Ideas > Dream > Share > Grow > 

I'm passionate about:
Creating and launching new enterprises

Designing new concepts, products, services

Building innovative cultures

Crowd-sourcing, collaborative creation, creatocracy

Talk to me about:
Ideas and innovation

Building inventive teams and creative cultures

Creating and growing new endeavours, both profit and not-for-profit.

Crowdsourcing and creatocracy

Investment and venture finance

Economic development and history

 
M y   P r o f i l e:
I am an:  Idea generator, innovator, new endeavour builder, polymath, mentor, financier, educator, marketer,  internationalist, world traveller, and global soul.


T h i n g s   I   H a ve   D o n e   I n  M y   P r o f e s s i o n a l   L i f e   S i n c e  1 9 9 6.

> Building, growing and funding ideas into reality.
I have been on different sides of the entrepreneurial fence as an early Internet investor since 1995,  a high-tech investor in two venture capital firms The Pacific Rim and South East Asia, worked in a Silicon Valley startup team, helped people as a business mentor, advisor and angel investor, innovation catalyst-facilitator, and have also founded created and grown numerous new enterprises with people:

Founding Curator of TEDxSingapore: Ideas Worth Spreading 

Founder of IdeasWorthDoing.org

Board Member B1G1 Giving, global social enterprise

Business Advisor, SPRING Singapore-SMU

Founding associate partner of Evolusia, helping enterprises explore, enter and expand 

Mergers & Acquisition  Advisor to a Singapore SME

Launch of egbrain, new neuroscience based market research tool.

Chief designer of Project XM, a innovative high-tech product and spin-off in stealth mode, 2009.

Worked as a venture capitalist a US$800 million high-tech VC firm investing in Asia, Australia and Silicon Valley, and in a US$200 million Asian VC specialised in Internet and Interactive Digital Media:   Identified attractive new business opportunities, assessed compellingness, market and commercial  viability of numerous new technology products and businesses, and guided the corporate growth and funding of portfolio companies.

Built and executed the strategy, marketing and operations of a new business unit for the Asia Pacific HQ of a US company, 2007.

Arranged joint R&D and co-marketing agreements and seed funding for a Singapore e-learning startup that expanded regionally over 4 years and IPO-ed in 2005.

Business and funding mentor to the founding CEO and team of an innovative Singapore company and helped them refine their business plan and raise venture funding, obtaining a $3mil funding offer from a global venture capital firm.  The company supplies mission-critical operational technology to thousands of outlets of the world’s most well-known fast food chain.

Conceptualised new business and consumer applications for a Silicon Valley company based on their core technology, and designed a differentiated new product launched in a highly competitive marketplace.

CNET feature writer on technology and venture capital, founder of Dave's Dispatches, an e-zine reporting on developments in the Internet and high-tech industry from 1999 to 2001.


> Inspiring and enabling innovative, inventive, and creative cultures.

Designer of innovation frameworks.

Judge and facilitator for EDB Beta SG, NTU Ideas Inc, U.Adelaide Entrepreneurial challenge, NUS Start-up business plan competition.

Certified trainer in Emergenetics® a professional development tool used to build leadership and teams.
Speaking and conducting class workshops at universities about creativity, creativity cultures and entrepreneurship.

Innovation catalyst with DesignEngage facilitator of DesignForEnterprises, Singapore

Presented a creating creativity cultures session at The American Creativity Association 20th Anniversary Conference.

Educator at universities and a polytechnic in Singapore and overseas.  Lecturer in Strategy, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University.


> Global economist, fund manager and central banker 

Member of a 12-person global fund management team of the central bank of Singapore investing US$100 billion and acquired much experience and understanding of international equities, bond and foreign exchange markets, investments, economics, and risk management, 1996-99

Member of a 4-person currency and interest rate management team, responsible for the defense of the  Singapore dollar and the stability of Singapore's monetary system during Currency Crises of 1997.

Researched, analysed, wrote and presented numerous industry, financial sector and economic analyses for the management of the central bank and offices of the Government and Ministries.

Member of a cross-department and private sector industry team that designed, tested and launched RTGS, a nation-wide real-time electronic transaction system handling all inter-bank payments in Singapore, in operation since 1999.  Conceptualized and designed a blueprint for an online e-bidding system for national bond auctions of $500 mil to $1,000 million in operation since 2002.

Organised International Monetary Fund Article-4 Consultation with Singapore, 1999.

M y  K n o w l e d g e   a n d   E d u c a t i o n  

Social business bootcamp, Grameen Innovation Lab

Pathfinder programme in Social Innovation, Young Foundation's Global Innovation Academy

Search engine marketing professional, Google and Yahoo certifications.

CPM- Certified Professional Marketer.

Masters in business- Strategy, investment finance, marketing, corporate and IP law.

Bachelor of Arts- Honours Economics + comprehensive social sciences: international relations, pyschology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy.

Post-graduate diploma in Asia Pacific marketing

Professional diploma in computer science.

Numerous professional and finance courses at International Monetary Fund and Federal Reserve Bank New York, accounting and financial analysis, equity investing, Mergers and Acquisitions, Business communications, public speaking and presentation. 

Universities I have studied at: 
Stanford University and University of California- Berkeley, San Francisco.
U of New South Wales, Sydney.
U of British Columbia, Vancouver.

P e r s o n a l   I n t e r e s t s   a n d    A c t i v i t i e s