Sui Ling Cheah

Venture Partner, Wavemaker Partners

Sui Ling Cheah is a Venture Partner with Wavemaker Partners, a venture capital firm based in Singapore that focuses on technology company investments, primarily in the B2B, deep tech and impact space.   She also serves as Executive Board Chair of privately held ESG startup ecoSPIRITS.  In addition, she holds board directorships at ParkwayLife REIT, CDL Hospitality REIT and Pathology Asia Holdings.  She is Chair of Audit Committee at ParkwayLife REIT and Pathology Asia Holdings. 

Ms Cheah has over 20 years of international investment banking and corporate experience.  Her banking career spanned across Singapore, Paris, Hong Kong, London and New York, focusing on capital raising transactions and cross border M&A for corporate clients.  Between 2010 to 2013, she was Co-Head of Corporate Finance for South East Asia at BNP Paribas.  Prior to that, she was a senior coverage banker for Singapore in the investment banking division of JP Morgan.  She started out her career at Merrill Lynch Investment Banking.

Ms Cheah graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and French from Wellesley College, Massachusetts in the US.

Miranda Carr

Head of Applied ESG & Climate Research, MSCI

Miranda Carr, who joined MSCI in January 2021, is Head of Applied ESG & Climate Research, with a focus on the key issues and developments in ESG & Climate in the Asian region. She has developed ESG integration frameworks for key APAC clients.

Prior to joining MSCI, Miranda was Senior ESG Analyst at Haitong International, one of China’s largest securities companies, where she worked from 2015-20 and launched their ‘ESG in Asia’ research product. Before that, she spent 8 years analyzing Chinese government policy and investment strategy as Head of Research for an independent research company, NSBO, in London/Beijing.

In 2003, she obtained an MSc from Bayes Business School (formerly CASS Business School), where she focused on Socially Responsible Investment.

Key work at MSCI:

• Annual APAC ESG Trends papers, analyzing ESG & Climate performance and development in the APAC markets.

• Position paper on reporting ESG & Climate in long/short portfolios.

• Major ESG integration project and risk/return analysis on global ESG performance for key Asian asset owner.

• Member of Singapore and Australian Taxonomy industry working groups and co-author of paper on APAC ESG & Climate regulatory landscape.

Nydia Zhang

Investment Director, Ferretto Capital

Nydia focuses on alternative investments at Ferretto Capital. Prior to joining Ferretto, Nydia led investment strategy for APAC at FTW Ventures, an early-stage food-tech venture firm.

An art history major by training, Nydia started her career working at Massimo De Carlo in Hong Kong. Afterward, she co-founded the not-for-profit grant-making foundation Social Alpha Foundation, dedicated to funding Blockchain for social impact programs globally. She also served as Chair of Advisory Council of The Good Food Institute (GFI) Asia Pacific, Director's Circle of SFMOMA and is also a member of the fundraising board of The Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children.

Suhaimi Zainul-Abidin

Chief Executive Officer, QuantEdge

Suhaimi Zainul-Abidin is a Director of Quantedge Capital and Quantedge Global Fund. Prior to joining Quantedge in 2013, Suhaimi was a Partner in the Banking & Finance practice of Allen & Gledhill LLP. While in practice, he was named by various legal profession and industry guides as a leading and notable legal practitioner in his area of specialization. Suhaimi graduated from the University of Nottingham with an LLB (Hons) degree and was called to the Singapore Bar in 2005 when he joined Allen & Gledhill LLP. He holds several board and equivalent positions at a number of Singapore government-related agencies and entities, including the National Environment Agency, the SkillsFuture Singapore Agency and the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre. He is also a director of Quantedge Foundation.

Bonnie Yu, CFA, FRM

Director - External Portfolio Management, CDPQ

Bonnie Yu, CFA, FRM oversees the development of CDPQ’s external portfolio management program within the Asia Pacific region. Ms. Yu joined CDPQ in 2008 and has been based in Singapore since 2015. Prior to CDPQ, she worked at Desjardins Securities and HSBC Securities, specializing in public equities and options trading. She originates from Hong Kong and was educated in Quebec, Canada from an early age. Ms. Yu holds an MBA in Investment Management from Concordia University.

Kelly Yang

Chief Investment Officer, HOH Capital Partners

I have been working in the Asia family wealth industry for 18 years. The first family was from mainland China and now based in Singapore I am with a single family office originated from India. The office manages multi asset portfolios globally. I had the LLM degree from Singapore Management University and Master of Computing from National University of Singapore.

