The CMO Asia Podcast

About our guest: Darren is a digital transformation subject matter expert. He has worked with large enterprises all over the world on their digital plans and change programmes. He heads up Digital Transformation and Digital Ventures for Google across Asia-Pacific, Japan and China. Darren can now call upon the vast Google and Alphabet resources to help customers with their transformation journey. Previously Darren led a consulting transformation team in Amazon Web Services, where he was responsible for some of their largest digital transformations globally.

In this episode, I'll get to jam with him on topics ranging from #customerexperience #CX #digitaltransformation #trust #in #technology #digitalbanking #superapps ##google #company #culture #workfromhome He shares with us:

- Why #superapps are gaining popularity in Asia and building their own “Google Play Store” experience
- Whether super apps with bigger platforms, more channels, user segments and more apps in the ecosystem with optimal integration OR standalone/ separate apps like Facebook Messenger, Amazon Prime will enhance brand, loyalty and CX
- How do Brands and businesses in East implement CX vs the West that brings the innovation and blueprint
- What are you some successful verticals and companies that outperform those in the west
- What can the East teach the West?
- Why #retailbanking is an area he think is right in the middle of that disruptive storm?
- Bill Gates famously said “Banking is necessary, banks are not” back in 1994 - Is he right?
- Who are banks looking to target with digital solutions? Do they look at gen Z and millennial or are they sticking to gen X and baby boomers who have more money and greater life commitments (need for loans, mortgages etc) than say millennials
- While digitalisation has arguably never been more important than it is today, is there enough buy-in from businesses especially in Asia?
- How much of digital transformation is technology and how much of it is about culture and mindset
- Whether the right balance can be found in Governments’ encouragement of contact tracing apps in the fight against COVID-19, which has thrown open the question of public health versus data privacy
- Does he expect, Post-COVID, trust in technology to increase
- What are his thoughts on flexible working becoming a salient feature of the new normal? How does Google and the employees adapt to WFH (P.S. Alphabet Inc's Google announcend it would allow employees, who do not need to be in the office, to work from home until the end of June 2021)

We have Heather Osgood joining us as our special guest for our first ever Facebook Live stream episode over the weekend. We asked Heather:

- How the Covid-19 situation is currently affecting her?
- What she is seeing, how she is acting as a business owner, is doing anything differently right now than she were doing 2 weeks ago?
- What are her views on limiting media consumption, how important is that for her and her well being right now?
- What is her 15min rule mindset - which states that you can't worry about anything if it isn't going to happen in the next 15 minutes - that has helped her and also will help our listeners to manage anxieties but also make transformational change with our business and life
- What is her career, business and entrepreneurial journey that got her to where she is right now; What exactly her company true native media agency does?
- What are the things business can embark on during these challenging times? Her views that for some companies, this is a great time to experiment or pivot and even try podcast advertising
- Why companies consider podcast advertising, online channels opposed to offline channels? Why advertisers decided to invest in podcast and not just for the sake of diversifying marketing spend?
- How to leverage on the power of podcast advertising? How to pick a variety of podcasts? What is baked in or embedded podcast ads? What are dynamic ad insertions?
- How advertisers approach to podcast ad buying? How does she classify podcast ad buyers?
- Why advertisers may like that my podcast show has repeat advertisers or repeat sponsors and find it valuable in targeting the same demographic and segments or niche?
- What is her hot take on tactics adopted by podcast advertisers such as using embedded URL and post checkout survey to track how consumers heard of them or their products and get a sense of whether podcast advertising and campaign result is successful
- Which companies she thinks have a chance of succeeding more in podcast ads than others do? Is the landscape changing from pure B2C to B2B play? Would she recommend B2B companies who have never done podcast adverting to do podcast ads, how would she advice them on strategy?
- What is her hot take on diversifying influencer marketing, the correct mix of marketing dollar spend on core proven shows, ie those mid to small with loyal dedicated following to drive consistent performance and test shows, varying in size ie larger shows til they prove themselves
#covid19 #mentalhealth #influencermarketing #podcastadvertising #business #entrepreneurship #perspective #patience #innovation

Enjoy this episode - Stay safe , stay fun, we can get through this #pandemic #turbulenttimes together!

