SPARKLABS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Venture Partner / SparkLabs Global Ventures / VP Product at Bungalow Living
- Venture Partner at SparkLabs Global
Alex Halliday is a Venture Partner at SparkLabs Global and is a three-time founder, seasoned startup operator, advisor and angel investor with over a decade of experience in early-stage companies. Alex is currently VP Product at Bungalow Living, the leading group living provider in the US.
Prior to Bungalow, Alex led product at MasterClass for 3 years, scaling it from $5m to $100m+ in ARR, working to give anyone access to classes taught by the greatest instructors in the world including Annie Leibovitz, Gordon Ramsay and Malcolm Gladwell.
Prior to MasterClass, Alex was a Director of Product at Teespring and the founder of LawPal, a legal workflow management platform. His first startup was SocialGO, a niche social networking website platform grew to 6m users and made him the youngest ever CEO of a publicly traded company in the UK.
As an active angel investor in Silicon Valley and part of the On Deck Angels, he has invested in startups such as 8 Sleep, Circle.so, Varo, SuperHi, Bungalow, Certn, Outlier and Skillshare.
Job Titles:
- Venture Partner / SparkLabs Taipei
- VP Strategy, Marketing, and Partnerships at NEX Team
Alex Wu is currently a Founding Team and VP Strategy, Marketing, and Partnerships at NEX Team, a mobile artificial intelligence company comprised of seasoned, former Apple, Google, and Facebook engineers and second-time entrepreneurs, announced today the launch of HomeCourt, a basketball training App that uses the latest mobile Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to record, track, and chart shots for basketball players in real time.
He is also Managing Partner at Cavalier Venture Partners, a venture capital firm with a focus on early and late stage technology and healthcare investments. Prior to starting Cavalier Venture Partners, Alex was Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Newsela, an education technology company backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Before NEX Team, he was a Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Newsela, an education technology company backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Before joining Newsela, Alex led product marketing efforts at Uber, helping to bring affordable transportation options to thousands of small and medium-sized businesses all over the world.
While there, he orchestrated the launch of new product features for businesses, directed cross-functional efforts to acquire and engage customers, and led B2B sales enablement efforts.
Previously, Alex was the Head of Product Marketing, Communications, and Partnerships at Quora, the leading question and answer site on the Internet. Alex led a variety of efforts including product launches, the creation of Quora\'s Top Writer program, syndication partnerships with top media sites like Time and BBC, and signing up public figures like President Barack Obama and Jeremy Lin. Prior to Quora, Alex spent more than four years as a brand, consumer, and product marketer at Facebook where he managed over $50 million in media placements, accelerated adoption of products like Facebook Pages and Facebook for Android, and led global marketing initiatives with Facebook\'s mobile operator and device partners.
As an Obama for America field organizer and staffer, Alex was part of the team that helped elect President Barack Obama during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Prior to Obama for America, he started his professional career at Marketbridge, a leading marketing consulting firm, where he ran campaigns for Fortune 500 clients like Microsoft and HSBC.
Alex received his B.S. in Commerce and American Politics from the University of Virginia. While there, he also worked in the University's admissions office focused on international student admissions. Born in New Jersey, Alex moved to Taiwan when he was 9, attending an international school in Hsinchu before moving to the United States for college. He loves sports, movies and TV, reading, and travel. Alex lives in San Francisco.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and CEO at Vectara
Amr Awadallah is Co-founder and CEO at Vectara. The company is a semantic search software company that enables customers to understand exactly what their users are asking - no matter how they ask - to provide extraordinarily relevant results. Previously, Amr was Global CTO and Cofounder of Cloudera, which is helped grow until it's IPO where it was valued at almost $2 billion.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Saudi Arabia / CEO at Vectara
Before co-founding Cloudera in 2008, Amr was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Accel Partners. Prior to joining Accel, he served as Vice President of Product Intelligence Engineering at Yahoo! and ran one of the very first organizations to use Hadoop for data analysis and business intelligence. Amr joined Yahoo! after they acquired his first startup, VivaSmart, in July 2000.
Amr holds a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering from Cairo University, Egypt, and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Bernard Moon is a Co-founder & Partner at SparkLabs Group. Previously, he was Co-founder & CEO of Vidquik, a web conferencing & sales solutions platform. Bernard was a Managing Director at the Lunsford Group, which is a private investment firm with holdings in real estate, healthcare and other industries.
Bernard was Co-founder & VP of Business Development of GoingOn Networks, a social media platform for companies, and also led their product development where BusinessWeek recognized them in their "Best of the Web" list.
