Board & ADVISORS

Jeff Zhang has served as the chief technology officer of Alibaba Group since April 2016.

Prior to his current position, Jeff was president of China retail marketplaces from May 2015 to April 2016, and president of Taobao Marketplace and the wireless business division prior to that. He joined our company in July 2004 and has held various management positions, at different times leading Taobao Marketplace's technology infrastructure team, the B2C development team and Taobao Marketplace's product technology development team from 2004 to 2011. He served as vice president of product technology and operations of Taobao Marketplace from June 2011 to March 2012, and vice president of website and technology of Alibaba.com's China operations from March 2012 to January 2013. From January 2013 to February 2014, he oversaw Juhuasuan, local services, 1688.com, and Tmall.

Jeff studied computer science at Zhejiang University.

Professor Xiao’ou Tang is the founder of SenseTime, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company focused on computer vision and deep learning. Professor Tang is considered one of the most influential AI scientists. He is a professor at the Department of Information Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He serves as the Associate Director of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Science. Previously, he was the Director of Visual Computing at Microsoft Research Asia from 2005 to 2008. In his academic and corporate roles, Professor Tang has taught and mentored many Ph.D. students and researchers in the areas of computer vision, pattern recognition, and video processing.

Professor Tang received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) in 2009. His work on facial recognition became the first facial recognition algorithm to surpass human performance. The work was awarded the Outstanding Student Paper Award at one of the most prestigious AI conferences, the AAAI, in 2015. Professor Tang is also an IEEE fellow, a program chair of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) in 2009, and a general chair of the ICCV in 2019. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV), one of the two leading journals on computer vision.

Professor Tang received a Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996. He holds an M.S. degree from the University of Rochester and a B.S. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China.

Cindy Chow is the Executive Director of the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund. Cindy joined Alibaba Group in 2007 and has worked in the financial control and planning capacity, most recently as the Senior Director of International Finance. Before joining Alibaba, Cindy has worked in a number of Hong Kong listed companies, specialising in financing, management reporting and planning.

Cindy holds a Master of Business Administration and is a certified public accountant. Through directly investing in early stage companies and organising various internship and training programmes, Cindy aspires to achieve the mission of the Fund which is to help Hong Kong entrepreneurs and young people realise their dreams for a vibrant world city.

Hailong Shang is the Managing Director of SenseTime Hong Kong, and he is responsible for the company’s overall strategic and overseas business. In particular, he leads the business for some of SenseTime’s fields of innovation, which include autonomous driving, new retail, health industry, and remote sensing. With his keen insights as well as rich experience working on large-scale projects, overseas business management, and government relations and engagement at all levels, Hailong Shang has led the swift and successful development of SenseTime’s strategic and overseas business.

In addition to his post at SenseTime, Hailong Shang currently serves as vice director general of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Alliance and vice director general of the Shanghai AI Alliance, among other positions. Before joining SenseTime, Hailong Shang was the high-ranking Senior Vice President of China Unicom Global, overseeing its global B2B business. Furthermore, he has also served as the director of China Mobile Hong Kong’s government projects division as well as university lecturer. Shang Hailong holds a BA in Industrial Science and MBA.

Professor Rocky S. Tuan assumed office as the eighth vice-chancellor and president of The Chinese University of Hong Kong on 1 January 2018. He is concurrently Lee Quo Wei and Lee Yick Hoi Lun Professor of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at the University. Prior to joining CUHK in 2016 as a distinguished visiting professor and the founding director of the Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, he held several appointments at the University of Pittsburgh, including distinguished professor of orthopaedic surgery and director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering in the School of Medicine. He is also founding director of the Center for Military Medicine Research and Associate Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Professor Tuan is an internationally renowned biomedical scientist specializing in musculoskeletal biology and tissue regeneration, whose work covers both basic science and engineering, as well as translational and clinical applications. His significant contributions have been recognized by the Hap Paul Award of the International Society of Technologies in Arthroplasty in 1997, the Marshall Urist Award for Excellence in Tissue Regeneration Research of the Orthopaedic Research Society in 2004, the Carnegie Science Award in Life Sciences, and the Clemson Award of the Society for Biomaterials in 2016. In 2017, Professor Tuan was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) for his accomplishments in innovation and translational research that bring significant impact on society.

Teddy Lui is currently Operations Director of Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, focusing on operating the investment program and building partnerships to longer term extension of the Fund’s role in supporting the growth of entrepreneurship in Hong Kong. Teddy was General Manager of Hong Kong business for Alipay.com and Taobao Marketplace, aiming at promoting Taobao Marketplace services to overseas markets and responsible for strategy of marketing development and business operations. Teddy served as senior business development manager of Alibaba.com focused on partner alliance development in Asia Pacific for B2B services. Teddy has more than 18 years of experience in e-commerce & online business development. Prior to Taobao Marketplace and Alibaba.com, Teddy was the product and content development manager at PCCW.

Growing up in the US, Taiwan, HK and Mainland China, Ethan Lin was a globetrotter from a young age, and his love of travel has taken him to over 30 countries. He got his start in Hong Kong, working for Citi Investment Bank, quickly becoming a specialist in the hospitality and real estate industry.

Under his leadership, Klook has been reshaping the supply chain of the travel activities market by providing innovative and customized solutions to increase efficiency for local operators. He turned the company into a booming platform that connects over 15 million global travelers per month with everything they want and need. Ethan also plays a pivotal role in securing support from renowned investors such as Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs, Matrix Partners, among others.

Shing is the Founder & CEO of Lalamove, a business-focused delivery platform that connects users, goods and drivers together using Internet, data & mobile app technologies. Lalamove operates in over 120 cities across Asia supporting over 25 million users and 2.5 million drivers.