The CMO Asia Podcast was recently invited to attend the National Retail Federation 2020 #nrf2020 in New York, the mecca of retail. It is the place to be for all retail companies. If you couldn’t be there, here is a podcast recording we made at the event with Pascal Malotti, Strategy Director at Valtech France, where we deep dive into key topics that are sure to revolutionise retail over the next decade, including:

- Why Valtech is attending #NRF2020
- Why venturing outside the convention centre to find out how leading retailers in New York are transforming consumer in-store experiences is a good idea, beyond just taking a look at what retailers and vendors are up to within the convention halls
- Why Valtech’s goal is to help brands and consumers connect like never before
- How the team at Valtech is dedicated to delivering a disruptive blend of physical digital experiences for some of the world’s most prestigious brands, merging real world with digital, designing future of stores and reinventing retail
- Why his top 3 stores in New York are at 5th avenue ie. Nike, Amazon Go, Chanel; the lessons learnt from visiting these stores ie. not to pack retail spaces with technology for technology’s sake, key is finding the right space and value for tech to create relationship with customer, with the purpose of no longer just selling, but to engage customers and creating profiles
- Why brands need to renew experiences often
- Why your store is also your story, and the importance of finding a purpose to the business, and meaning at the heart of the product
- What the next decade is likely to change or bring
- Why influencers have their place in the world, their ability to strike emotions for their audiences , understand their audiences and engage with them means traditional Brands have to master and manage not just to achieve the same impact but also compete with influencers who are building their own Brands especially in fitness, beauty, sports, and health verticals

The CMO Asia Podcast are excited to be a part of #Fashinnovation #nyfw #newyorkfashionweek event in #nyc last week, a platform that’s showcasing the coolest innovations in retail, fashion technology, eCommerce, supply chain, logistics, marketing and more.

Say hello to North Atlantic Director of Marketing Jason Robinson at UPS, that wants to help shippers and brands make their supply chain more sustainable - from carbon offsets, environmentally sustainable packaging, to going green with innovative, fully #electrictrucks #ups #deliveries

On this electric! episode - our most green 🌿 , supply chain and logistics-focused📦 episode yet, hear Jason talk about:

- What it means to be sustainable and how UPS deliveries are going green with innovative electric trucks

- How he would summarise the agenda he covered at Fashinnovation panel held in NYC last week ie. “Fashion is Logistics via Sustainable Practices”
- How UPS technology, partners and solutions can help with returns, wastage and sustainability
- Why it is important for every eCommerce or retailer to include a sustainability component in their business; the creative ways UPS adopt to drive results for their business partners and the risks in marketing this message
- How he started at UPS delivering boxes part time, rose through the ranks over the years, never left and is now leading the marketing team at North Atlantic division
- How the function of leadership is to produce more leaders not more followers

In this episode, James shared with us:

- How Gary Vaynerchuk’s desire to create a company to service small and medium-sized businesses resulted in the formation of The Sasha Group over a year ago
- Why The Sasha Group is the most “Gary-centric” offering in the VaynerX world
- Why he likes the idea of “getting the team out in the world more seeing clients in person; why business travel is a great teacher
- Why the goal of #SashaSaturdays is to continue to open doors and build connections for small businesses and the people who run and believe in them
- Why he often refer to The Sasha Group as a “Start Right” rather than “Startup”
- How speed and value has become The Sasha Group’s best selling proposition
- What the process of building this firm foundation is like ie. from recruitment of 7 key personnels to developing them and achieving goals and moved from a predominantly “Scope of Work” service to productivized offerings
- Why The Sasha Group is a place for small and medium size businesses who want to unlock explosive growth, where their clients will be serviced by an A-team of talent with Fortune 500 client experience and entrepreneurial infused DNA, and a consultancy whose foundation is rooted in empathy
- Why their upcoming AMA, together with Aaron Kovan, Chief Production Officer at Vayner Productions, is something all CMOs don’t want to miss

