Speakers
Senior Industry Professionals
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Erika is chief diversity officer, responsible for global diversity and inclusion strategy and driving inclusive culture initiatives and efforts related to the recruitment, retention and advancement of diverse professionals. She joined the firm as a managing director in 2018.
Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Erika was global head of diversity and inclusion at Bloomberg from 2015 to 2018. Prior to this, she led diversity hiring efforts at Bank of America between 2009 and 2015 and Lehman Brothers between 2005 and 2008.
Erika's background includes a range of banking and finance roles, including head of business development for Black Entertainment Television, senior associate in the high yield capital markets group at Morgan Stanley and senior policy analyst for domestic finance for the United States Department of the Treasury. She began her career as an analyst in the public finance department at Lehman Brothers.
Erika is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, vice chair of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation and serves on the Board of the Riverside Hawks.
Erika earned a BS in Economics from the State University of New York at Albany and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

A visionary thinker and forward leader, Gigi has more than 25 years of experience working in market-leading organizations in the Financial Services industry. Her rare background of having led both the Business Development and People Team functions in Asia Pacific in a Senior Regional leadership capacity lets her bring front-line experience to talent acquisition and organizational optimization.
She is responsible for the People function in Asia, working closely to define and bring to life what this means for local teams, and the firm’s global presence.
At AlixPartners, she is in charge of diversity and inclusion in Asia, also preparing the global firm for Next Generation with the goal of marrying people development and business development.
Gigi holds a BA degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia and various Postgraduate qualifications from the Australia Graduate School of Management and Queensland University of Technology.
Whilst she has a strong track record of designing and driving strategic direction of the full People team function in:
Purpose driven organization
Future-back workforce Planning
Talent Management & Acquisition strategies
Learning & Development
Compensation and Benefits
Retention and Engagement
Employer branding
Change Management
Market intelligence
Prior to AlixPartners, Gigi was also Sales leader for Ernst & Young Australia and Asia Pacific, focusing on the Private Equity area and Entrepreneurs circles. She has facilitated and secured major mergers and acquisitions transactions in the region.
Gigi has spearheaded the Entrepreneur of the Year Award program in EY Australia and is renowned for her ability to engage and build strong relationships with founders and entrepreneurs.

Pamela Fung is an Executive Director for Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners Private Equity Fund of Funds group, and leads AIP's Asian investment activities. She has 15 years of industry experience. Prior to AIP, Pamela was a consultant with McKinsey's corporate finance practice in Hong Kong; she has also worked for Monitor Group and Lehman Brothers. Pamela has a Law degree (first class honors) from the University of Hong Kong and an M.B.A. with honors from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Melissa C. Guzy is the Founder and Managing Partner of Arbor Ventures and has more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and venture investor. Before Arbor Ventures, Melissa was a Managing Director and a member of the Investment Committee at VantagePoint Capital Partners, where she invested in early stage technology companies in Asia, Europe and Silicon Valley. In 2007, Melissa moved to Hong Kong to build VantagePoint’s investment practice in the region, establishing offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. Her current board positions include EverCompliant, Fundbox, InCountry, Paidy and TrueAccord. Melissa also sits on the Board of Trustees of The Jackson Laboratory.
Melissa attended Wellesley College and earned a master’s degree in Finance from the University of Florida. She is the author of the paper “Venture Capital Returns and Public Market Performance.” Melissa is the Co-Chair of the Hong Kong Venture Capital Association (“HKVCA”) Venture Committee, a member of the Board of Directors of the HKVCA and the Singapore Venture Capital Associate and a former member to the Hong Kong SFC on Innovation. Additionally, she was a guest lecturer on the Venture Capital Industry at the University of Florida, Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Melissa is also a Hopkins Fellow and participated in the Women’s Leadership Program at Harvard University. She has been recognized as a Top 100 Influencer in Fintech (NxtBnk), AlwaysOn Fintech Power Player, as well as one of the Top 13 Women in Asia of Tech Influencers.