Previously, Bernard was a Director at iRG, a leading boutique investment bank in Asia, where he focused on TMT companies.
Bernard co-founded a couple of other startups, raised over $50 million in venture capital, and enjoys helping other entrepreneurs.
He serves on the advisory boards to Seoul National University's Graduate School of Data Science and Nanyang Technological University's EcoLabs (Centre of Innovation for Energy).
Bernard has spoke and lectured about startups and entrepreneurship at Stanford University, Global Entrepreneurship Congress, American Chamber of Commerce in Korea and other organizations.
He is a frequent guest writer to various technology journals, such as VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and ReadWrite, and has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. He was previously selected as one of 8 global judges for EDF's innovation contest (EDF is the world's biggest electricity producer based in France).
He completed a post-graduate fellowship with the Coro Foundation. He received his MPA in Telecom and New Media Policy from Columbia University and a BA in English and Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Brian Kang has over 20 years of experience as an investment professional, a former CEO of a NASDAQ-listed company and a startup entrepreneur. He also served as a mentor for Sparklabs since the program's inception.
Brian started his career as an engineer on Samsung Electronics' pioneering CDMA team, and then moved into strategy and business development roles.
When Samsung established its first venture investment arm, Samsung Venture Investment Co, in 1999 Brian joined the company as a founding member.
Seven of his investments went public. Afterwards, he joined as a Managing Director of the Korea Venture Fund which later became "Korea Fund of Funds" (aka "Motae Fund").
During the first seven years of the fund, Brian worked with top-tier global investment firms such as Vertex Management, State Street Global Advisors and Yozma.
The Korea Venture Fund not only generated competitive investment outcomes but also served as a stepping stone to Korea's largest venture fund of funds, KFoF. In 2008, Brian served served CEO & Chairman of the Board at Gravity (NASDAQ: GRVY), a Softbank-affiliated MMORPG gaming company most known for "Ragnarok Online". His restructuring efforts led the company to rebound from a large loss to profitability. Brian successfully sustained both revenue and profit growth during his CEO role with Gravity. Later he founded a gaming startup in San Jose, CA and Seoul that initiated and explored the potential of large scale hard-core mobile RPG games in the U.S. and Asian markets. Brian received his MS from NYU and also completed the Stanford University's Graduate School of Business's Executive Management Program.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Managing Partner
- Co - Founder and Managing Partner at SparkLabs Cyber Blockchain
Brian Park is Co-founder and Managing Partner at SparkLabs Cyber+Blockchain. He is a startup evangelist, advisor, and angel investor.
He is the director for Startup Grind DC and Executive-In-Residence at the AOL Fishbowl Labs, which is the premiere startup incubator in the Washington DC area. He is also the Director of Product at Real Time Cases, an edtech startup that connects university classrooms to company boardrooms.
He was also formerly the global COO of Startup Grind, which is the one of the largest hi-tech startup communities in the world with over 1,000,000 startup entrepreneurs in 200 cities.
Prior to Startup Grind, he has over 18 years professional experience in web/online/mobile product development. He has experience in developing innovative consumer and enterprise products and services. Brian has started three previous startups - Logistics Information Technology, VA Care, and Securva. Notably VA Care, an IT health company, had over $20 million in total revenues.
He has a BS in Information Systems/Policy & Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder of RedOctane
- Venture Partner / SparkLabs Connex / CO - FOUNDER, REDOCTANE ( GUITAR HERO )
Charles Huang is a co-founder of RedOctane and the co-creator of the Guitar Hero video game franchise. In 2005, the company published Guitar Hero, which went on to become the fastest video game to reach $1B in sales. Guitar Hero was the best selling video game in the world in 2007 and 2008.
In 2006, Charles, along with his brother Kai, was elected as one of the top 50 producers in New Media by the Producers Guild of American New Media Council membership which includes such famed movie directors as Jerry Bruckheimer and Brian Grazer.
Charles left Guitar Hero in 2010. He's been and adviser to many IOT start ups, as well as COO of Leeo, a smart home start up. He's a partner and board member of Steel Wool, a virtuat reality games studio based in Oakland. His lab, Indigo 7, works on projects such as a Singtrix, a karaoke system with professional grade audio engineering.
Charles immigrated to California as a young child and currently resides in Silicon Valley with his wife and two daughters. He holds BA's in Economics and Asian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. He currently sits on the UC Berkeley Foundation Board of Trustees.