In this part one of a two-part interview series, Thomas sat down with Wayne and shared with us:
- How his career journey in e-commerce retail began 12 years ago at Amazon UK
- What it was like early on spending 7 years at Amazon UK building Marketplace at a time when nobody wants to buy shoes from Amazon, in the early days before Amazon had fulfilment, advertising and payments; how he then moved on to British retail giant Tesco
- How his present startup company Pricesearcher is taking on e-commerce giants Google and Amazon
- How Pricesearcher emulates (late 90s era) Google to index world’s prices all in one place and reach out to merchants to ensure it is not just a paid for environment* for past 3 years
- How they started with just 6 test retailers in UK 3 years ago and grew it to 10,000 retailers now on their side
- What a day in his startup life looks like ie. starting with conversations with people, ranging from big thinkers to smaller sellers and retailers
How their tightly knit team of 25 people in London punched above their weight and status as the “underdog” search engine ; how they are always judged and compared to trillion-dollar businesses Google and Amazon
- What resonates with him most of the time are the “underdog” mom and pop shop businesses eg. businesses selling DVDs; what types of businesses inspired him nowadays are people who sell nothing but door handles and are special in what they do eg. offering 100,000 types of door handles; Why he loves giving those guys equal footing with the biggest retailers, with no commercials appearing next on their site**
- Why he thinks his best self is free from restrictions and being comfortable in his own skin, sticking up for underdogs and thinking the best of people; more rewarding to think that most people are ok and give them a platform to do the best they can; a layer of thinking that we tend to judge people from their actions whereas we judge ourselves by our intention
- Why he thinks his beard and tattoos are also some of the best compliments he has ever received
- What is the best mindset for business or career or life eg. stuff doesn’t have to be polarising in whatever role in business; the only way to perform the role well is to be as honest as possible, as long as intent is right and people don’t keep making same mistake, and empathise what they want to achieve and enable that
- What the biggest challenge for Pricesearcher is eg. get judged with the big boys with trillion dollar businesses
- What the state of the industry is and how Pricesearcher benefit buyers and consumers who want to see every product and not just the Top 10 bestsellers; consumers may not just want to see the cheapest offer that is most popular but a brand that they trust or they prefer a retailer that offers immediate pickups closer to their home locations; how Pricesearcher stood out in an industry where price comparison website existed since relics of internet, with some sites offering 30 million products, compared to Pricesearcher’s 2.4 billion products, from door knobs to Gucci handbags, with commercial element removed, and achieving these remarkable results in less than 3 years, now operating in 24 counties

*not just a paid for environment - pls refer to episode part 2 for latest updates on this strategy
**with no commercials appearing next on their site** - pls refer to episode part 2 for latest updates on this strategy

In this episode recorded in December 2019 at JW Marriott Hotel Shenzhen, China, Allen Qu sat down with Wayne for a deep dive conversation and shared: * How they started out Marketing Ranking Awards and the back story of its beginning as an industry conference 9 years ago
* Who their conference target audience are eg. top brands who want to do better marketing, partners, media companies like Baidu and LinkedIn
* How the conference is growing in terms of attendance nos.
* How the speakers were selected eg. Senior Marketers, CEOs who did well in their field
* How the future edition will focus more on 5G and its impact on industry, best practices and studies, and recognising top performing brands
* How their Shenzhen event is unique and feature domestic market and cross border market players from USA, Russia and how they look forward to more Singapore brands participating in the future
* How marketing has changed in China since the first edition of Marketing Ranking Awards - Search was previously the dominant player especially Baidu; China Marketing Awards has incorporated with the latest trends such as mini video content marketing topics; rise of popular apps such as Douyin (Tik Tok), Quaishou; e-commerce retail (Tmall, JD) now dominating online shopping; social media becoming the main communication and payment transaction platform (WeChat)
* How they leverage innovative strategies to give optimal value to their clients especially top brands in their niche; using cartoon characters in marketing materials; adopting robot tech placement in locations such as office spaces; implementing speech, visual recognition and AI technologies for real time interaction, using data, enhancing user engagement and personalised customer experience * Why conferences are still the best lead generator for his company in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen which are held annually, and attending global conferences to speak to audiences 30-50 times a year through content and value sharing (rather than hard sell) gain more trust and opportunities
* Where he grew up, his family background and as kid, how photography, computers and Bill Gates inspired him to take up programming before moving to Japan, Australia and then New Zealand for his computer studies and marketing knowledge university studies
* How his first job ie. building running an e-commerce store for electronic products from scratch; implementing infrastructure design, marketing and customer service structures, started him on this entrepreneurial path
* How a conference organiser invited him to do a speech to audience and meeting his friend Charles sparked off the idea of moving back to develop his business in China in October (at a time when Chinese internet business was still at its infancy)
* How he would advice a marketer newbie to join a decent company to experience the opportunity to work with real brands with real marketing dollars before encouraging them to be entrepreneurial in the niche that they love when they are ready to move on
* Why starting his own company is not to become rich but to fulfil lifelong dreams of building something that belongs to him
* Why improving internal efficiency is something he would like to change for his present company
* What the challenging moments were especially during the early days of setting up his company eg. Chinese New Year clientele payment delays and having to pay employees bonuses up front and how he overcame these challenges
* Why he thinks entrepreneurs who have no safety net, an unshakeable belief and hard work ethic will more likely become successful * Where and when next edition of Marketing Ranking Awards will be held ie. Nov ‪2020, Intercontinental Hotel, Shanlitun, Beijing‬

