John Ge

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Matrixport

John is focused on rapidly scaling the company to provide one-stop crypto financial services, across custody, spot and leveraged trading, asset management and lending. Under his leadership, Matrixport has grown into Asia’s largest cryptocurrency financial platform with $10 billion of assets under management. 

John was previously a Company Director and Head of Investment & Financing at Bitmain Technologies. He started his career as an analyst at a venture capital fund.

Sean Darby

Managing Director & Global Head of Equity Strategy, Jefferies

Sean Darby is a Managing Director and Global Head of Equity Strategy for Jefferies based in Hong Kong. He joined Jefferies in September 2011 from Nomura where he spent almost 10 years as Head of Asia Strategy. Sean is responsible for equity allocation across 20 markets as well as publishing top down ideas, completing bespoke portfolio construction and writing thematic reports. The strategy team provides regular updates on the factors effecting share prices as well as contrarian ideas. He holds an engineering degree from the University of Exeter and a postgraduate diploma in Japanese from Stirling University. He is also a Chartered Engineer. In 2015, he was ranked No.2 Investment Strategist by Asiamoney.

Kevin Ching

Consultant Chairman Emeritus, Sotheby’s Asia; Founding Advisory Board Member, Zheng He Bella Romaine

Mr. Ching was the Chief Executive Officer of Sotheby’s Asia from 2006 and retired in December 2021.

He was responsible for developing the strategic expansion of the company in the region, particularly into mainland China. Under his strategic leadership, Sotheby's Asia achieved an over US$ 1 billion total of auctions and private sales in 2011. In 2012, Sotheby’s established Sotheby’s (Beijing) Auction Co., Ltd. the first international fine art auction house in China, in partnership with Beijing GeHua Art Company. The historic inaugural auction held on the 27th of September 2012 took the world by storm.

Prior to Sotheby’s Asia, he was a board executive director and group legal counsel of Dickson Concepts (International) Limited. He was in charge of its legal and general business affairs in the international world of luxury, and led business development and operations of luxury retail in China.

Formally a partner in Johnson Stokes & Master, one of the largest law firms in Hong Kong, he specialised in the areas of banking, international shipping, commercial law, investments in China, as well as sino-foreign joint ventures and arbitration.

,

Charmaine Chin

,

Managing Director, Hedge Fund Solutions Group (BAAM), Blackstone

Charmaine Chin is a Managing Director in the Hedge Fund Solutions Group (BAAM) and the Head of Asia Manager Selection. Ms. Chin is based in Singapore and leads BAAM’s investment activities across Asia.

Before joining Blackstone, Ms. Chin worked at Fullerton Fund Management in Singapore where she was involved in managing a global portfolio of hedge funds, private equity and private credit funds. She also led due diligence for co-investments and late-stage growth investments. Prior to Fullerton, Ms. Chin spent 12 years as a Partner and Managing Director at K2 Advisors in New York, part of Franklin Templeton’s Alternatives division. There she oversaw all of K2’s investments in Asia, as well as all investments globally in credit and event-driven strategies. Prior to K2, Ms. Chin worked at Goldman Sachs in the Special Situations Group, focused on opportunistic investing across equities and credit. Ms. Chin began her career in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs in New York and Hong Kong.

Ms.ChinreceivedaBAfromHarvardUniversity,whereshegraduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

Francis Belin

President, Christie’s Asia Pacific

Based in Hong Kong, Mr. Francis Belin has been President of Christie’s Asia Pacific since January 2019. He manages all Asia Pacific-based teams including the regional offices and is accountable for all transactions made by Asia-based collectors globally, across live, online, and private sales. Under his helm, Christie’s Asia Pacific has established a series of milestones and record-breaking results. Sales in Asia in the first half of 2022 reached a staggering US$487 million – the second highest ever first half year auction sale total for the region.

He has 17 years of experience in premium and luxury consumer goods. He joined Christie’s in 2016 as Global Managing Director, Asian Art, from his previous role with Swarovski, overseeing their business in Asia Pacific.

Francis began his career in Management Consulting at McKinsey & Co. in Europe and Asia. He is a member of the Board of Advisors for Kids Earth Fund in Japan and serves on various boards as non-executive Chairman and Independent Non-executive Director.

