Dr. V. Sivapalan

Chief Evangelist, Proficeo & Founder / Past President of the Technopreneurs Association of Malaysia (TeAM) & Chief Coach for GoGlobal

Dr.Siva comes from a diverse background of 27 years of global entrepreneurship in manufacturing, corporate consulting, corporate finance, venture capital and Entrepreneurship consulting in Asia.

He holds a Ph.D in Venture Capital studies from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland; an  MBA (with Distinction) from University of Hull, UK; an LLB (Hons) from University of London and is also a qualified Chartered Secretary. He is also a certified Trainer for the Kauffman Foundation ‘FastTrac’ program. Dr. Siva is also the Founder & Past President of the Technopreneurs Association of Malaysia (TeAM) and currently its Advisor. 

Dr. Siva is known for his candid and unconventional views on entrepreneurship, business and the economy and is a popular moderator, speaker, panelist and writer. He has spoken at conventions and seminars across the world from Asia to the USA including such distinguished institutions as the University of San Francisco and University of Texas (USA), Universities of Edinburgh, Nottingham, London City University in the UK, Gent (Belgium) and at universities in Malaysia and Thailand on the topics of Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, Strategy and Business. 

He has taught Entrepreneurship to Nottingham University MBA students and Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship to students at University of Edinburgh.

Dr. Siva has done business globally since 1990 when he was CEO of a manufacturing company and as a Consultant on Good Manufacturing Practice for the Healthcare industry. He regularly advises technology companies on globalising their business including for companies listed on Bursa Malaysia. 

Dr.Siva is/was also an active member of several Government & Government Agencies policy committees including:

• Ministry of Finance Special Working Committee on reviewing the funding ecosystem in Malaysia
• SME Corp Working Committee on SME Innovation
• MIGHT/MOSTI Working Committee on the Strategic Science and Technology Initiative and Action Plan for 2020
• The Securities Commission / Bursa Malaysia Committee on the revamp of the Malaysian Exchange and the formation of the Unified Board with specific emphasis on the ACE Market

Dr.Siva is/was also on the Evaluation and Approval Committees of many Government Funds and Grant Committees as follows:

• Approval Committee of the Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd (a Ministry of Finance Agency) for the Cradle Investment Program RM500,000 grant (CIP500),
• Evaluation Committee for the MSC Malaysia “Strategic Thrust Areas in Research” (STAR) Grant which provides grants of up to RM7.5 million for MNCs and Malaysian Multinationals.
• Evaluation Committee for the MSC Malaysia Multimedia Grant Scheme (MGS) which provides grants of up to RM1.2 million for MSC Status Companies
• Evaluation Committee of the MSC Malaysia Pre-Seed Grant which provides grants of up to RM150,000 for technology startups.

He has also advised the government on many matters and prepared recommendations for the Government such as:

• Recommendations on the New Economic Model in relation to the Technology Industry for TeAM
• Recommendations to PEMANDU (Performance Management and Delivery Unit, Prime Minister’s Office) on the Funding & Financing Ecosystem for Technology Companies
• Recommendations on the 10^th Malaysia Plan
• Consultant to Unit Innovasi Khas (UNIK) of the Prime Minister’s Office and helped formulate the National Innovation Policy for Technology Companies.

Dr.Siva is also a Mentor for the following organizations:  

• MSC Malaysia Mentor Program
• Cradle Fund
• International Mentor for Mentor Square

He regularly thinks ‘out-of-the-box’ and has proposed many unique ideas on business and entrepreneurship to industry and the government. Among his notable achievements are :

• First Malaysian to hold a Ph. D in venture capital
• Started the first Association for entrepreneurship in Malaysia (TeAM)
• Under his leadership TeAM was the first organisation to present a White Paper on Entrepreneurship to the Government of Malaysia, which included the then Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed
• First to organise a technology networking event in Malaysia in 1999 (cocktail@3Capital) before ‘networking’ became a fashionable word in Malaysia.
• Spent a month in the USA at the invitation of the US State Department as a visiting scholar under their International Visitor Leadetship Programme to study the impact of the New Economy on Business, Education and Government. Visits and meetings included dialogues with academia in Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University and University of Texas among others and included Government organisations as well as Corporations and Entrepreneurs.

Siva also contributes regularly to Malaysia’s No. 1 business magazine, “The Edge” with a column entitled ‘Money and Entrepreneurship’.