In this short but insightful Zoom conversation, Stephanie shared with us - [ ] How her remarkable journey started as a C programmer/ software engineer at Intel, then PwC where she “grew up” and her current role now at ADA
- [ ] Why it is important to dig into uncomfortable areas to always keep relevant and learning as a marketer and connecting these back to the business
- [ ] How data and creative are equally important, her take on rise of young CMOs and Gen X CMOs
- [ ] Whay she thinks her next critical achievement is to successfully build a young new brand from scratch
- [ ] Why she thinks Peaky Blinder is an amazing tv series
- [ ] Why she is active in Lean In Malaysia
- [ ] How she bounced back from her personal crisis a year ago by relying on people around her especially the female community to be her old self again

The most punk The CMO Asia Podcast episode ever! I got the nerve to ask Martin Atkins how new bands should market themselves in 2020 and which artist he get each other the most: Johnny Rotten (Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Al Jourgensen (Ministry), oHgr (Skinny Puppy), Jaz Coleman (Killing Joke: Official) or Chris Connelly (Revolting Cocks). Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Anchor and hear him speak about:

- How he lost 27lbs since January by working out but “it is nothing compared to playing drums several hours with Pigface!”
- Why musicians trying to making a living only playing music “are so f@cked!”
- Why he wasn’t in Barcelona many years ago solely to play drums with Pete Shelley from Buzzcocks
- Why bands are not supposed to make financial sense but to inspire
- How he felt about Pitchfork voting “Fook” as one of 33 best industrial albums of all time, and why he see similarities of that record with “Flowers of Romance” a PIL record he did with Johnny Rotten, Jah Wobble and Keith Levene
- Why without Johnny Rotten from Sex Pistols, they wouldn’t be as dangerous or made sense for the record companies
- Why he considered himself very lucky to have worked with ohGr, Trent, Jaz, Johnny, Al Jourgensen and more
- How Pigface accidentally ended up performing half of Fook album live this upcoming tour
- How he came up with a book on touring, deliver keynotes and lectures and coming up with curriculum for students and the response from the audience during the 25th anniversary show inspired him to continue drumming and Pigface
- Why bands should worry more about broadening their toolkit and helping other people, creating a positive energy instead of focusing only on playing music and making a living
- Why he might tell his 18 year old self to be careful with people and also work on his shyness
- Why the best compliment he ever received was from his kids that “he did an okay job after all iof raising them” and which Tool member recently made him cry
- Why he wore a striped shirt on stage and why he would like to finally meet Alex Harvey and former members of the Pigface community who has passed on

City or Liverpool? That’s one of the questions I posed to John Dykes, Presenter and Commentator at The Walt Disney Company when I saw down with him a couple of months ago while our favourite bands Tool and Prophets of Rage were playing in the background. Available to stream on Apple iTunes today, John also chat with me about:

- Why Don Hutchison is also one of his favourite pundits
- How he grew up loving sport, loving the language, working in college radio station, dropped out of university, tasted life in Hong Kong and wrote business and showbiz articles, decided to remained in Asia, and finally made his way into football TV and Singapore
- What advice he would give to the rise of new generation of Presenters and Marketers ie. When you are good at something, work very hard and never stop improving your skills and listen to people you respect
- Why the best day of his career was when he worked at ESPN STAR and covered Arsenal vs Chelsea at Highbury Stadium with the late, great Sir Bobby Robson and Martin Tyler on a freezing March day in England
- Why he feels blessed to be a moderator or broadcasting host and present shows about English football
- Who his best two bosses in his career are ie. the people who egged him on to be presenter rather than a producer and offer him the presenter job opportunity
- Why his early football memories were watching Malcolm McDonald play for Newcastle, 1970 world cup as well as the Newcastle vs Liverpool ’74 English Fa Cup final
- How he would like to be remembered in his career legacy
- How the cable model when he first started out vs current streaming model and piracy means he has to think on his toes much more due to how people consume content, how he feels his role is still delivering the content he is asked to deliver and let the rest take care of itself
- How personal branding factors more in what he does these days
- What triumph of branding means to him ie. he stepped away from the self-regarding thing and never personally branded himself in the old days. Back then, people still recognised him but couldn’t remember his name, they referred to him as “ESPN!”
- What changed the most in the process and journey of supporting a team or personality eg. An Arsenal fan who also supports Harry Kane is not unheard of in this day and age due to the rise of social media and sports people branding themselves through their image, his views on Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar phenomenon (brand focus for the latter rather than sporting one)
- How to apply VAR without changing the rules of the game too much, why he is not anti-VAR and why he thinks EPL is right to wait longer instead of entirely destroying the competition by rushing in new technology
- Why it is never all about him - despite it being a huge task working with an awesome panel of pundits consisting of Shebby Singh, Steve McMahon, Jaime Reeves and Paul Masefield on his hit show “Football Focus” and why to moderate, provoke and get the best out of everyone make for great television!
- Which team he would choose if it is down to Liverpool or City?