Yuka Hata is a Managing Director and heads Fund Investment Team at Japan Investment Corporation (“JIC”).
Ms. Hata joined JIC in July 2020 in order to build and support Japan’ private equity / venture capital ecosystem as well as to provide the risk capital with the investment funds which bring Japan’s industry to the next stage. Prior to joining JIC, as a co-head of private equity, Ms. Hata worked for Nissay Asset Management where she was mainly responsible for European small-mid buyout, GP stake investments, secondary and Japan’s VC funds. She also worked for Nomura Asset Management (or Nomura Private Equity Capital) and managed fund of funds focused on Asia market as a member of Investment Committee.
Ms. Hata is a Chartered Member of the Security Analysts Association of Japan., and received a B.A. in Environmental Information from Keio University and an M.B.A. from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales-HEC in Paris.

Seema R. Hingorani is a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley Investment Management focused on investment talent development, strategic client relationships and diversity initiatives across the platform. She is also Senior Sponsor of Investment Management’s Diversity Council and a member of Morgan Stanley’s Diversity and Inclusion Senior Leaders Advisory Council. Seema joined Morgan Stanley in 2019 and has 25 years of investment experience.
Seema is also the Founder and Chair of Girls Who Invest, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in portfolio management and executive leadership in the asset management industry. Previously, Seema was the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of SevenStep Capital, an opportunistic investment platform focused on seeding women portfolio managers. Seema served until June 30, 2014 as Chief Investment Officer for the New York City Retirement Systems which had assets of $160 billion. Previous to this appointment, Seema was Interim Chief Investment Officer and before that Head of Public Equities & Hedge Funds for the pension funds. Under her leadership, the pension fund was named Hedge Fund Manager of the Year - Large Public Pension Plans by Institutional Investor. Prior to Seema’s four years of public sector experience, she served as Global Director of Fundamental Research at Pyramis Global Advisors; a Partner, Portfolio Manager and Senior Equity Analyst with hedge fund Andor Capital Management; a Partner and Senior Equity Analyst at hedge fund Pequot Capital Management; Co-founder of hedge fund Mirador Capital Management; and an Equity Analyst with T. Rowe Price.
Seema has worked with several organizations focused on issues concerning women and girls and is a prolific speaker on the topic of a more robust inclusion of women in the corporate sector. She was honored as the 2019 Bloomberg 50 “Ones To Watch”, the 2016 Woman with Impact by the Connecticut Women's Business Development Council, and Wall Street Women Entrepreneur of the Year in 2015 by Traders magazine. Seema served as a member of the National Finance Committee of Secretary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential Campaign. She is an active member of The Economic Club of New York and 100 Women in Finance.
Seema earned a B.A. in psychology/philosophy from Yale College and a M.B.A. in finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Shalaka Joshi is the Gender Lead, South Asia for the International Finance Corporation (IFC)- the private sector focused arm of the World Bank- where she works on gender in the private sector. Shalaka has over 18 years of global leadership experience in early-stage investing, social venture, financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, livelihoods and market-based solutions to poverty in emerging markets, especially in Asia. Her social enterprise career began with UNICEF where she worked on micro-planning and building public- private-nonprofit alliances. She also worked with Ashoka, a global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Her private sector experience includes ICICI Bank - India’s largest private sector bank - where she led the process of integrating private sector partners into the Bank’s initiatives in health, education and micro finance. Shalaka’s investment experience includes being part of the early team at the IFMR Trust and serving as a Managing Director of Unitus Impact (now Patamar Capital)- a fund which supports the growth of scalable livelihood ventures in Asia. Shalaka was also Managing Director, Asia-Pacific for Toniic- the world’s most active network of portfolio investors, supporting ventures and funds across 28 countries. She led Toniic’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region, as its Chief Investment Officer globally, across asset classes and continued to serve as a Board Director. A Chevening scholar and an Aspen Global Leadership fellow, Shalaka also serves on the global Board and Investment Committee of the Equality Fund (which leverages investment and philanthropy to support global gender equality), the IEF Entrepreneurship Foundation (which works with Indian State governments to mainstream entrepreneurship) and UnLtd, India ( an accelerator for social ventures). She is a part of the Investment council for the Government of India’s Women’s Entrepreneurship platform, the Advisory Council for the global Gender-smart Investing Summit and has recently been accredited as an international mediator from the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, UK. She is based out of Mumbai, India and enjoys poetry, travel and dance.