Helena Wasserman Eriksson

Head of Business Development, Top Tier Impact

Helena started her career eager to find solutions to the world's most pressing global issues by working at The Clinton Foundation and at Ashoka. Excited by the impact of technology on every aspect of life she then worked for Techstars and Big Data for Humans.

Today she is on a mission to accelerate the transition to impact and sustainability as the default way of investing.

She currently works for Top Tier Impact the global ecosystem for impact leaders where she overseas membership and programming. She is also an angel investor in food, mental health and climate tech.

Passionate about solving old problems in new creative ways by getting people to think outside the box to create a better world. The New School and London School of Economics graduate. Elected Founder of the Future in 2016, Forbes 30 under 30 in 2017 and one of the 50 most inspirational women in technology in Europe in 2017.

Sophia Tsai

Managing Director, Trinity Church Wall Street

Sophia Tsai is Managing Director of Investments at Trinity Church Wall Street, a $7 billion endowment that invests globally.  Sophia has more than twenty years of experience in asset allocation and manager selection across alternative and traditional asset classes, and direct and fund investing in North America and Asia.

Prior to joining Trinity Wall Street in 2017, Sophia was Managing Director and Co-Head of Hedge Funds at State Street Global Advisors.  She co-led the hedge fund program and was also responsible for private equity direct investments, co-investments and fund investments for GE Pension.  Sophia joined State Street in 2016 through its acquisition of GE Asset Management.  At GE, Sophia was based in the US more recently for eleven years, and also held several roles in Asia during 1995 to 2005 at three GE Capital divisions including GE Equity, GE Capital Asia Pacific’s M&A Group and GE Capital Finance.

Sophia holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong.  She also received a BBA in Accounting from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  Sophia is a CFA charterholder.

Motoki Tani

Chief Executive Officer, Animoca Brands Japan

Motoki Tani leads Animoca Brands Japan (ABKK) team with the mission to bring Japanese IP to the world and to bring Japan to Web3. ABKK was founded with the support and investment from major publishers and financial institutions in Japan to help the country with its national growth strategy in Web3.

Prior to co-founding ABKK, Moto was a Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager at Millennium Capital Management where he was responsible for Japan Macro Strategy Investments.

Before joining Millennium, he was a Portfolio Manager at Complus Asset Management and was responsible for running JPY Bond Trading business at JP Morgan. Moto started his career as a consultant at Price Waterhouse and spent time as a derivatives trader at Bankers Trust and credit trader at Merrill Lynch.

Moto is a member of the Board of Directors at Shiraiwa, sake maker of IWA, to bring Sake to the world. He has co-founded Curioo Kids Japan to bring innovative learning to Japan.
He is an avid sports lover, taking a position as a Board of Director at Japan Sports Academy. Moto is also an advisor, member, MC, Auctioneer at my charity organizations.

Moto was born in Japan and moved to the United States at the age of 9 years old, where he grew up in Los Angeles and Mercer Island, WA.

Moto holds a BA in Government from Cornell University.

Darius Sit

Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer, QCP Capital

Darius Sit is a Founder and Chief Investment Officer at QCP Capital, a full-suite crypto trading firm and global leader in the options market that brings institutional strategies and solutions to clients.

He started QCP Capital in 2017 as a trading desk with just two people. Today, the company has grown rapidly to over 80 employees and is headquartered in Singapore. With deep multi-cycle experience, QCP Capital aims to unlock new opportunities for clients at the forefront of crypto capital markets, through providing institutional-grade liquidity, infrastructure and research.

Under his leadership, QCP Capital has been an active early-stage investor in the crypto and blockchain ecosystems. Many of these investments are not just in core trading infrastructure (Deribit, Paradigm, dYdX, Tokocrypto) and data (Skew, Nansen AI), but have also helped build token ecosystems (Algorand, Avalanche, Oasis) and DeFi protocols, particularly on-chain derivatives.

Darius was formerly a trader at Dymon Asia Capital and BNP Paribas in Singapore and New York. He graduated from the National University of Singapore with First Class Honours in Finance, with a minor in Comparative Religion.

Milena Nikolova

Partner, Aera VC

Milena is Partner at Aera VC, a global venture capital firm investing at early stage in breakthrough technologies that accelerate the world to a more sustainable future. Aera VC invests in transformative solutions to reversing climate change and have strong focus on decarbonising industry and the future of food.

Milena has over 20 years of finance experience, spanning investment banking, wealth management, venture capital investing and startup advisory. She is a strong believer that directing capital for impact can be a powerful force for good without compromising financial returns.

Anuj Maheshwari

Head, Agri-Food, Temasek

Anuj is Managing Director and Head of Agri-Food at Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore. He also is part of the leadership team which overseas Africa and Middle East.