,

Hassan Ahmed

,

Head of Southeast Asia, Coinbase

Hassan Ahmed is an experienced operator and investor in web3 and fintech. He is currently the Regional Director of Southeast Asia at Coinbase, the largest crypto platform in the world. Prior to this, Hassan served a dual role at GoTo Group as Chief Executive Officer of Coins.ph, the leading crypto brokerage in the Philippines, and Head of Strategy for Gopay in Indonesia.

Prior to moving to Singapore, Hassan was based in New York as Director of Finance & Operations at eToro USA, where he was responsible for the launch of their regulated crypto social trading platform in the US. He also served as Head of Business Operations at Venmo and Vice President of Strategy at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in prior roles.

Hassan obtained his Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Nicolas Aguzin

Chief Executive Officer, HKEX

Nicolas Aguzin joined HKEX as Chief Executive Officer in 2021 from J.P. Morgan, where he was most recently Chief Executive Officer of J.P. Morgan’s International Private Bank.

He was the CEO of J.P. Morgan, Asia Pacific where he was responsible for all the firm’s business across 17 markets from 2013 to 2020. Concurrent with his Asia CEO role, Mr Aguzin also ran J.P. Morgan’s Investment Banking division in Asia. During his tenure the bank rose to become one of the leading investment banks in the Asia Pacific region.

He joined J.P. Morgan in 1990 in Buenos Aires. In 2005 he was appointed as CEO, Latin America. In subsequent years, he also served as CEO, Latin America, Head of Latin America Investment Banking, and Senior Country Officer for Brazil.

,

Johnny Adji

,

Alternatives Investment Leader, Asia, Mercer

Johnny Adji is a Senior Investment Director at Cambridge Associates, based in Singapore, and a member of the Real Assets Investment Group. This global group sources and monitors real asset investments (real estate, infrastructure and global natural resources), manages real asset portfolios for clients, and researches trends that impact on the real assets industry. He is also a member of the Credit team, which identifies, evaluates, and invests in both private and public credit strategies (senior debt, distressed credit, structured credit, etc.).

Johnny works with Asian clients such as SWF, pensions, and families in building their global and Asian real assets and credit portfolios. Johnny is a real estate and private credit specialist and focuses on investment idea generation and due diligence mostly in Asia. He is a frequent speaker at real asset and credit conferences in the region. He is a member of the firm’s Real Assets Investment Committee.

Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2011, Johnny worked in real estate roles such as research, valuations, buy-side/sell-side advisor, including portfolio manager and COO of Ajia Partners, an Asian value-add real estate fund and Co-Head of International Real Estate at HanaDaol Trust in Seoul. He started his career in 1996 at JLL in Indonesia and also worked for CBRE in Korea. In addition to English, he speaks Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese Mandarin, and Korean and has worked in Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Singapore.

Alexa Lowe

Senior Business Development Executive, Fauna & Flora International (FFI)

Alexa Lowe, Senior Business Development Executive, spearheads the USA program for Fauna & Flora International (FFI), the world’s first global wildlife conservation organisation. Before taking up this post in 2019 Alexa was CEO of Windsor Farm, an elite equestrian enterprise on a 200+ acre facility, where she directed global sales, national and international partnerships and investment strategies for over 20 years.

Her love for wildlife inspired her to follow her heart into the non-profit sector where she was first Co-chair of the Development Committee at Wild Earth Allies before taking up the reins as FFI’s guiding light in the USA. Alongside securing major philanthropic support to protect the world’s most threatened species, land and seascapes, Alexa continues to find time to compete in show jumping. She counts numerous grand prix wins and placings on her resume, including at the Hampton Classic, Winter Equestrian Festival, Tryon, Traverse City, Vermont Summer Festival, and the Global Champions Tour, and has ridden and trained with top connections in Europe.

His Excellency Faisal Al Ibrahim

Minister of Economy and Planning, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

H.E. Faisal F. Al-Ibrahim is the General Supervisor of the Secretariat of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA), and the Minister of Economy and Planning. H.E. AlIbrahim is also the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the National Development Fund and sits on a number of boards and committees.

Previously, H.E. Al-Ibrahim held several key roles at the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), including Vice President of Aramco Development Company, Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at New Business Development, Commercial Director of the Ras AlKhair Maritime Yard Project, and Project Director of the Vela-Bahri Transaction, and more recently advised at the Ministry of Economy and Planning and the Finance Committee Secretariat at the Royal Court.