Job Titles:
- Venture Partner / SparkLabs Korea
Daniel is currently an Engineering Director at Meta (formerly Facebook), which he joined in early 2007 as employee approximately 200, and is currently the 11th most tenured employee. Most recently, Daniel was the lead for NPE (New Product Experimentation) Korea, Meta's in-house incubator and a key part of their global expansion strategy.
Prior to that, he led engineering teams at Oculus, where his teams were in charge of things such as Horizon Home, Guardian, Anytime UI, and Notifications for the Quest line of headsets. At Instagram, Daniel founded and led their Growth engineering team, which was directly accountable for Instagram's user growth from 170 million to 1.1 billion MAU in under 5 years. As an engineer, Daniel was a founding member of Facebook's Android team and helped to usher Facebook's pivot to mobile in 2010,as well as a founding member of the original Growth team in 2008, which created the industry-defining playbook for user growth.
Prior to Facebook, Daniel had brief stints at Oracle and Booz Allen Hamilton. Daniel received his B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon ('05) after graduating in 3 years. While there, he was also a charter member of CMU's Alpha Kappa Psi chapter.
Born and raised in Maryland, Daniel moved to the Bay Area shortly after graduating college, where he resided for 16 years. He moved to Korea with his family in 2021, where he is currently living. He was a four-year varsity athlete in high school (volleyball), and still enjoys playing and watching all sports recreationally. He is a startup investor with Sand Hill Angels. In 2023, Daniel launched a podcast comparing Korean and American culture.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder of Refactor Capital
- Fund Advisor / SparkLabs Korea / MANAGING PARTNER at REFACTOR CAPITAL
David Lee is the co-founder of Refactor Capital, a new venture capital fund focused on healthcare.
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Statistics, University of Chicago
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Managing Partner of Spark
- Co - Founder of Jumpstart Program
- Managing Partner / SparkLabs Taipei
- Managing Partner of Sparklabs Taipei
- Managing Partner SparkLabs Taiwan
Edgar Chiu is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of SparkLabs Taiwan, a startup accelerator and venture capital fund founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs with a vision and mission to help founders go global. Prior to SparkLabs Taiwan, Edgar was the founding COO of Gogolook. There, he headed global partnerships for the Whoscall app, a global caller ID service, developing major partnerships in Japan, Korea, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In 2013, Gogolook was subsequently acquired by NAVER, the South Korean Internet Giant.
Previously, Edgar worked at IBM as a management consultant strategizing new market entry plans and discovering emerging business opportunities for top clients in the Asia Pacific. He received IBM's Value Role Model Award in 2011. Edgar is also the Co-founder of Jumpstart Global, a talent acceleration program with a charity fund behind, cultivating over 300 entrepreneurial leaders for fast-growing organizations since 2014. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Quantitative Finance from National Tsing Hua University.
Edgar Chiu is currently the Managing Partner of Sparklabs Taipei, managing day-to-day operations of accelerator program.
Edgar is experienced in running startups and mobile app business. He oversaw the firm's business operations, led market entry strategy for BAND app, a mobile community application that facilities group communication.
Starting his career, Edgar was a consultant in IBM's Strategy and Transformation Practice, Strategizing emerging business opportunities & new marketing planning consultancy service for tier-one tech companies, receiving IBM Value Role Model Award in 2011.
Edgar is also the co-founder of Jumpstart Program, cultivating over 90 entrepreneurial leaders for organizations, engaged hundreds of leading corporate executives and startup founders as mentors and coaches.
Edgar earned his bachelor degree in Quantitative Finance from National Tsing Hua University.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder & Partner / SparkLabs Group, Managing Partner / SparkLabs Korea
Eugene is currently the Partner of Sparklabs and manages the day-to-day operations of the Sparklabs accelerator program. Eugene previously served as a Director of Global Business Development at Tencent Korea.
He was responsible for the sourcing of Korean game titles to China and Tencent's global publishing network, headed the global sales of Tencent game titles, and he managed relationships with Tencent's global publishing partners. Prior to Tencent, Eugene was Director of Business Development and Marketing at Podotree, an online educational app developer in Korea. He was responsible for their marketing and launch effort into the U.S.
Previously, he was with Vertigo Games as the Group Manager of the Overseas Business Group.
Eugene led all overseas sales efforts and service support, and all business development and game engine licensing activities.
Eugene was a Manager and Group Head of the Quality Assurance and Localization Group for NHN USA. He previously served as Project Manager of the Publishing Group at NHN USA and Assistant Manager of Global Strategy & Marketing Development at NHN Corporation. He began his career at The Contents Company, an SK company, in business development and played a key role in launching Korea's first pilot IP TV service with overseas partners. He earned his BA in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Michigan.