Anuj founded Temasek Food & Agriculture team in 2013 and since then Temasek has invested over US$8 billion in global farm-to-fork value chain including in over 30 start-ups (such as Impossible Foods, Apeel, Pivot Bio, Bowery, Farmer Business Network) and many innovative technology-focused companies with the collective purpose to drive resiliency and greater efficiency in global food supplies while promoting environmental sustainability and social impact in line with UN SDG goals and Net Zero 2050 targets.

Anuj serves on the board of Rivulis (a leading micro irrigation company) Ceva Sante Animale (a leading animal health company), Temasek Lifesciences Accelerator, Tana Africa Capital and Asia Sustainable Foods Platform.

Anuj joined Temasek in 2004 as a founding member of Temasek’s India team where he led investments in TMT, Consumer Goods and Power & Infrastructure till 2013.

Anuj holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School where he graduated with Distinction.

Anuj lives in Singapore with his wife and two daughters.

Kishore Mahbubani

Founding Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore

Kishore Mahbubani is widely considered to be one of Asia’s leading global public intellectuals, having appeared several times in Foreign Policy Magazine’s list of top 100 global thinkers. In 2014, he was also listed by The Financial Times as one of the 50 individuals who would shape the debate on the future of capitalism.  Perhaps the best summary of Kishore’s contributions was made in the citation for the US Foreign Policy Association Medal he received in June 2004: “a gifted diplomat, a student of history and philosophy, a provocative writer and an intuitive thinker.”

Kishore has enjoyed three distinguished careers: in diplomacy, academia, and writing and speaking. In diplomacy, he served in the Singapore Foreign Service for 33 years (serving also as permanent secretary (CEO) of the foreign ministry and two stints as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN). In academia, he was the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS which is deemed to be the premier school in Asia in its field.

He has spoken, written, and published in all corners of the world. He is the author of eight books including Can Asians Think? and Has China Won?. His TED talk has been viewed 2.2m times. Albert H. Gordon Lecture he delivered in Harvard has also been viewed on YouTube over 1.6m times. Over a dozen of videos have had over 100,000 views. 

He has also received many awards. In 1967, he was awarded the President Scholar. He was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Gold) by the Singapore Government in 1998. He was also given the 2003–2004 Dr Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award by the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) at Tufts University. In April 2019, he was the second Singaporean to be elected as an honorary international member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Kher Sheng Lee

Managing Director, Co-Head of APAC and Deputy Global Head of Government Affairs, AIMA

Kher Sheng leads AIMA’s policy and regulatory initiatives in the APAC region and also operates as a senior ambassador for AIMA and the industry it represents. In his role, he works closely together with Michael Bugel (his Co-Head of APAC) to shape and deliver AIMA’s strategy for the APAC region. He is commended by the Financial Times in the FT Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyers which observed he "has played an important role developing asset management standards in Hong Kong". He has been named to the Corporate Counsel 100: Asia Pacific by the global legal rankings publication Legal 500 which identifies "an array of the most influential and innovative in-house lawyers in Asia".

Kher Sheng received his LL.B (Hons) degree from the National University of Singapore law school, and is admitted to practise law in Singapore (Advocate & Solicitor), Hong Kong (Solicitor) and England & Wales (Solicitor-Advocate with full rights of audience in all criminal and civil proceedings in the higher courts). He is appointed a Notary Public by the Chief Judge of the High Court of Hong Kong. He is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb) and a Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators (FSIArb). He is an accredited mediator with the Singapore Mediation Centre, and UK CEDR (for both commercial and workplace mediation). He is trained in negotiation and mediation with the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. Kher Sheng has lived and worked in Singapore, London and Hong Kong. He is a CFA and CAIA charter holder.

Lily Jin

Merit Scholar, Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Mailman School of Public Health

Lily is a Merit Scholar at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Mailman School of Public Health. Formerly known as the Inclusive Healthcare in Asia initiative, she authored the original investment report on healthcare investments and innovation in Asia. The initiative underwrites inclusive healthcare asset managers, businesses, and startups that advance health accessibility, equitability, and literacy. She hosted the inaugural Inclusive Healthcare Asia forum and was recognized by The Economist as a keynote speaker. Building on this momentum, she founded the New Health Investment Institute with the mission to accelerate healthcare investments while promoting innovation and inclusion through periodic investment research.

She is the founder of HerValue, the largest, only women empowerment organization for finance and investment in China. Under her leadership, HerValue made history by hosting the first diversity & sustainability investment conference in China and firmly put diversity, equity, and inclusion principles on the map in China. She was recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and a woman community leader in the "Women community leader and Their Impact as Global Changemakers" textbook by IGI Global, a leading international academic publisher.