H.E. Al-Ibrahim earned his MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, and holds a BS in Economics and a BS in Accounting from the Pennsylvania State University.

Natalia Modenova

Founder & Chief Operating Officer, DRESSX

Natalia has more than 10 years of experience in the fashion industry, her main activities include founding a showroom More Dash in Paris and international conference Fashion Tech Summit alongside her business partner Daria Shapovalova.

Natalia was a curator of the Fashion Business course at Kiev Fashion Institute, an expert at Google Woman Digital Academy. After 4 seasons as press-attaché at Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days, Natalia became it’s COO. Later she co-founded More Dash showroom in Paris, initiating and curating showcases for promotion and sales of the designers' collections internationally. In 2019 More Dash expanded to the US with its Fashion Experience Pop-Up Stores in Los Angeles. In 2020 Natalia (along with her co-founder) launched their first tech company DressX.

Iñigo Garcia Gordobil

Head of Investor Relations, Base10

Iñigo is Head of Investor Relations at Base10.

Iñigo manages the firm’s relationships with its LPs, including actively working on the firm’s direct investment and co-investment efforts. He joined the firm in 2022 after a long-standing relationship with Base10 as one of the firm’s first investors in his role at Cambridge Associates.

Before joining Base10, Iñigo worked in QIC’s Global Private Capital team, where he focused on venture capital and growth technology investments. Prior to QIC, Iñigo spent almost a decade in Cambridge Associates’s London and San Francisco offices, with a short stint in Singapore. His responsibilities included co-leading the firm’s US Venture Capital and US Growth Equity Research team and heading the firm’s Private Investments research efforts in Latin America.

Iñigo graduated from Franklin University Switzerland with a degree in International Banking & Finance.

Sara Eisen

“Closing Bell” Anchor, CNBC

Sara Eisen is anchor of CNBC’s “Closing Bell” (M-F, 3PM-4PM ET). She is known for her deep expertise in financial markets and the global economy as well as regular news making interviews with some of the most prominent names in the financial world. Previously, Eisen was co-anchor of the 10AM ET hour on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” (M-F, 9AM-11AM ET), which broadcasts from Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Before that, she was co-anchor of CNBC’s “Power Lunch” (M-F, 2PM-3PM ET) and co-anchor of CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange” (M-F, 5AM-6AM ET), both of which broadcast from CNBC Global Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. She joined CNBC in December 2013 as a correspondent, focusing on the global consumer. Prior to CNBC, Eisen was co-anchor of “Bloomberg Surveillance” as well as a correspondent for Bloomberg Television, where she covered global macroeconomics, policy and business. Eisen also hosted the Bloomberg Radio program, “On the Economy.” She is the editor of “Currencies After the Crash: The Uncertain Future of the Global Paper-Based Currency System” published by McGraw-Hill in Jan. 2013.

Ariel Seidman

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, Hivemapper

Ariel Seidman is a two-time entrepreneur. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Hivemapper

Prior to Hivemapper, Ariel has led teams of innovators as the the co-founder and CEO of Gigwalk a mobile mechanical turk serving all the leading mapping companies and a Fast Company Top 10 Mobile Innovation 2013.

Previous to that he was Director of Product Management at Yahoo Maps and Search where he fell in love with maps.

Will Wainewright

Editor, Alternative Fund Insight

Alternative Fund Insight explores the dynamic and complex world of hedge funds and private market investing through exclusive interviews with managers and other key industry players. Founder and editor Will Wainewright has reported on the sector for more than a decade in London and New York, working for the Bloomberg newswire and editing the trade magazine EuroHedge. He delivers AFI content via web articles, podcasts and other content.

Scott Sobel

Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Valor Capital Group

Scott Sobel, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Valor Capital Group, was part of the founding team of the pioneer Internet Telephony company Net2Phone; Scott helped take the company from a piece of software that was first to bridge the PC and the Public Switch Telephony Network to acquiring millions of users, generating over $200M in revenue, an IPO (1999) and the strategic sale of the company to AT&T for $1.4 Billion (2000). Scott went on to hold executive positions in Symbol Technologies working with the Mobile Computing and Wireless Divisions and NCR Corporation based in Singapore responsible for Corporate Development and later the P&L for the Financial Line of Business in the Emerging Markets. Scott was fortunate to be in a position to bring his skill sets, passions, and experiences to support other entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Brazil reach their visions. Scott holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Syracuse University.