Job Titles:
- Media Executive, Artist, Investor
- Senior Advisor to Tencent Music Entertainment & KKBox
- Venture Partner
Jaeson Ma is a media executive, artist, investor and serial entrepreneur. He is a strategic advisor & financier of popular social music video app Triller, co-founded premium production studio Stampede Ventures, digital music label 88rising, ZASH Global Media a publicly Nasdaq traded media & technology conglomerate and east-west brand strategy & investment firm East West Ventures.
Jaeson is a Senior Advisor to Tencent Music Entertainment & KKBox fund KKFarm and a Network Partner for consumer tech fund GoodWater Capital. He is also a senior advisor to private equity funds advised by Courage Capital Management, LLC that invests in catalogs of music rights. As well, Jaeson is a Senior Advisor to Wise Road Capital a global Private Equity investment company, focusing on semiconductor industry and other emerging high-tech industries. Jaeson is considered one of the leading financiers to companies, institutions, and individuals investing in Asian media, entertainment, & tech. His investments include Musical.ly (TikTok), Grab, Coinbase, Triller, Slock.it, Brain, CAA Caravan, Oursong, Kind Heaven, NanoTech Energy, XiaoPeng, & MAUM (2 Star Michelin).
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Managing Partner
- Partner / SparkLabs Group CEO and Chairman of the Board
James Rhee is currently the CEO and Managing Partner of SparkLabs Acquisition Corporation, an initiative focused on helping SparkLabs ecosystem companies with late stage funding and exits - especially focused on going public via a SPAC.
Prior to SparkLabs, James was the Founder and President of Aero K Holdings and Aero K Airlines, a startup in the aviation industry that seeks to leverage technology to change the customer experience and evolve the way airlines do business. Aero K had the largest initial capital raise of any independent startup in Korean history (54B KRW).
Prior to Aero K, he was CEO of AirAsia for North Asia where he was responsible for expanding their business into Japan, Korea, China and the Philippines. Prior to AirAsia, he was a Senior Adviser at Octave Private Equity Group where he led the development of an acquisition strategy for a $1 billion global business in the tech industry, and where he led the capital raise for establishing AirAsia Japan.
Prior to Octave, he held roles as Vice President and GM of Tyco Electronics Global PC Business, and Executive Officer at Dell where he led APJ Enterprise Marketing overviewing the PC, server, storage, software, services, cloud and solution businesses, and where he also led the APJ PC business $5B P&L. Prior to Dell, he was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company where he focused on M&A and the Financial and Telecommunication sectors. He began his career as a Research Officer at the International Monetary Fund.
James received his M.B.A. (Beta Gamma Sigma) from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and attended Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota where he received his B.S. in Economics.
Job Titles:
- Limited Partner / SparkLabs Global Ventures / Co - President, UMC
- UMC 's Co - President, Managing Corporate Business
Jason Wang currently serves as UMC's Co-President, managing corporate business functions including Corporate Strategy & Planning, Sales & Marketing, and Customer Engineering. He joined UMC in 2008 as Vice President of Corporate Marketing and has also served as President of UMC-USA and UMC Senior Vice President before assuming his current role.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Venture Partner / SparkLabs Connex / CHAIRMAN, SYNTREND CREATIVE PARK
Job Titles:
- Instructor
- Venture Partner / SparkLabs Global Ventures / CO - FOUNDER of KIVA
Jessica is an entrepreneur and investor. Her work over the last decade has focused on financial inclusion, the sharing economy, and social justice.
She is best known as a cofounder of Kiva, the world's first p2p microlending website. Kiva lets internet users lend as little as $25 to individual entrepreneurs, providing them affordable capital to start or expand a small business. Since its founding in October 2005 Kiva has facilitated over $880M in loans worldwide.
Jessica currently teaches Social Entrepreneurship at the Marshall School of Business at USC. She is also an independent consultant on social impact initiatives, and an investor and advisor with the Collaborative Fund. She also recently served as Walt Disney Imagineering's first Entrepreneur in Residence, focusing on projects related to corporate citizenship, the sharing economy, and happiness.
Before this, Jessica was a Cofounder and CEO of ProFounder, a pioneering crowdfunding platform for U.S. entrepreneurs which later joined forces with GOOD to create new tools and experiences for their community of creators.
Jessica served from 2010-2012 as a Visiting Practitioner at Stanford's Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society. She has taught Entrepreneurial Design for Social Change at Drew University and has lectured around the world. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a 2011 World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader, and serves as an active board member or advisor for several nonprofit organizations including Habitat for Humanity. She holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business , a certificate in Global Leadership and Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Bucknell University, and honorary PhDs from Centenary College and Quinnipiac University.
