansion in Asia Pacific. Last but not least, Molly shared her perspectives and thoughts on the current trends in the fintech space, for example, the current super apps trends from China to Asia and how Western Union are experimenting with blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies.  

Matthew Brennan, co-founder of China Channel and host of China Tech Talk, closes the Bytedance trilogy of Toutiao and Douyin with the Bytedance Group. We discuss the mission and vision of the Bytedance Group, an artificial intelligence technology company and where they are after raising US$3B from SoftBank recently. We discuss the product portfolio of Bytedance beyond Toutiao and Douyin, their business model of advertising which drives high profitability and why they are poised to take on Facebook in a global scale.

John Artman, editor in chief from Technode of host of China Tech Talk, joined us in a conversation to discuss three different and interesting stories from China entrepreneurial space and align them in the underlying theme of explaining what numbers and narratives can mean in China. We began with the bike rental startups collapse, followed by the Mafengwo scandal and finally the recent leaked financials from Luckin Coffee into the open. Through the lenses of these three stories, we discuss how we need to understand and adjust our expectations to the future of China's economic growth.

Parag Khanna, futurist, TED speaker and founder of Futuremap, joined us to discuss his book "The Future is Asian". We kick off the conversation on the main themes of the book, and taking the Asian perspective on how we should look at world history. We discuss the geopolitical landscape of Asia, and why China's Belt and Road Initiative will not led to a bi-polar world but will shift the rest of Asia towards independence and have the ability to assert their identity in the next century. Last but not least, Parag shared his advice for those out there who might want to come to Asia and why the future is truly Asian.