Technology Panel
Asia has developed as a center of technology development and innovation. Innovation and entrepreneurship is guiding Asia to transform from a center for outsourcing to becoming center of technology leadership. In this panel, we will discuss the hotspots of innovation in Asia from the geographic as well as technology / industry dimension. Further, we will explore the drivers and obstacles of growth in these areas both in terms of external as well as internal factors.
Panelists
Deep Nishar, Vice President of Product, LinkedIn
Deep Nishar is the Vice President of Product at LinkedIn, a position he took in December 2008. Prior to LinkedIn, Nishar was a long time Google executive who helped start its mobile business and other key products.
As Director of Wireless Products at Google, Deep Nishar developed and implemented the product strategy for Google’s mobile products worldwide. Prior to Google, Deep worked at Siebel Systems where he was a member of the founding team of the Universal Application Network (UAN) business unit which grew to a $40 million a year run rate in its first year.
Prior to Siebel, Deep founded Patkai Networks, a web services based software integration company. At Patkai, Deep built the product and engineering organizations and drove all of the business operations for the company. Additionally, Deep was an associate at The Boston Consulting Group and also held various product management, marketing, finance and engineering roles at Cummins Engine Company, where he was awarded three patents.
Deep received his Bachelors in Technology with honors from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal. Deep also received a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School where he graduated with highest honors as a Baker Scholar.
Elliot Ng, Principal, Ng Ventures, LLC
Elliott Ng is founder of VentureSprout, a new stealth-mode startup investigating cross-border opportunities between China-US, and emerging new opportunities created by new social technologies. In addition to successfully launching and exiting several start-up ventures, he has invested in and advised numerous startups both in China and the United States.
Prior to founding VentureSprout, Elliott was co-founder of UpTake.com, the fastest growing new online travel startup since its launch in 2007. UpTake has generated more site traffic in the lucrative online travel space than the 15-20 other travel Websites that have launched during the same period. UpTake success is due to an integrated social media, blogosphere, partnerships, and SEO oriented strategy that was quarterbacked by Elliott and his key team leaders. He continues to serve as an advisor to UpTake. Prior to co-founding UpTake, Elliott served as Director of Interactive Marketing for Intuit’s QuickBooks division from 2003 to 2005, where he grew the Web sales channel from $14 mm to over $40 mm in 2 years. In 2001, Elliott co-founded Loyalty Matrix, a profitable customer intelligence and analytics firm that helped clients like Apple Computer, LA Times, 24-Hour Fitness, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts reduce customer attrition and increase customer lifetime value. The firm was acquired in 2006 by Responsys, an email marketing firm. In 1996, Elliott co-founded Netcentives, an e-marketing company which grew to $70 mm in revenues, 200+ customers, managing an aggregate of 50 mm consumer relationships. The company reached a peak market capitalization of $3 billion after its 1999 NASDAQ IPO. Elliott started his career as a product manager of PowerPoint and Word at Microsoft, and also served as summer associate at McKinsey & Company. Elliott holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a AB from Harvard University. Elliott is based in Silicon Valley, married with three children, and enjoys travel, the outdoors, blogging, and virtually all kinds of Chinese food.
Tony C. Luh, Managing Director, DFJ DragonFund
Born in Japan, grew up in Thailand, and possesses profound knowledge in the Chinese language and culture, Tony spent his professional career in the U.S. and Asia. Tony has over 21 years of experience in capital markets, sales, strategic alliances and new business development. Tony is a Founding Managing Director of DFJ DragonFund.
Tony started his career early in the public equities market in Taiwan. As corporate fund manager for Kosheng Enterprises in the mid to late 80s, he helped return the fund more than sevenfold while accumulating knowledge and expertise in sectors ranging from information technology to high volume manufacturing in Asia. Then in the early 90s, Tony, an avid baseball fan, became the first ever Major League Baseball TV simulcast Mandarin announcer for the Oakland A's. That was his part-time fun as he helped grow ad revenues for KCNS, an ethnic TV station in San Francisco, a whopping 800% in four years. Subsequent to that, Tony joined an early-stage first-generation Chinese Internet company - Infowave Communications as a senior executive in charge of business development and strategic alliance. In that capacity, he struck strategic alliance and marketing deals with, among others, Yahoo!, Microsoft, TeleBank (now E*Trade), and E-Loan. Later, Tony co-founded DragonVenture with Bobby Chao in 1999.
As Managing Director for DragonVenture, he helped oversee the early investments in OSA Technologies (AVCT) and Mobile365 (SY). Tony attended three different high schools in three different countries. Tony also attended three different universities in three different states (Washington, Texas, California) in the U. S.
Ratnesh Sharma, Director of Global Product Management and Marketing, Citrix Systems
Ratnesh is the Director of Product Management and Marketing at Citrix Systems and is based at the Citrix R&D Center in Bangalore, He is currently focused on Cloud-based Applications, Virtualized Network Appliances, Application Networking and growing the APAC/EMEA markets. He has over 20 years of experience driving products to winning solutions and market leadership in both, global Fortune-500s and high-growth entrepreneurial environment.
Prior to Citrix, Ratnesh was the Director of Product Management at Oracle responsible for the Enterprise Manager product. As an entrepreneur, Ratnesh headed up Product Management at three successful startups- newScale, Webify (acquired by IBM) and Covigo (acquired by Symbol Technologies).
Prior to Covigo, Ratnesh held product leadership positions at Sun Microsystems/Netscape and Baxter Healthcare.
Ratnesh is a frequent speaker at international and industry conferences and recently presented at Interopi, ITIL ITSMF, BEAWorld and Oracle Open World.
Ratnesh has an MBA from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, a Masters in Engineering from Clemson University and a BSEE from the Birla Institute of Technology & Sciences, Pilani, India.
He is currently the President of the Haas Alumni Network India Chapter. An avid runner, he is training for his sixth marathon and his first in India.
Moderator
David Riemer, Executive in Residence
at UC Berkeley and former VP Marketing at Yahoo!
David Riemer is one of the leading marketers in the Internet industry. He spent the last decade developing and bringing great products to web users worldwide. Following his career as an ad agency President, David brought his strategic and marketing leadership to two start-ups and an internet titan, Yahoo!. In various roles over six years at Yahoo!, David led the marketing teams on both the BtoB and Consumer sides of the business where he managed marketing for virtually all of Yahoo!’s products across their customer base of 500M users. David is now advising emerging Internet and consumer technology companies. He specializes in helping businesses clarify their product strategy, go-to-market approach and business model. David also serves as Executive-in-Residence at Haas Business School (Berkeley). David earned his undergraduate degree from Brown University, and an MBA from Columbia University. He lives in Berkeley, California with his wife and two (very web savvy) teenage children who help keep him honest.