My favorite part of an awesome week in Las Vegas. Meeting the organiser of PubCon, the fabulous Melissa Fach! She sat down with me for a conversation on The CMO Asia Podcast to chat about:

- Why Pubcon is “Family” and “Die hard nitty gritty learning”
- Why Bing and Google and established agencies have bigger presence this year
- Why their speaker selection is rigorous
- Why first time attendee always become Pubcon family (shoutout to Aleyda Solis from Spain!)
- Why valuing every person is something Pubcon pushes
- Why big names like Carolyn Shelby, lead SEO of ESPN is family (not fancy)
- What are the other overall concern for the industry that Pubcon is trying to hit eg. 4 prominent suicides of SEO professionals last year
- Her views about Asia, Japan and Singapore
- How they would like to develop #Pubcon further in the future, and how they flow based on what’s trending

Here is our first The CMO Asia Podcast instalment from #lasvegas #pubcon We have some questions submitted by our 34,000++ community for Greg Secrist, Co-Founder at BKA Content about SEO, contention creation and content marketing. So this is going to be a great episode. Get your ears ready.

The great and powerful Justin Orkin, VP of Growth APAC at CvE, came on The CMO Asia Podcast and knocked it out of the park a couple of weeks ago at the Tool album listening party that we joint-hosted with White Label Records. Great digital marketer, geek, advisor and an a great guy too. I really enjoyed hanging out him.

More about Justin (reference source: LinkedIn) -
Growth-focused Sales Leader with 13+ years of accomplished experience in all facets of sales and digital marketing. Creative and ambitious by nature, teamed with a genuine passion for all things programmatic has made it easy for him to enjoy what he does, and he love that building lasting relationships with amazing clients is one of his job requirements. In the span of his career, he has successfully and consistently grown revenue for high profile brands, and effectively built highly motivated sales teams that now repeatedly exceeded annual sales goals in excess of $300M. His expertise is in business development, programmatic advertising, online media, and technology. Additionally, he possesses a proven track record in strategic planning, programmatic/RTB sales, building out private marketplaces, data platforms, and developing cross-media through social, video and mobile.

More about Julian (reference source: LinkedIn) - he is an organised event professional, now working with online advertising technology Industry. He is an Internet advertising professional with two and a half years working experience of working for two major publisher websites in the UK with huge, loyal user bases. During five years at one of most innovative companies in the display advertising space, Rubicon Project, the team he was part of grew the INTL business to approximate annual triple digit growth culminating in an IPO in 2014. He can now be found supporting buying Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) at IPONWEB's revolutionary Bidswitch platform for Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) and DSPs to transact online media spend using Open RTB protocol via a smart central proxy layer. Possessing more than ten years full time experience and degree in the art of event management from the UK School of Event Management at Leeds Metropolitan University and using this to manage a weekly comedy show in London, Bear Funny Comedy, he takes great delight from working with fantastic artists in his spare time and as a great account personnel of advertising platforms in working hours.

His specialties are: Account Management, Research, Analytics, Ad Network User Interface use, User Experience testing, Understanding and working with Online Advertising metrics including PPC, CPA, CPM, trafficking, set up, optimization of online display campaigns, working towards improving the ROI. Event Management, Marketing, project planning, creative thinking, problem solving, pitching and understanding/working with online communities.

Pétur is the Co-founder of dynAmaze. On this episode recorded on Day 1 of #dmexco19 - at a hotel lobby in Cologne, Germany, he talks to Wayne about his newly-funded startup and career journey, why his biggest passion is in innovation, how all the above played a part in his current role and informed him on how to lead and wear different hats in his new role.