Dato’ Wong Siew Hai

Siew Hai Wong has 29 years of experience in the electronics industry. He has retired from Intel after 27 years of service. His last position with Intel was Vice President of Technology and Manufacturing Group (TMG) and General Manager of Assembly and Test Manufacturing (ATM), responsible for all assembly test factories world wide. Prior to this, he held many key positions in the company including Assembly Operations Manager, Managing Director of Intel Malaysia & General Manager of Intel’s 8-Bit Microcontroller Business Unit which was based in Arizona and its related Design Center in Penang. He was also Vice President & Managing Director of Dell’s Asia Pacific Customer Center, Penang, for about 2 years.

His involvement in the electronics industry and the community includes the following:

• Member of the Board of Governor of AMCHAM (American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce)
• Chairman of MAEI (Malaysian American Electronics Industry), an industry group of AMCHAM
• Member of the Board of Directors of Matrade, MITI (Malaysian External Trade  Development Corporation, an organization under the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia) and Chairman of its Audit Committee
• Member of the National IT Council, appointed by the Prime Minister (effective October 2010)
• Member of the Penang Science Council and is leading the Nurturing Pillar
• Committee member of the Penang Welfare Association for Mentally Retarded Children
• Committee member of the Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Northern Region.
• Faculty Advisor to the Engineering Faculty of the Multimedia University (MMU), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Member of the Advisory Peer Group for the School of Science and Technology of  Wawasan Open University, Malaysia
• Member of the Advisory Peer Group for the School of Business and Administration of  Wawasan Open University, Malaysia (2006 to 2009)
• Member of the Board of Director of SAM Engineering and Equipment Bhd (formerly known as LKT Industrial Bhd.) and member of the Board of a few private companies

In addition, he is a frequent speaker at both local and international seminars and conferences.

Dato’ SH Wong holds a Masters in Management Science degree from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, UK and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, UK. He also received an Outstanding Award in the two-month Management Development Program at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, Philippines.

Dr. Wilson Tay

A respected corporate and management leader, Dr Wilson Tay is also a well-established educator with a career spanning over 35 years in Australasia and Malaysia. Dr Wilson has worked in many senior and diverse roles in well-known multinational corporations and public institutions overseas and locally. Over the last 12 years, he has been involved in organizational turnaround and development, performance management, entrepreneurs’ development, executive coaching and business consultancy assignments in Australasia and Malaysia.

His overseas work experience included executive assignments with Curtin University of Technology, Price Waterhouse & Co, Dampier Salt Limited and CRA Limited (now Rio Tinto of Australia). He has held the position of Vice President of Multimedia Development Corporation as the Head of the MSC Technopreneur Development Flagship responsible for the development of Technopreneurs and the ICT SMEs and also was the former CEO of the Malaysian Institute of Management (MIM) where he was involved in the strategic leadership, turnaround and repositioning of the Institute. After he successfully turned around MIM, he retired from this chief executive role and returned to Vistage Chairing where he is involved in Chief Executive and Entrepreneurs coaching and business advisory. He is also currently the Chairman of TMS Berhad, a Bursa listed software and technology company.

Dr Wilson possesses multiple professional and academic qualifications. He holds professional fellowship and membership with the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Australian Society of Certified Practicing Accountants, the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, the Institute of Corporate Managers and Administrators in Australia, and is a Companion of the International Management Centres in United Kingdom and a registered Certified Financial Planner.

His academic qualifications include the Bachelor of Business, Graduate Diploma in Business & Administration, Master of Business from the Curtin University of Technology and Doctor of Management (with Distinction) from Southern Cross University in Australia. He has been an adjunct Associate Professor and Faculty Member of several local and overseas institutions of higher learning. His doctoral and post-doctoral areas of research interest and practice are in entrepreneurship and innovation, knowledge management and human capital development, and corporate performance and change management.

Dr. Naim Yunus

Naim Yunus (50) has been a Partner with DTA Capital Partners since late 2001. DTA is a Kuala Lumpur-based VC/PE company managing funds from Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd (Mavcap) and private investors. Prior to that, he was CTO of a new economy VC company in the Pacific Century CyberWorks group (PCCW) in Hong Kong.

In the 90s, he held various senior positions, including that of GSM Program Manager at Binariang Sdn Bhd (then a start-up, now Maxis), GM of Hicom Communications Sdn Bhd (the ICT start-up of Hicom Bhd), Project Consultant for the Generic Group plc of Cambridge (UK), and Hagemeyer Cosa-Liebermann Ltd (HK), and with new companies undertaking the Malaysian national MSC telemedicine projects. He also spent short periods with Telekom Malaysia and Celcom.

During 1985-90, Naim was a staff at Universiti Sains Malaysia and had stints with research centres in France, Germany and Australia. During 1991-93, he represented Malaysia in the GSM-MoU and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) meetings for global standardization. For the period 1994-95, he was in the National Microsatellite Steering Committee and in the Telecommunications and Aerospace groups of the Malaysian Industry-Government Group on High Technology (MIGHT) of the Prime Minister’s Department. He has advised the Malaysian Government regarding matters on ICT, nanotechnology and photonics.