Nadia is a partner in the Corporate team at international law firm, Clifford Chance. She advises on major energy and infrastructure transactions in Australia and globally. She is also a member of the Clifford Chance Worldwide Projects Group and co-head of the firm's Global Oil & Gas Group.
Outside of her legal work, Nadia devotes significant time to pro bono and diversity and inclusion initiatives. She is the Chair of the Clifford Chance Australian Responsible Business Committee and a member of the firm's Global ESG Board. Nadia was recognised for her Responsible Business work as a finalist for Pro bono Lawyer of the Year at the 2019 Lawyers Weekly Women in Law Awards. She is also a finalist for Corporate Partner of the Year in the upcoming 2020 Lawyers Weekly Partner of the Year Awards and Pro bono Lawyer of the Year and Partner of the Year in the upcoming 2020 Lawyers Weekly Women in Law Awards.
Nadia has also been instrumental in advancing the firm's gender parity group, Accelerate>>> in Australia and Asia Pacific. Accelerate>> drives the firm's global strategy for gender parity and actively encourages participation by all across the Clifford Chance network.
Nadia regularly mentors staff throughout the firm including junior members of the Accelerate>> Steering Committee, and collaborates with her colleagues, clients and peers on diversity and inclusion initiatives within the firm and across the legal profession more generally.
Link to Nadia's Clifford Chance profile: https://www.cliffordchance.com/people_and_places/people/partners/au/nadia-kalic.html
Link to Nadia's Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadia-kalic-540a1297/?originalSubdomain=au

Carol Kim is a Senior Managing Director and Head of the Institutional Client Solutions Group in Asia and is based in Hong Kong. Since joining Blackstone, Ms. Kim has been involved with investor relations and new business development in Asia. Before joining Blackstone in 2008, Ms. Kim was based in New York as a Vice President in the Absolute Return Strategies Group at Lehman Brothers, where she was responsible for client communications and reporting to its hedge fund and fund of hedge funds clients. Prior to joining Lehman, she was Director of Marketing at Continuity Capital, LLC and a Marketing Associate at P. Schoenfeld Asset Management. Ms. Kim began her career in investor relations at LG Electronics in Korea and Allied Properties in Toronto. Ms. Kim received a BA in Urban and Economic Studies from the University of Toronto. She is a Co-Founder and Board member of 100 Women in Finance.

RobKoczkar is a Managing Director of Adamantem Capital. His experience spansprivate equity investing, public company governance, strategy consulting, philanthropyand social impact investing. Prior to establishing Adamantem Capital he wasChief Executive Officer of Social Ventures Australia, a Managing Director ofPacific Equity Partners and a Principal with Texas Pacific Group. Rob startedhis career with Bain & Company. Rob received a BEng (Hons.) in Mechanicaland Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Melbourne. He currentlyserves on the boards of Hygain, Servian, Zenitas, Legend and is Chair of SocialVentures Australia.

Soo Boon founded iGlobe in December 1999 when venture capital (VC) was experiencing the onset of globalisation. As a veteran in the global VC industry with a specialisation in technology investing, she has achieved consistent top-quartile fund return for her investments. Working alongside prominent VCs such as Sequoia Capital, IVP, RRE, Lux Capital, DCM and Qualcomm Ventures, she has since established herself as a prominent leader in the investing community.
Under Soo Boon’s leadership, notable IPOs among iGlobe’s portfolio companies in recent years are Unity Software Inc. (NYSE: U) on 18 September 2020, Twist Bioscience Corp (NASDAQ: TWST) on 31 October 2018, Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory Ltd. (TYO: 6232) on 21 December 2018 and VeriSilicon Microelectronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (SHA: 688521) on 18 August 2020. Past exits include u-blox AG (SWX: UBXN), Telenav Inc. (NASDAQ: TNAV), Celestry Inc. (sold to Cadence), Aicent Inc. (acquired by TA Associates) and Anacle Systems Limited (HKGEM: 8353).
Currently, Soo Boon serves as a board observer of several VC-backed companies based in San Francisco. This includes NerdWallet Inc. and Matterport Inc. Soo Boon is also a board member of Hoolah (Singapore), The Great Room (Singapore) and ForteMedia Inc. (USA).
Prior to founding iGlobe, she held senior management positions in Vertex Management from 1988 to 1999 (previously the venture capital arm of Singapore Technologies and now under Temasek Holdings), playing a critical role in establishing the operations of Vertex in California and Vertex Europe in London.
Soo Boon‘s ability to connect syndication co-investors across continents came from her experience in DBS early in her career. Her clients came from a range of industries, including electronics, financial services, real estate, transportation/logistic industry and petrochemical plants. With this experience, she has built a network of trusted partners whom she rode through multiple business cycles with.
It is with her experience that Soo Boon is inspired to support women leaders in tech and actively promote board diversity especially in tech companies. In 2009, she was one of the few women appointed as Council Member of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI). She also held the position of the Chairwoman of SCCCI's Career Women Group from 2011 to 2019. She is currently a member of the Singapore chapter of Women Corporate Directors and the International Women Forum, where she mentors professional women on private and public boards. With her active role in advocating gender diversity, Soo Boon was given the "Honorary Outstanding Women Award" by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in celebration of Thai Women's Day in Honor of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit in 2016.

