By Edward Lim
It’s hard to let go when you’re one of the richest man in the world and leading one, if not the biggest, e-commerce company in the world. But, Jack Ma is a man of his word. A man who knows his time and a man who has shown what resilience is all about.
Fujitsu Hong Kong has appointed Leo Ng as Chief Executive Officer. An industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in Greater China and Asia Pacific, Ng will chart the company’s direction and business strategy, steering the company on its transformation journey by supporting customers to embrace cutting edge technologies such as AI and IoT in the digital era.
The number is staggering even if the company is Amazon. Jeff Bezos has announced that Amazon Prime has more than 100 million members globally.
Continue reading “Amazon has more than 100m Prime subscribers”
An Asean scholar disgruntled with his grades hacked his professor’s account to bump himself from B to A-. The Singapore Management University (SMU) student was soon found out and will be spending four months in prison reflecting on his folly.
More than 1,000 participants attending the NVIDIA AI Conference in Singapore next week are in for a treat as the organisers are bringing in a tantalising line-up of speakers.
The two keynote speakers are Dr David B Kirk, NVIDIA Fellow and inventor of more than 60 patents and patent applications relating to graphics design; and Dr Wanli Min, AI scientist of Alibaba Cloud, who will touch on A Revolutionary Road to Data Intelligence.
Besides these two, there are special guest-of-honour Chng Kai Fong, Managing Director of Singapore’s Economic Development Board, and a panel discussion on AI for the Future of Singapore Economy.
Continue reading “Tantalising line-up of speakers at NVIDIA AI Conference”
Appier has appointed Sean Chu as Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) to lead its operations in Japan and Korea. Chu will help drive the company’s growth as it moves to create new AI platforms to help enterprises solve their business challenges.
Chu brings over two decades of experience in enterprise technology and media. Before joining Appier, Chu served as Senior Director, Central Marketing Group, at Microsoft Japan. He has also held leadership positions in a variety of companies including Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and Motorola. He has worked in the US and supported operations in Europe and Asia.
Appier believes AI can help enterprises deal with today’s rapidly changing business environment, helping them process enormous amounts of data to identify patterns and make intelligent decisions. Appier’s first product, the CrossX Programmatic Platform, brought AI into digital marketing. Its second, Aixon, is a data intelligence platform that allows business users at a variety of enterprises to discover new customers, enrich their understanding of their customer base, and make predictions using AI.
Hong Kong-based NTT Com Asia, the East Asia headquarters of NTT Communications, has named Hideaki Ozaki as President and CEO, Theodoric Chan as Chief Commercial Officer and Mr. Taylor Man as Chief Technology Officer.
The three executives will oversee business strategies and development in the East Asia region covering Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Korea. They bring decades of industry experience driving development of NTT Communications’ business with enterprises and ICT partners in Japan and other Asian markets to their new roles at NTT Com Asia.
NVIDIA has named Raymond Teh as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the Asia Pacific region.
An IT veteran with more than 30 years of experience, Teh will lead the company’s APAC field sales efforts. He succeeds Francis Yu, who joined NVIDIA 12 years ago and is retiring later this year.
Teh most recently served as vice president, Asia-Pacific, for Vodafone Global Enterprise. He previously held senior regional management roles at BT, GXS, SAP, and i2 Technologies. He holds a BSc in computer science and a Masters in Statistics from the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Harvard Business Review has included nine CEOs of IT companies among its Top 100 Best Performing CEOs in the world.
Slotting in among the top 50 are Cisco’s John Chambers (#2), Seagate Technology’s Stephen Luczo (#5), Canon’s Fujio Mitarai (#10), NVIDIA’s Jen-Hsun Huang (#29), and Hon Hai Precision Industry’s Terry Gou (#33).
The new study in the November issue of Harvard Business Review rated CEOs based on an 80-20 weighting between the company’s financial performance and its performance on environmental, social and governance criteria.
Continue reading “9 IT CEOs make Harvard Business Review Top 100 list”
Adrian Jones is Symantec’s new Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific and Japan. He will be responsible for growing the company’s presence and market position across the region, in addition to leading business operations and business development.
Jones has held senior leadership roles with technology companies across multiple geographies. Most recently, he was the General Manager and Senior Vice President of Oracle Asia Pacific.
Prior to joining Oracle, he was Senior Vice President of Enterprise Servers, Storage, and Networking responsible for driving global customer relationships and channel partnerships at Hewlett Packard (HP) in Asia Pacific and Japan. He also held the position of Vice President and General Manager of HP’s Americas Solution Partners managing all channel partnerships throughout Canada.
Dr Paul E Jacobs, Chairman and CEO of Qualcomm, has been named the recipient of the 2014 GSMA Chairman’s Award. Established in 1995, the award recognises outstanding personal contribution to the growth and development of mobile communications around the world.