Jessica is a trained yoga instructor and avid surfer who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, author Reza Aslan, and their three young sons. Her first book, CLAY WATER BRICK: Finding Inspiration from Entrepreneurs Who Do the Most with the Least was published in June 2015 (Penguin Random House).
Jimmy Kim is Co-founder & Partner at SparkLabs Group, which is a network of startup accelerators and venture capital funds. Jimmy was Co-founder and President of N3N, an IoT platform company and Cisco's first global IoT investment.
Job Titles:
- Fund Advisor / SparkLabs Korea / PORTFOLIO MANAGER, MLB
- Portfolio Manager for Major League Baseball
John Lee has led investments as Portfolio Manager for Major League Baseball since 2007. Current responsibilities include investing in public markets, alternative investments, private equity, and venture strategies.
A particular area of interest is emerging media, entertainment, and sports-related companies. Before joining MLB, John was previously an original Managing Director at a $7 billion private investment office that invested globally using an endowment model approach across multiple asset classes.
In addition, he has held positions as a policy advisor for civic leaders and a U.S. Congressman. Early in his career, he was an early team member of one of the largest online trading firms in the world. John currently splits his time between San Francisco, New York City, and various airports. He received his Bachelor's degree from Stanford University.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Global Ventures / CEO, BRAVA
John is a long-time Silicon Valley executive and a veteran of the consumer technology industry. He was CEO of Ticketmaster and its subsidiaries from 1999-2005, as both a public company and a leading division of IAC/InterActiveCorp.
After a stint as COO of Electronic Arts, he joined Brava co-founder Dan Yue at Playdom, where John served as CEO and oversaw Playdom's 2010 acquisition by Disney.
There, he served as Co-President of Disney Interactive Media Group, spearheading the development and launch of Disney Infinity and achieving the division's first-ever multi-quarter profitability. He joins Brava from Samsung, where he was EVP of Media Solutions.
Job Titles:
- CEO of LegalZoom
- Venture Partner / SparkLabs Ventures / CEO of LEGALZOOM
John Suh is CEO of LegalZoom, whose mission is to be the first place small businesses and families turn to take care of common legal needs.
Job Titles:
- Partner / SparkLabs Cultiv8
Jonathon co-founded SparkLabs Cultiv8 and is a founding partner of Cultiv8 Funds Management, a venture capital fund investing in Agri-Food Technology. He is an experienced and active private investor, director and partner in several technology start-up companies.
Jonathon has extensive experience in treasury management, derivatives and risk management having previously acted in an advisory role within the corporate agricultural division of National Australia Bank. He has also worked on NAB's commodity desk and Treasury Management team delivering structuring advice. Jonathon sits on the board of The Global Ag-Tech Ecosystem (GATE), created by the NSW Dept. of Primary Industries, and has previously run a successful agriculture and farming business in NSW.
Jonathon received a Bachelor of Business from Australian Catholic University, has a Diploma in Technical Analysis from the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.
Job Titles:
- Venture Partner / SparkLabs Connex / CO - FOUNDER of REDOCTANE ( GUITAR HERO )
Kai Huang was co-founder and CEO of Blue Goji, an interactive fitness company that brings motivation and fun to health and fitness. Prior to Blue Goji, he co-founded video game publisher RedOctane and was President and CEO from 1999 to 2009.
RedOctane was the publisher of Guitar Hero, which went on to become a multi-billion dollar global video game franchise and was acquired by Activision in 2006. Prior to RedOctane, Mr. Huang was co-founder and CEO of Adux Software, which was sold in 1999. Mr. Huang started his career as a consultant with Accenture in the San Francisco office.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Frontier - ASU / CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER at MOZILLA
- Mozilla 's Chief Open Innovation Officer
As Mozilla's Chief Open Innovation Officer, Katharina serves as the senior executive broadly responsible for open innovation, in terms of our community management, participation systems, and non-commercial partnerships with organizations to advance product, technology and policy work.
In 2020 Katharina was named one of the 100 Most Creative People by Fast Company, an award which recognizes her leadership on Common Voice in helping to diversify AI speech through machine learning.
Katharina has a background that includes more than a decade of new business growth and technological innovation in media and journalism, most recently as CEO at Spiegel Online, the online division of one of Europe's most influential magazines.