Naim holds a BSc(Hon) in applied mathematics and a PhD in operations research, both from Adelaide University, completed in 1982 and 1985 respectively.

Dr. Brian O’Keeffe

Brian brings more than 20 years of experience in research programme management in developing and testing pharmaceuticals as well as considerable international business experience and government-sponsored clinical research in the USA.

As the regional medical director for Bayer Group in Asia, Dr. O’Keeffe was responsible for establishing a medical research and development organization and incorporating key Asian countries into many of the company’s new drug development programs. An 11-year resident of Singapore, Dr. O’Keeffe also served as president of Asia-Pacific business for Quintiles Transnational, a large contract research organization.

Among other achievements, Dr. O’Keeffe was a key member of Bayer’s international team that developed ciprofloxacin (Cipro), one of the world’s most widely used broad-spectrum antibiotics. His work has often involved research into vaccines and infectious disease therapies in resource-constrained and international settings.

Trained at British institutions, including London’s Royal College of Surgeons, Dr. O’Keeffe is a diplomate in surgery and general medicine, anesthesiology, obstetrics and gynecology, and pharmaceutical medicine, in addition to holding an M.B.A. from Birmingham University School of Business Studies. He is a member and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

Ross Settles

Ross Settles is a Knight International Journalism Fellow leading a project in Malaysia to integrate citizen journalists into the country’s leading independent news site.

Ross managed the online business operations for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Prior to SCMP, he directed marketing and business development efforts for Knight Ridder Digital, the online subsidiary of what was once the second largest U.S. newspaper publisher. During his tenure at Knight Ridder, Ross led efforts to invest in and implement strategies using new online technologies: social networking (Tribe Networks), vertical search (ShopLocal), news search and aggregation (Topix). Ross worked closely with local news and business operations to develop new business and distribution models for these new investments.

Before Knight Ridder, Ross led marketing and international development efforts for technology media company Red Herring Communications. Ross began his work in the newspaper industry at Times Mirror; he ran marketing for The Baltimore Sun and led product development for Times Mirror’s online subsidiary.

Ross joined Times Mirror after serving as publisher of the Open Society Institute-funded Open Media Research Institute (OMRI) in Prague. In this position, he oversaw commercial operations for this provider of independent reporting and analysis of developments in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Krish G. Krishnan

Krish is co-founder of Jeiva International Pte Ltd, a technology consulting company.

Jeiva’s technology practices are in Life Science, CleanTech/ Renewable Energy and Nanotechnology.  Consulting to international companies, regional firms and start-ups, Jeiva is the Asian consulting partner of ISIS Enterprise, University of Oxford.

Krish consults on strategy & growth, business development, innovation and technology commercialisation. From 2005 to 2010 Krish supported several start-ups through their critical fundraising and product development stages. In 2010 he mentored the divisional management of a USD 3.5 billion company, and led their growth and acquisitions strategy in a part-time general management role.

Earlier, over a 20-year corporate career, Krish managed marketing, international operations and innovation in global markets for Pharmacia, Novo Nordisk and Novozymes.  As co-founder of a successful and award-winning molecular diagnostics company, Krish has also lived through the travails of a life science entrepreneur.

Krish is a Charter Member of TiE, the world’s largest not-for-profit organisation promoting entrepreneurship. He is also a member of ABLE in India and BioSingapore.

When he’s not reading, watching movies or sleeping, Krish swings a squash racket or terrorises golf fairways.

Suresh Chandran

Suresh is the Director of Marketing for a Danish multinational company that is the global leader in industrial biotechnology.

As Head of a MNC business unit, he is involved in numerous projects around the areas of strategy direction, global go-to-market strategies, channel analysis & selection, ideations, pipeline development, PLC management and has worked on large scale 2nd generation biomass to ethanol strategies and partnerships in US, Europe and China.

Suresh also headed up a business unit within the MNC with turnover of USD 70 million with P&L responsibility and overseeing sales, marketing and technical areas.

Prior to that he was the Malaysian country manager for a regional automation company and grew the business from zero to a multi-million revenue company in just 8 years.

He has extensive international experience having worked in Denmark and China and travelled extensively throughout USA, Western Europe and the Asia Pacific region on marketing and business development work.

Suresh is also an active Angel investor in local and international startups in the Internet, Healthcare and Biotech space.

Suresh has an MBA from Victoria University, Australia and his hobbies include buying old properties, renovating and then re-selling (hopefully at a profit) and sports with his two football crazy sons.