Klaus wehage, CEO
Klaus is commonly known as the “Silicon Valley Ambassador” who led all international partnerships for the most prestigious non-profit called Silicon Valley Forum. Klaus has worked with 35+ markets, and over 500+ founders, government officials and corporate business leaders. He now actively advises the Taiwanese and Japanese government on ecosystem building and economic development.
aaron Mcdaniel, head of Entrepreneurship
Aaron is a serial entrepreneur and member of the faculty at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business where he teaches entrepreneurship. Aaron founded 3 ventures that were acquired, is the author of 2 books advising young professionals on how to build successful careers and is a speaker who has been featured in Inc., Entrepreneur, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and NPR.
JESSICA SZETO, head of CONTENT
Jessica is an experienced marketeer that has worked at the largest education company, leading Asia expansion efforts and managing in total 15+ markets. Jessica has led operational roles for large tech companies while serving as a VP at a leading Silicon Valley-based marketing agency. Her multicultural background and international experience has helped her excel in cross-cultural team management.
JONAS BRUNTSE DAHL, managing director of middle east
Jonas has his roots in the intersection of public diplomacy and commercial partnerships. With a strong commercial background in advisory, tech start-up and energy policy and technologies, he has consulted government and authority officials as well as corporate decision makers in nearly all continents. He currently resides in Dubai and engages with stakeholders across the Middle East.
Crystal Neri, marketing MANAGER
Crystal Neri is a marketer who helps generate thousands of web visits that drive sales for startups in the US, Singapore, Australia, and the Philippines. She’s passionate about providing quality content that inspires trust and credibility. In addition to her content writing and social media experience, she is a certified Hubspot Inbound, Sales, and Hootsuite expert. After spending five years studying and working in San Francisco, she is currently based out of Cebu City, Philippines.
ViCTOR BARBOSA, PROGRAM MANAGER
Victor Barbosa has years of experience creating an e-commerce platform, leading intrapreneurship teams at telecom corporations, and managing CRM and analytic strategies at growth-level consumer brands. As a culturally curious person, he has studied and worked on 3 continents and traveled to 27 countries. Naturally from Brazil, Victor has graduated from Insper, the leading business school in the country, and UC Berkeley Haas with studies focused on negotiation, venture capital, and entrepreneurship.
Tim Salau, chief evangelist
Tim Salau, Mr. Future of Work, is the Founder & CEO of Guide, the life skills training app for high school students to learn essential life skills from their favorite creators. Tim is an accomplished international keynote speaker and global tech influencer. He’s worked with top Fortune 500 & hyper growth companies: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and WeWork leading innovation and coaching executives on employee engagement.
ESBEN STOCKMAAR, managing director OF UK
Esben is a Partner in Rising Global Partners and Co-founder of Nordic Impact Lab. Esben is a former Venture Developer at Rocket Internet and VP Growth at Moneyfarm, and has worked as a venture development consultant across Europe, Middle East and Asia. Esben is a visiting lecturer at Cass Business and an Alumni of MITs global entrepreneurship bootcamp.
JESPER WIND, PARTNER
Jesper is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who has built and accelerated several technology startups in Western Europe and the US. As the CEO and co-founder of PeerPilot, an agile recruiting and innovation platform, Jesper brings significant insight into the HR-technology space as well as hands-on experience in high-touch solution sales. His previous experience originates from senior positions in technology and management consulting with PA Consulting Group. Jesper divides his time between offices in San Francisco and Copenhagen.
Anders Wittrup Kristensen, INNOVATION AND PARTNERSHIPS MANAGER
Anders Wittrup Kristensen has years of international business and consulting experience having worked as the Head of Conference department at the Danish Institute of International Studies where he managed 200+ experts across all fields of study. He has worked for PetroChina – Halfaya as a Crisis Consultant and for the Royal Danish General Consulate in Dubai.
Gideon Marks, global Startup evangelist
Gideon Marks is a seasoned executive in high-tech companies with a strong background in finance, business & corporate development. During his career, Gideon took 3 companies public on NASDAQ and led 4 others to successful M&A transactions, been involved in building numerous companies, growth initiatives, funding from venture capital funds, and the public. Successful private investor in startup companies and a mentor at Google Launchpad.
BOARD OF ADVISORS
RICH HUA, INNOVATION evangelist, AMAZON
Rich Hua is a Global Strategist and Innovation Evangelist for Amazon Web Services. He founded Amazon’s Culture of Innovation program in San Francisco and has shared about innovation with thousands of executives worldwide. Rich also spent decades training and mentoring leaders in emotional and social intelligence—from new managers to C-level executives. He launched an emotional intelligence program at Amazon that has impacted tens of thousands of people. Rich is a globally respected speaker with audiences as large as 10,000 people.
JOEL BARBIER, DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER TRANSFORMATION, CISCO
Joel Barbier is a director in Cisco Operations and a visiting scholar at the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, an IMD and Cisco initiative. Joel is co-author of Orchestrating Transformation: How to Deliver Winning Performance with a Connected Approach to Change, and a key contributor to 2016's award-winning Digital Vortex. He develops strategic and value insights for Cisco customers’ digital transformation. Joel holds an MBA (University of Cologne) and an MS (HEC Graduate School of Management).
BATARA ETO, MANAGING PARTNER, EAST VENTURES
Batara Eto co-founded Mixi and brought the company public in Japan. He was responsible for creating Mixi in December 2003, and he served as Chief Technology Officer of Mixi until 2008. He started his investment career by co-founding East Ventures and made their first investment in 2010, and it recently raised its 8th fund, a seed-stage fund focused on digital companies emerging in the post-lockdown aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Batara has a degree in computer science, and he speaks English, Japanese and Indonesian.
NOLAN PAUL, Partner, Global agtech lead, yamaha motor ventures
Nolan is a Partner at Yamaha Motor Ventures, where he is responsible for leading global Food and AgTech investment opportunities. Previously Nolan was Head of R&D Strategy and Emerging Technology for Driscoll’s, the global market leader in fresh berries. Prior to that, he was an investment banker for Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital in the Global Technology Group, where he worked on M&A, equity and debt transactions. Nolan graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a degree in Business Economics.
CASEY ARMSTRONG, CMO, SHIPBOB
Casey Armstrong is the CMO of ShipBob, where he oversees marketing and partnerships. Coming in at #99 on the Inc. 5000 of the fastest-growing private companies in America, ShipBob is the leading ecommerce logistics solution with over 10 fulfillment centers across the US, Canada, and Europe, which supports over 3,500 direct-to-consumer brands. Before joining ShipBob, he was the VP of Marketing for BigCommerce ($BIGC), one of the largest ecommerce platforms in the world, and before that, he was SVP at Watchmaster, a luxury watch company based in Europe.
INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS
ARTURO CALLE FLORES, TechNOLoGY DIRECTOR, ALTERLATINA
Arturo is an entrepreneur and ecosystem builder. He is the founder of Alterlatina, a pioneer Streaming Media company in Latin America since 1999. Arturo also founded the startup Suruna, a powerful set of AI services that manage video assets, to create a global tool that will improve the world. Throughout Arturo’s career, he's introduced many entrepreneurial programs in Peru and Latin America such as UP Global, Founder Institute, and Techstars Startup Programs.