Prior to that, Katharina was Editor-in-Chief and CEO at WAZ Media Group, where she completely reimagined the way local and regional journalism could be done, launching a new portal "Der Westen" based heavily upon user participation, integrated social media, and one of the earliest with a focus on location-based data in journalism.
Katharina studied law (with a focus on humanitarian law) and journalism in Hamburg and Lausanne. She previously worked at the UN Center for Human Rights.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Taipei / CO - FOUNDER & CEO of KABAM
- Co - Founder and CEO of Kabam
Kevin Chou is co-founder and CEO of Kabam, a world leader in AAA mobile free-to-play games. Kevin is an entreprenteur who has guided Kabam's explosive growth, which started with a handful of people working above a dim sum restaurant and catapulted to $400 million in revenue, sustained profitability, and a valuation of more than $1 billion in 2014.
Since co-founding a company in 2006 that became Kabam in 2009, Kevin has led the disruption of the video game industry by revolutionizing the way players access and pay for games.
He has secured partnerships with leading game platforms, as well as with Hollywood studio giants such as Disney, Lionsgate, MGM, NBCUniversal, Paramount and Warner Brothers for games based on some of the world's most beloved movie franchises.
Under Kevin's leadership, Kabam has raised more than $240 million from venture and strategic investors, including some of the world's largest entertainment and internet companies such as Alibaba, Google, Intel and Warner Brothers.
Before co-founding Kabam, Kevin worked at the global venture capital firm Canaan Partners, which is Kabam's initial investor and where he invested in 14 consumer technology and online media companies. Earlier, Kevin advised public technology companies on M&A and corporate finance as part of Deutsche Bank's technology investment banking practice.
Kevin graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley with a BS in Business Administration.
At UC Berkeley, Kevin was admitted to the inaugural class of Gates Millennium Scholars. In 2014 Kevin was named one Fortune magazine's prestigious "40 Under 40" and, in 2012, was identified by Fortune as one of the "Smartest People in Tech." The Los Angeles Times called Kevin "absurdly accomplished."
Job Titles:
- COO
- Partner / SparkLabs Group / COO and Board of Directors
Kurtis Jang is currently the COO of SparkLabs Acquisition Corporation, an initiative focused on helping SparkLabs ecosystem companies with late stage funding and exits - especially focused on going public via a SPAC.
Prior to SparkLabs, Kurtis was the CEO of Prudential Insurance Company, Korea and has over 20 years experience leading numerous multi-national corporations in the Asian insurance marketplace. At Prudential Korea, he led consistent growth to achieve over $1B in annual premiums and the market's highest profitability margins for 5 consecutive years.
He recently led the successful sale of Prudential Korea to KB Financial Group.
Prior to Prudential, Kurtis served as the CEO of Chubb Insurance Company, Korea where he managed a business generating over $100M in annual premiums. Under his leadership, Chubb Korea achieved double-digit growth for each year he was there, and he championed the global Accident and Health strategy for the Asia-Pacific region.
Previously, he also served as the Regional Head and CEO of ReMark Group Korea/Japan/China, and the CEO of SCOR Reinsurance, Korea. He started his career at Allstate Reinsurance. Kurtis also serves on the Board of Make A Wish Korea where he previously served as Chairman. Kurtis received his BA in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign and completed the executive management program for SCOR executives at Insead.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Co - Principal Investigator
- Expert
- Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences
Lars Peter Hansen is a leading expert in economic dynamics who works at the forefront of economic thinking and modeling, drawing approaches from macroeconomics, finance, and statistics. He is a recipient of the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
Hansen has made fundamental advances in our understanding of how economic agents cope with changing and risky environments. He has contributed to the development of statistical methods designed to explore the interconnections between macroeconomic indicators and assets in financial markets. These methods are widely used in empirical research in financial economics today.
Hansen also serves as co-principal investigator, along with Andrew Lo of MIT, on the Macro Financial Modeling Project (MFM). This research group works to develop macroeconomic models with enhanced linkages to financial markets, with the aim of providing better policy tools for monitoring so-called systemic risks to the economy.
Hansen is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Finance Association. He also is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and past president of the Econometric Society.
Job Titles:
- Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft AI
Lili Cheng is a Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft AI and Research division, responsible for the AI developer platform which includes: Cognitive Services-a collection of powerful cognitive AI APIs for vision, speech, language understanding, knowledge and search, which enables developers to easily add AI to their apps and services. Bot Framework makes it easy for developers to build and connect intelligent conversational AI to their customer experiences, and deploy these in their own custom UI as well as embedded in Skype, Microsoft Teams, Cortana, Bing as well as Facebook, Slack, etc.
