Venture Capital

Amra Naidoo is the co-founder of Accelerating Asia, an early stage venture capital fund that runs programs for startups and investors, and General Partner at Accelerating Asia Ventures. Prior to that, she was the Head of Corporate Partnerships at UN Women, including Project Inspire (a UN Women global social entrepreneurship program) and a part of muru-D’s, which was one of the top startup accelerators in Asia.

Dr Finian Tan is a Singaporean venture capitalist and Chairman of Vickers Venture Partners: a VC he founded in 2005 with 4 other partners and which is now ranked the 5th most consistently performing fund manager worldwide.

Prior to Vickers, Finian was inter alia:
Regional Director & Head at J.Aron – Goldman Sachs’ Asian trading arm;
Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry for the Singapore Government, where he oversaw the creation of the $1 billion dollar TIF fund (he was subsequently appointed as chairman of the said fund); and
A Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson Eplanet & the founding partner of its Asia Pacific Operations, where he led the investment into Baidu and remained its largest backer until IPO.

But how did it all begin?

Malek Ali is a Malaysian-Singaporean serial entrepreneur who has:
✦ Founded Malaysia’s only business radio station, BFM 89.9, that disproved conventional thinking then that Malaysian radio listeners only wanted entertainment content. BFM has gone on to become the most influential radio station in Malaysia
✦ Founded Fi Life, that aims disprove the adage “insurance is sold and not bought”, by operating Malaysia’s first online life insurance service. Work-in-progress.
✦ Worked with JobStreet.com to disrupt the newspaper recruitment classifieds market in South-East Asia by launching an online job portal and related recruitment tools. That job is done.
✦ Invested in Newswav, a Malaysian news aggregator, so all your news can be in one app. Work-in-progress
✦ Invested in Kakitangan.com, that provides cloud-based payroll and leave services. Work-in-progress.

Currently at Fi Life, he is working towards increasing the financial wellness of Malaysians:
✦ Working with employers to provide financial wellness programmes for their employees.
✦ Moderating weekly webinars on important topics that impact your personal finances
✦ My radio station hosting a weekly radio programme, Ringgit & Sense, to increase your financial literacy
✦ And soon, launching financial advisory services that will develop your own individual financial plan

Sarah Chen is:

A global investment professional – Sarah invests in and builds businesses, having led an American franchise business, pioneered the rollout of a corporate venture capital unit within a $13BN Asian conglomerate, investing into late-stage biotech startups. Today, she is Co-Founder & Managing Partner of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, a global consortium of venture capital funds that have now pledged beyond US$1Bn to be invested into women-founded companies; now known as Beyond The Billion. Specifically, she works with limited partner investors to diversify their portfolio through venture as a returns strategy.

Passionate about getting more women into leadership, she sits on multiple boards including 131 & counting, a bipartisan effort to fete the unprecedented number of women serving in the House and Senate, to encourage more women to run for office in the United States; and Lean In Malaysia, which she co-founded, recognized as the voice of credibility for professional women issues in Malaysia, boasting beyond 5,000 women within the network, bringing women back into the workforce, accelerating women into leadership positions.

Named World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Forbes 30 Under 30, she is a recognized speaker, commentator and advisor on venture capital, innovation and women, having been featured amongst others on Der Spiegel, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. Sarah is a compelling speaker and moderator, moderating challenging topics with Ministers, Senators and other senior corporate leaders, inspiring global audiences at the World Affairs Council America (DC), the Financial Alliance for Women Annual Summit (Paris), the World Bank THK Blended Finance Forum (Bali), the Asia PE-VC Summit (Singapore), Forbes Under 30 Summit (Hong Kong) et al. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Laws, LL.B (Hons.) from King’s College London. A proud Malaysian, she spends her time between US- Asia.