Lily also does investments in South Asia at a multilateral development finance institution, an organization that advances development by backing companies and asset managers in member nations. Prior, she was an international investment banker based in New York City.

Kif Ho

Associate Director, Singapore Management University Investment Office

Kif Ho has over 15 years of investing experience over multiple asset classes, and is passionate about long-term multi-asset investing, venture capital and hedge funds. He is a quantitative asset allocation expert who has studied extensively on competing asset allocation frameworks (Traditional stock/bond, Endowment, Risk Parity & Alternative Risk Premia) and develops industry-leading ex-ante risk tools, asset-liability framework, strategic asset allocation framework for managing multi-asset portfolio including iliquids & private investments. He strives to incorporate the latest quantitative techniques to improve overall asset allocation decisions, risk premium extraction and risk-adjusted outcomes to create the most modern & sophisticated endowment model in Asia.

Prior to Singapore Management University, Kif traded various asset classes and managed investments at UBS, Apollo and Asia Genesis , Kif was chosen to the Class of 2021 Next Gen CIO among an illustrious group or rising stars in the world of allocators by the ai-CIO and also a member of Milken Institute’s Global Markets Advisory Council. Kif received his Master of Financial Engineering degree from Nanyang Technological University and is a Financial Risk Manager (FRM) charterholder.

Matthew Heller

Chief Executive Officer, FTX Digital Holdings

Before joining FTX, Matt was a director at Google where he built Google’s channel sales business for SE Asia and India and the Skills Ignition Partnership with the Singapore Government to upskill 3000 job seekers impacted by the covid 19 pandemic. Prior to Google, Matt was a VP at National Geographic Society, and a tech and public policy researcher at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government program in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Matt has been living in Singapore since 2010.

Lawrence Chu

Founder & Chairman, BlackPine

Lawrence Chu is the Chairman of BlackPine; BlackPine is a private investment company focused on transformative industries that advance humanity. BlackPine’s portfolio includes blockchain, AI/ML, alternative protein, eSports and new economy sectors such as carbon neutrality, quantum computing and space exploration. For more information visit: https://bppe.com

Lawrence is also the founder & Chairman of VSFG. VSFG is a digital wealth management platform based in Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai. The firm is Hong Kong’s first Securities and Futures Commission (“SFC”) approved digital asset manager, allowing VSFG to manage portfolios that may invest up to 100% of assets in crypto assets, and appointed as the investment advisor of the first regulated cryptocurrency fund in since June 2020. For more information visit: http://vsfg.com

With over 15 years of international investment experience. He began his career at UBS Warburg investment banking groups in London and Hong Kong. After which, he took on the role of strategy executive in the Chairman’s office of EMI Music before moving back to Asia as a portfolio manager at UBS O’Connor.

Lawrence is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization ("YPO"), and an avid member of the arts community serving organizations such as the Smart Museum in Chicago, Afield fellowships, and the Tate Asia Pacific Acquisitions Committee.

Eric Chng

Senior Managing Director, Head of Alternatives & Insurance Segments, Asia Pacific, State Street

Eric Chng is head of Alternative and Insurance Client Segments, Asia Pacific (APAC), at State Street. Based in Singapore, Eric is responsible for the strategic direction, solutions structuring, thought leadership, client experience and the overall growth of both segments in APAC.

Eric has two decades of experience in the financial markets spanning sell-side front office trading and structuring, centralized exchange and institutional banking. Prior to joining State Street in August 2021, Eric was the regional head of business development for Citco where he was responsible for the strategic growth of the APAC region across hedge fund, private equity, real assets and private client segments. Previously, Eric worked for BNY Mellon where he held key management roles across Corporate Trust and Asset Servicing business divisions and played a key role in the region’s growth across corporates, asset owners, insurance, alternatives and official institutions segments. Eric also held senior roles at Singapore Exchange, Daiwa Capital Markets and Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking.

Eric holds a master’s degree in business administration from Macquarie Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Business Management from University of Bradford.

Punk6529

NFT Collector & Investor

Punk6529 is among the world’s foremost collectors, investors and thought leaders in the NFT space, well-known for his extensive tweetstorms on NFTs and decentralization.  6529 is a leading advocate of the "open metaverse" - namely that the architecture of the metaverse should be decentralized and interoperable and, specifically, that NFTs could serve in this role.

6529 is active in several key areas: a) the 6529 Museum is a very extensive NFT museum, with a particular focus on generative art; b) 6529 Capital is a leading asset manager in the NFT space and c) OM, which is building an open, decentralized metaverse.

More information can be found at 6529.io