GBxAsia
Board Members

Kay Poh Gek Vasey is the Founder of MeshMinds, a creative technology studio, partnered with the United Nations Environment Programme. Kay spends her days blending the worlds of art and technology with powerful partnerships to drive awareness, ignite conversations and inspire behaviour change for the sustainable development of people and our planet.

 She will continue to champion Women in Technology with her small but mighty team and will always remember that she stands on the shoulders of giants.

Nicki Ramsay is CEO and Founder of CardUp, a fast-growing payments platform based in Singapore. An expert in the payments industry, she has built digital payments products and previously held leadership roles including Head of Consumer Insight for APAC and Director of International Business Development.

She is seen as a thought leader in the fintech space, featured in media such and is a regular speaker at industry events. Nicki started her career as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting, with a first-class degree in Economics.

Michael is the Managing Partner and Co-founder of early-stage venture capital firm Cocoon Capital. Cocoon focuses on pre-seed and seed-stage deep tech and enterprise tech companies across SE Asia with a hands-on, founder-first approach.

Before this, Michael was a veteran angel investor. He was named UK Angel Investor of the Year 2015 and selected as one of the Maserati 100. Having moved to Singapore in 2013 to help his portfolio companies expand to Southeast Asia, Michael noticed an opportunity to create value, specifically at the seed stage, in the start-up landscape here.

Tanya is Co-Founder at Sophia. Sophia is a financial education platform for financial services companies and corporates who want to offer financial education to their female customers and employees. 

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Sophia was born with a mission to educate and empower women to mobilise the almost $93 trillion dollars in wealth held by women. Sophia not only teaches women how to gain control of their personal finances but also addresses the gender wealth gap and the gender investing gap. Sophia works with corporates who want to offer our courses to their employees and to financial institutions who want to better connect with their female customers.

Rajeev Natarajan is the Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific for ICONIQ Capital, a privately-held investment firm that serves some of the world’s most influential families and organisations.

Prior to ICONIQ, Rajeev spent nine years within the Investment Management and Securities Divisions of Goldman Sachs across the London, Sydney, and Singapore offices. He also spent two years in a raw material and commodity trading business in Hong Kong and four years as a Management Consultant with Accenture in their Melbourne and Atlanta offices.

Leslie is the Head of Tech Singapore Advocates, the Singapore branch of the Global Tech Advocates network.  She also oversees the group’s APAC presence; working with GTA partners throughout SouthEast Asia.  

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With TSA/GTA, Leslie builds community and drives initiatives to support the local and global tech eco-systems. She also advises startups and scaleups; as well as acting as a moderator and speaker at events. Leslie is a New York qualified attorney, having practiced for many years in London before relocating to Asia.

Venkatesh is the Chief Operating Officer at Skuad. Headquartered in Singapore, Skuad helps companies build globally distributed teams in 160+ countries through a unified platform. 
 

Prior to Skuad, Venkatesh led Wise's (formerly TransferWise) expansion efforts across Asia-Pacific and served as the CEO of Wise Asia-Pacific Ltd, the company's APAC hub in Singapore. He is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute.

Tanya has 20 years experience in content and experience creation, managing large-scale collaborations between the creative community, global brands, Government and cultural institutions. Tanya hosts a podcast, The Unusual Podcast, as an ongoing experiment to understand creativity through conversations with some of the best creative minds in Asia and around the world.

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With a network of over 1,000 illustrators, animators and street artists, Tanya is a firm believer in the power of creativity for social good. 

Alex Hambly first ventured to Asia in 1989, and since then, he has established a notable career, residing in India, Vietnam, and Singapore. Currently serving as a Senior Advisor to Aglaia, a prominent multi-family office in Singapore, Alex primarily lends his expertise to the organization's global private market activities. Additionally, he offers non-executive advisory services to Vinacapital and British International Investment in Asia. Alex's extensive experience includes a tenure as the Chief Investment Officer for Eastspring Investments, a member of Prudential plc UK, where he managed a global private asset portfolio exceeding US$2 billion. 

Originally from the UK, Jonathan moved to Korea in 2004 and after completing his Masters at Seoul National University, was awarded the Korean Government Scholarship to do his Ph.D. on South Korean industrial policy. ​

Jonathan heads up Intralink’s Energy & Environment practice and has helped dozens of energy-related companies with their Asia strategies. He also has strong experience in the consumer electronics and semiconductor industries and has worked across the manufacturing industry as an FDI attraction specialist for over a decade. He is currently chairman of the Association of American State Offices in Korea.

Lawson Emmanuel is a Fintech investment partner at Hedosophia, a global investment firm supporting category defining Internet and technology companies

Martin Kent was appointed His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner (HMTC) for Asia Pacific in September 2023. Martin joined the Civil Service in 2015 as the Deputy Director for Global Operations at UK Trade and Investment (UKTI).

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He started his career at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in London and worked mainly overseas with multinational companies, including extended periods in Australia and Singapore.

Entrepreneur with 28 years building businesses in Europe and Asia, VC (Wavemaker Impact) and impact investor/mentor (30 companies). Passionate about tackling climate change & inequality.

In 2007, Steve co-founded PropertyGuru to increase transparency and “empower consumers to make confident property decisions”. He led the business as CEO for its first 10 years, growing it with his co-founder Jani, from scratch into a proptech unicorn us listed on New York Stock Exchange (“PGRU” NYSE ticker). Steve remains on its board.

As the Department for International Trade’s Regional Director for Asia Pacific, Chris is responsible for the UK’s exciting new Digital Trade Network, which is enhancing UK digital tech capability overseas; digital tech trade and investment promotion; and a new in-market tech entrepreneur network to support scaling UK tech companies to internationalise.

He has worked in the UK Civil Service for 14 years, in roles ranging from digital tech, industrial strategy and science policy, through to ministerial private office, strategy and trade and investment.