This builds upon tools for deep learning using the Cognitive Toolkit and Azure virtual machines, providing a comprehensive data and analytics platform. Prior to Microsoft, Lili worked in Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group on the user interface research team where she focused on QuickTime Conferencing and QuickTime VR. Lili is also a registered architect, having worked in Tokyo and Los Angeles for Nihon Sekkei and Skidmore Owings and Merrill on commercial urban design and large-scale building projects. She has also taught at New York University and Harvard University.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Group / Corporate Vice President and Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft
Job Titles:
- Director at Alpine Capital
- Partner / SparkLabs Cultiv8
Malcolm co-founded SparkLabs Cultiv8 and is a founding partner of Cultiv8 Funds Management, a venture capital fund investing in agri-food technology. He specialises in sourcing investment opportunities, portfolio management and corporate relationships to scale company growth.
Malcolm is a director at Alpine Capital, a boutique investment banking firm dedicated to mid, small and microcap markets, along with institutional investment advisory and wealth management. In 2022, he stepped down as Managing Director.
Malcolm has previously held the position of Senior Investment Advisor at Macquarie Bank, where he built a reputable wealth management business and facilitated many smaller company capital raisings. He was Senior Investment Advisor of Ord Minnett and Investment Analyst at Crescent Capital.
Malcolm has a Bachelor and Master of Commerce, as well as a University Blue from the University of Sydney
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Connex / CEO of GDP VENTURE
Martin has a strong passion for gaming and technology, combined with a wealth of experience as Djarum Group's Business Technology Director, led him in founding GDP Venture, a venture builder focusing on digital communities, media, commerce, and solution companies in 2010.
Martin loves teaching. Besides running GDP Venture as CEO, Martin spends his time mentoring local talents at the Founders Institute Jakarta. Martin earned an MBA from Claremont Graduate University, California and a BA in Economics from University of California, San Diego.
Martin is also an avid photographer, grappling enthusiast, basketball player, guitar slayer and doting father of three. He said, "Loving what you do is the best gift anyone can have.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Korea / PRESIDENT of ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
- Chairman of the Board of in - Q - Tel
- President of Arizona State University
Michael M. Crow became the 16th president of Arizona State University on July 1, 2002. He is guiding the transformation of ASU into one of the nation's leading public metropolitan research universities, an institution that combines the highest levels of academic excellence, inclusiveness to a broad demographic, and maximum societal impact-a model he terms the "New American University." Under his direction the university of over 70,000 students pursues teaching, research, and creative excellence focused on the major challenges of our time, as well as those central to the quality of life, sustainable development, and economic competitiveness of Arizona and the nation. He has committed the university to sustainability, social embeddedness, and global engagement, and championed initiatives leading to record levels of diversity in the student body.
Dr. Crow is also the Chairman of the Board of In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm, and played in a key role in its founding. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Council on Foreign Relations, he is the author of books and articles relating to the design and analysis of knowledge enterprises, technology transfer, sustainable development, and science and technology policy.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Group Chief of Operations at Putnam Investments
- Chief of Operations for Putnam Investments
Mr. Woodall is Chief of Operations for Putnam Investments. He is responsible for Global Business Intelligence; Market Data Services and Corporate Procurement; Investment Data Operations; Accounting and Middle Office Services; Fund Administration Services; Regulatory and Client Reporting; and Investor Services. In addition, Mr. Woodall is President of the Putnam Fiduciary Trust Company and a member of Putnam's Operating Committee and Diversity Advisory Council. He joined Putnam in 1993 and has been in the investment industry since 1983.
Under Mr. Woodall's leadership, Putnam has received the DALBAR Mutual Fund Service Award for over 30 consecutive years and the annual DALBAR Total Client Experience Award for the past ten years. In addition, Putnam received a National Quality Review 5-Star Rating for Superior Processing Accuracy and the Money Management Award for Innovation in back-office efficiency. Mr. Woodall is the recipient of the 2020 NOVA Outstanding Service to the Fund Industry Robert L. Gould Award, the Boston-based PINCH Foundation Jack Leary Quiet Leadership Award, and the Putnam Board of Trustees Outstanding Service Award. Previously at Putnam, he held several leadership roles, including as Head of Mutual Fund Shareholder Services, Vice President of Investor Services, Head of Business Planning and Development, and Head of Enterprise Services. Prior to joining Putnam, Mr. Woodall served in senior leadership roles at First Data Corp., 440 Financial Corp., and Fidelity Investments.