“This award recognises Paul’s long-term contribution, as well as that of Qualcomm, in delivering sustained innovation, ecosystem investment and a commitment to the convergence of technology standards for next-generation interoperability. The mobile industry has been a major beneficiary of his commitment to innovation and leadership, as have the billions of men and women around the world whose lives have been changed by mobile,” said Jon Fredrik, Chairman of GSMA.
Founded in 1985, Qualcomm has become one of the telecommunications industry’s greatest start-up success stories, pioneering some of the most significant innovations and technical developments and through its unique business model, heavily investing in R&D and broadly licensing its intellectual property to more than 250 companies across the industry.
Continue reading “Qualcomm CEO receives 2014 GSMA Chairman’s Award”
Samsung Electronics has appointed Moon Soo Kim as President and CEO of Southeast Asia Headquarters. Kim will lead all of Samsung Electronics’ businesses in Southeast Asia and Oceania to further strengthen the company’s position in the region.
He has previously served on Samsung Corporate’s Strategy team for nearly four years, advancing Samsung’s mission to devote its talent and technology to create products and services that contribute to a better global society. Prior to that, he was also Managing Director of Samsung Electronics United Kingdom for three years where he was instrumental in leading its growth.
In his new role, Kim will leverage his experience in operational excellence and business management to continue to build Samsung Electronic’s success in the Southeast Asia and Oceania region.
Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President and CEO of Telenor Group, has been elected as the new GSMA Chairman for the remainder of the current board term through December 2014.
Baksaas will oversee the strategic direction of the organisation, which represents nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as 250 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem. He had served as Deputy Chairman since January 2011. He has worked in the telecom industry for 25 years and has been the CEO of Telenor since 2002.
“I look forward to working closely with the rest of the board, the GSMA team and our entire membership to advance important industry issues. It is truly inspiring to work in an industry that has such a profound and increasing impact on the people and societies we serve,” said Baksaas.
Dr Qiang Yang, Head of Huawei’s Noah’s Ark Lab, has been elected a fellow of AAAI (the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence).
AAAI Fellow is the highest honour in the artificial intelligence (AI) community, recognising a small group of AAAI members who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of artificial intelligence. This year, AAAI elected eight fellows from across the world.
Yang is the 1st AAAI Fellow in Greater China and first among Chinese Scientists worldwide. He was elected “for significant contributions to AI planning, data mining and case-based reasoning” in AI. Yang is already a fellow of the institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, International Association for Pattern Recognition, and The American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Continue reading “Huawei lab head first Chinese to receive AAAI fellowship”
NVIDIA has named Colette Kress, a 24-year veteran of the tech industry, as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The appointment takes effect later this month.
Kress most recently served for three years as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Cisco’s Business Technology and Operations Finance organisation where she was responsible for financial strategy, planning, reporting and business development for all business segments, engineering, and operations.
Previously, she spent 13 years at Microsoft, including four years as Chief Financial Officer of the Server and Tools division, and held senior roles in corporate planning and finance. Prior to that, she served at Texas Instruments in a variety of finance positions.
Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTPC) has appointed Allen Ma as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), succeeding E Anthony Tan, who has held the position since April 2008.
Joining as CEO-designate on July 22 and taking office on August 1 , Ma believes technology plays a key role in fuelling Hong Kong’s economic transformation and will draw on his 30 years of industrial and business experience to increase the competitiveness of the city as a regional hub for science and technology innovation while building ever stronger collaboration with the Mainland.
His key focus will be to advance HKSTPC’s mission to provide world-class infrastructure and services and promote Hong Kong as a regional hub of innovation and technology.
GSMA has elected new board members for the two-year period from January 2013 through December 2014. It also has re-elected Franco Bernabè, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Telecom Italia Group, as its Chairman, and Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President and CEO, Telenor Group as its Deputy Chairman, for a second term in these roles.
Bernabè has served as GSMA Chairman since January 2011, overseeing the strategic direction of the organisation, which represents nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 230 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem. Baksaas has also served as Deputy Chairman since January 2011.
Nicholas Brooke, Chairman of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTPC), has been awarded the “Directors of the Year Awards 2012” by The Hong Kong Institute of Directors.
The annual award is highly regarded by the business community, and aims to publicise the significance of good corporate governance, and recognise boards and directors for their outstanding efforts in promoting and practising high standards of corporate governance.
Entering its 12th year, the Awards adopted the theme, “Enhancing Board Competence through Continuing Professional Development for Directors” for 2012, which focused on the importance of a proactive and ongoing approach to enhancing the effectiveness of the Board operations.
Brooke has served on the Board of HKSTPC for 11 years since the Corporation’s inception in 2001, and has been actively involved in its policy making, strategy formulation and business development. In the capacity of Chairman of HKSTPC since 2007, he has led the Corporation in enhancing its corporate governance and operational efficiency. He also plays a key role in strengthening the role of the Corporation in building a world-class technology hub for the region and advancing the development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong.