Haide Lui is the Head of Investor Relations at Ascendent Capital Partners. Prior to Ascendent, Ms. Lui spent close to 11 years at HarbourVest Partners based in Hong Kong focused on private equity fund investments across Asia. During that time, she served on the limited partner advisory committees of a number of private equity partnerships, including a range of venture, growth, and buyout funds in China, as well as several Asian funds of global private equity firms. Before that, Ms. Lui was with Morgan Stanley in the Global Capital Markets group in Hong Kong, focused on the origination and execution of equity financings, advising Asian and Chinese companies. Ms. Lui graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA Honours in Natural Sciences.

Managing Director, joined CVC in 2005. Denise is a member of the CVC Capital Markets team in Asia, based in Hong Kong. She also covers investor relations for CVC's Asia private equity funds. Prior to joining CVC, she worked in the Debt Capital Markets and the M&A departments at J.P. Morgan. Denise is a CFA charterholder and holds an AB degree cum laude in applied mathematics from Harvard University, US.

Hemal Mirani rejoined HarbourVest's senior management team in Asia in 2015 to focus on investments and investor relations across the Asia Pacific region.
Ms. Mirani first joined HarbourVest in 1997 and spent eleven years developing relationships with leading Asian private equity managers and working with our investors and consultants across the region to advance and optimize their private market investment programs. She rejoined HarbourVest after six years with CVC Capital Partners in Hong Kong, where she was head of investor relations in Asia and Chief Administrative Officer.
Ms. Mirani received a BA in Commerce from Sydenham College (Bombay) in 1989, an MA in International Studies with a Japanese language concentration from the Joseph H. Lauder Institute, and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School in 1997. The latter two were part of a joint degree program at the University of Pennsylvania. Hemal speaks fluent Japanese.

Mr. Frank Su is the Managing Director, Head of Private Equity Asia at CPPIB, responsible for private equity investments in Asia. Mr. Su has more than 20 years’ experience in private equity, strategic consulting and operations in the region. Prior to CPPIB, Mr. Su took various positions at Bain Capital, Bain & Company, Ericsson and COFCO.
Mr. Su received an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA from University of International Business and Economics.

Wendy is a Managing Director of AlpInvest Partners focusing on the Asian market. She is also a member of the Operational Committee. She joined AlpInvest Partners in 2007 from Macquarie Funds Management, where she was Senior Vice President of Asia-Pacific regional private equity fund investments and co-investments. Previously, Wendy was a Director with Deutsche Bank Asset Management and an Associate Director at MetLife. Wendy received a BS in Business Administration and an MS in Accounting from the University of Southern California and is a CFA charterholder. She represents AlpInvest Partners on various Advisory Boards.

Tim Burroughs is managing editor of Asian Venture Capital Journal, having joined the publication in May 2011. He is responsible for all editorial content put out under the AVCJ brand, including Asian Venture Capital Journal, AVCJtv, AVCJ Awards and AVCJ.com. Tim previously spent five years at China Economic Review, serving as editor-in-chief and then editorial director. Located in Greater China since 2003, during which time he has lived in Beijing, Qingdao and Hong Kong, Tim has been a China-based contributor for publications including The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, BBC and China Daily. Prior to moving to China, he trained and worked as a journalist in the UK. He was honored at the Society of Publishers in Asia awards in 2007, 2008 and 2010, and at the State Street Institutional Press Awards - Asia in 2012.