Mr. Woodall is in his third term as Chair of the Boston Water & Sewer Commission since 2015, a role appointed by and reporting to the Mayor of Boston. Mr. Woodall is a board member of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau and is a member of the Trustees for Boston's One Waterfront CEO Roundtable. He is the former Chair of the NICSA (National Investment Company Service Association) and a Director Emeritus. Mr. Woodall is an active member of the DTCC (Depository Trust Clearing Corporation) Senior Wealth Advisory Board, the ICI (Investment Company Institute) Operations Committee, and the Board of Visitors of the Northeastern University D'AmoreMcKim School of Business. In addition, he is a founding member of the nonprofit Inspire Arts & Music, where he serves on the Board of Directors. Mr. Woodall earned a business degree from Northeastern University with distinction as a member of the Sigma Epsilon Rho Honor Society.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Ventures
Since 2001, Mike Honda has represented the 15th Congressional District of California in the U.S. House of Representatives. His district includes Silicon Valley, the birthplace of technology innovation and the leading region for the development of the technologies of tomorrow. Mike has been a public servant for decades and is lauded for his work on education, transportation, civil rights, national service, the environment, and high-tech issues.
Mike was born in California, but spent his early childhood with family in an internment camp in Colorado during World War II. His family returned to California in 1953, becoming strawberry sharecroppers in San José's Blossom Valley. In 1965, Mike answered President John F. Kennedy's call for volunteer service, enrolled in the Peace Corps for two years in El Salvador and returned with a passion for teaching and fluent in Spanish.
Mike earned Bachelor's degrees in Biological Sciences and Spanish, and a Master's degree in Education from San José State University. In his career as an educator, Mike was a science teacher, served as a principal at two public schools, and conducted educational research at Stanford University.
In 1971, Mike was appointed by then-Mayor Norm Mineta to San Jose's Planning Commission. In 1981, Mike won his first election, gaining a seat on the San José Unified School Board. In 1990, Mike was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, where he led efforts to acquire and preserve open space in the county.
Mike served in the California State Assembly from 1996 to 2000. In 2000, Mike was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and serves on the Appropriations Committee, with postings on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Commerce, Justice, and Science, and Legislative Branch Subcommittees. As an appropriator, Mike focuses on directing funding to critical areas such as: access to affordable healthcare; worker training; port and border security; law enforcement and the safety of our neighborhoods; health care for our veterans; recovery from natural disasters, particularly Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ike.
Mike is serving his seventh year as Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, coordinating with his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucuses to champion the causes of under-represented communities by promoting social justice, racial tolerance, and civil rights.
In 2007, he was named House Democratic Senior Whip by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC). Senior Whips are a select group of Members and Democratic Caucus opinion leaders tasked with strategic planning about how issues impact targeted Members or groups, and will help develop strategies to ensure legislative success.
Mike is widowed and has two grown children. His wife, Jeanne, was a teacher at Baldwin Elementary School in San José before her untimely passing in 2004. His son, Mark, is an aerospace engineer and Michelle, his daughter, is a public health educator with three young boys.
Job Titles:
- Advisor / SparkLabs Connex / Founder & Partner of Riverwood Capital
- Founding Partner of Riverwood Capital
Nicholas Brathwaite is a founding Partner of Riverwood Capital. Nicholas has spent over 25 years developing and evaluating technology.
From 1996 to 2007, he served as the Chief Technology Officer at Flextronics, where he worked alongside Michael Marks, former CEO. At Flextronics, Nicholas was innovative in his drive to move the company into product development, and he oversaw the launch and growth of several of Flextronics' largest business units.
Previously, he was a founding member of nChip responsible for development of the industry-leading advanced multi-chip module assembly process. More recently with Riverwood, Nicholas served as the interim CEO for Aptina Imaging from February 2007 to August 2008. His unique combination of technology know-how and commercial judgment will add value throughout the investment life-cycle at Riverwood.
Nicholas earned a M.Sc. Degree in Polymer Science Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada and a B.Sc. (Honors) Degree in Applied Chemistry from McMaster University, Canada. He is a director of Globant, Arkmicro., Power Integrations, Tessera Technologies, Inc and Chairman of the Board at Aptina Imaging.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- CTO
- Venture Partner & Technical Adviser / SparkLabs Global Ventures
- Venture Partner and Technical Adviser
Peter Chang is co-founder and CTO of N3N, an interactive software company that mixes passion, creativity and technology to create new interactive user experience and innovative presentation solutions. He is currently leading the product development of INNOWATCH which is a C4 level command and control center solution.
Job Titles:
- Group Manager of the Overseas Business Group