David is highly regarded by likeminded performance marketers for his knowledge, contacts, and experience in the Performance industry which is matched by few and surpassed by even fewer. He is highly creative, relentlessly driven and recommended by his peers. I had the pleasure of sitting down with him for a chat during day one of #dmexco19 in the hotel lobby and learnt more about performance marketing in one sitting than I did before. I enjoyed the conversation on his sweet spots including Performance Marketing and all the latest innovations in the industry.

About Jason (reference source: LinkedIn) - he is a results-driven, technology marketing executive with a passion for connecting audiences and brands, to create long term value for customers and the companies he serves. Throughout his career, he has accomplished this by fostering a marketing culture focused on customer success, sales alignment, and ensuring strong product-to-market fit, to consistently exceed customer expectations – from first engagement, to “go-live”, to renewal.

In November 2017, he rejoined SAP, the world’s business software market leader and 17th largest brand on Earth, as part of SAP’s acquisition of Gigya: the #1 provider of customer identity and access management (CIAM) solutions. In his current role as CMO of SAP Customer Experience, he is responsible for all aspects of marketing strategy and execution, helping SAP connect with new audiences, drive success for best-run businesses, and lead in the competitive customer experience category.

Prior to joining SAP, he served as SVP of Marketing at Gigya. There, he led the company’s efforts to not only create the CIAM category, but place Gigya in the top position as the market leader, receiving #1 leadership rankings from top analyst firms including Gartner, Forrester, and KuppingerCole. Through these efforts, they are able to align Gigya’s strategy with emerging privacy regulations such as GDPR, carving out a differentiated market position and allowing the business to rapidly accelerate growth and achieve more than a 90% customer retention rate. Ultimately, this led to Gigya’s acquisition by SAP in November, 2017.

Before his time at Gigya, he was responsible for developing a world-class marketing team at Datasift, focused on connecting our Human Data Intelligence platform with developers to infuse data from Twitter, Facebook, and other social platforms into their applications.

He holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a Certified Professional Accountant.

Fun times today doing my first ever hotel lobby interview talking adtech and interactive shoppable video platforms with Jack Smail (Business Director at Smartzer) who is one of the most talented millennial marketer/ creatives in the UK scene and also a radio presenter/ stand up comedian/ biggest Arsenal supporter I’ve ever met. Check his upcoming episode and more DMEXCO guests out on The CMO Asia Podcast powered by Web Analytics Consultants Association #cmoasia #podcast #dmexco19 #poweredby #waca #recorded #in #cologne #germany

I had a fantastic time recording this episode with the coolest guy I have ever met - Aaron Pearce, MD APAC of Virtue x VICE. He couldn’t be a nicer or more down to earth human being and family man. Check out some of the highlights and full video footage on IGTV and all social platforms. #cmoasia #podcast #vice #episode

About Desiree: Experienced Freelance Writer. Skilled in Event Management, Legal Writing, Management, Marketing. Strong media and communication professional with a Bachelor’s Degree focused in Combined Honours in Arts from Durham University.

Jack’s career highlights so far: - Awarded Leading Blockchain Practitioner Award 2018 - Awarded the Top 100 Global Most Influential Marketing Leader 2016 - Winner of UK Fintech Award 2016 - Board committee member of Beijing Z-Park Blockchain Industry Alliance - Founding Member of Hong Kong Digital. Assets Investment Association - Over a decade of working experience in regional marketing and product development aspects - Pioneer series of launches for Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) solutions under the multiple new tokenomic ecosystems - A thought leader with strong people relationship in blockchain, payments, IT, asset management and Fintech spaces - Holder of First Class Honor, BSc in Communications and Public Relations - Holder of Bing Ads Accredited Professional - Holder of International Financial Advisors’ Qualification - Global Affiliate of Chartered Institute of Public Relations, UK

Ken Shih’s focus is on bringing long-term success to any corporate platform. He is a dynamic communicator with strong leadership and creative problem-solving skills. Along with 14+ years of US/ Hong Kong/ China financial markets knowledge and client management experience, this creates a winning formula whereby his high energy personality positively impact any financial industry position he is in.

Avery is an Ex-Googler with a passion for digital marketing; currently leading VaynerMedia's expansion into APAC via Singapore. She’s spent the last few years spearheading global media operations for VaynerMedia, partnering with enterprise marketers to deploy best-in-class digital media work. Prior to joining VM, she spent nearly six years working on DoubleClick, YouTube, and Google Search, in both Silicon Valley and New York City, where she worked with high-growth brands and independent / network media agencies.

About James: A people-person with a background in Mathematics and a heart in acting. Curiously analysing self, others, life, and all the above.