Dr. Howard Huang was born in 1980 in Chaoshan Guangdong Province. He is a distinguished expert in the China National “Thousand Talents Program” for his contribution in laser metrology, 3D vision, and artificial intelligence. In the past, He studied at Peking University, National University of Singapore and City University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. degree from City University of Hong Kong. After that, Dr. Huang was granted a full scholarship funding and worked as a post-doctorate research fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Canada Ryerson University and SMART center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Huang has published numerous academic papers in top tier scientific journals and has been invited to many international conferences to give topic speech. He has also served as the chair in 6 international conference sessions.

In January 2013, Dr. Howard Huang founded Orbbec Co. Ltd. in Shenzhen. The company specializes in providing state-of-the-art 3D sensing technology and AI computer vision solutions. In just 5 years, Orbbec has become the 4th company in the world that produces consumer level 3D sensors in large volume, following Apple, Microsoft and Intel. Orbbec owns full proprietary intellectual property rights on 3D sensing ASIC design, algorithm, optical modules, software and so on. Orbbec filled China’s technological gap in AI 3D vision hardware, and has become the leading company in 3D sensing technology. In March 2018, Ministry of Science and Technology of the PRC released a list of Chinese technology “unicorn” companies, and Orbbec was honored to become a unicorn in the field of artificial intelligence 3D sensing technology.

Dr Hu Zhanghong, JP, currently serves as CEO of Greater Bay Area Homeland Investments Limited. Dr Hu is also a member of the board of directors of the Financial Services Development Council of Hong Kong, permanent honorary chairman of the Chinese Financial Association of Hong Kong, Chairman of the China Mergers & Acquisitions Association of Hong Kong, co-chairman of the Committee of the China VC & PE Association, and a member of the Resolvability Review Tribunal of the Financial Services Development Council.

Professor Hongbin Cai received his B.A. in Mathematics from Wuhan University in 1988, his M.A. in Economics from Peking University in 1991, and his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University in 1997. He is currently the Dean and Chair of Economics at Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Hong Kong.

From 1997 to 2005, he taught at University of California, Los Angeles. From December 2010 to January 2017, he served as Dean of Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. He is a National Chang Jiang Scholar (awarded by Ministry of Education of China) and a National Outstanding Young Researcher (awarded by National Science Foundation of China). Professor Cai was elected as a Fellow and a Council member of the Econometric Society. Professor Cai has published many academic papers in top international journals in economics and finance, in a wide range of areas including game theory, Chinese economy, industrial organization and corporate finance.

Professor Cao is currently a Chair Professor of Department of Computing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. He is also the director of the Internet and Mobile Computing Lab in the department and the director of University’s Research Facility in Big Data Analytics.

Professor Cao’s research interests include parallel and distributed computing, wireless sensing and networks, pervasive and mobile computing, and big data and cloud computing. He has co-authored 5 books, co-edited 9 books, and published over 500 papers in major international journals and conference proceedings. He received Best Paper Awards from conferences including DSAA’2017, IEEE SMARTCOMP 2016, ISPA 2013, IEEE WCNC 2011, etc.

Professor Cao has directed and participated in over 90 research and development projects and, as a principal investigator, obtained over HK$40 million grants from funding agencies such as National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Ministry of Science and Technology of P. R. China (MOST), Hong Kong Research Grant Council (RGC), Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC), Hong Kong Construction Industry Council, The Society of Hong Kong Scholars, and industries like Huawei, IBM and Nokia. Professor Cao has also involved in the development of 13 patents

Professor Cao served the Chair of the Technical Committee on Distributed Computing of IEEE Computer Society 2012-2014, a member of IEEE Fellows Evaluation Committee of the Computer Society and the Reliability Society, a member of IEEE Computer Society Education Awards Selection Committee, a member of IEEE Communications Society Awards Committee, and a member of Steering Committee of IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. Dr. Cao has served as chairs and members of organizing and technical committees of many international conferences, and as associate editor and member of the editorial boards of many international journals, including IEEE TPDS, IEEE TCC, IEEE TC, IEEE Network, ACM TOSN, Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal (PMCJ), and Springer Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications.

Professor Cao is a fellow of IEEE and ACM distinguished member. In 2017, he received the Overseas Outstanding Contribution Award from China Computer Federation.

Professor Lei Zhang received his B.Sc. degree in 1995 from Shenyang Institute of Aeronautical Engineering, China, and M.Sc. and Ph.D degrees from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China, in 1998 and 2001, respectively. From 2001 to 2002, he was a research associate in the Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. From January 2003 to January 2006 he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McMaster University, Canada. In 2006, he joined the Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, as an Assistant Professor. Since July 2017, he has been a Chair Professor in the same department. His research interests include Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Image and Video Analysis, and Biometrics, etc. Professor Zhang has published more than 200 papers in those areas. As of 2018, his publications have been cited more than 33,000 times in the literature. Professor Zhang is/was an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on Image Processing, SIAM Journal of Imaging Sciences, and IEEE Trans. on CSVT, etc. He was selected as a ``Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher`` consecutively from 2015 to 2017. Professor Zhang has also been collaborating or collaborated with leading companies, including Alibaba, SenseTime, DJI, Sony and Huawei, on various collaborative research projects.

Steven Lam is the Co-Founder and CEO of GOGOVAN, which was founded in 2013. Steven is responsible for the development of the overall business strategy and driving the growth and profitability of the business across the region. This also includes establishing business partnerships and securing funding.

GOGOVAN is committed to making daily lives easier, through decreasing idling time of drivers by efficiently connecting drivers and customers using its mobile app platform. GOGOVAN has expanded rapidly from Hong Kong to Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Mainland China and India. In August 2017, GOGOVAN merged with 58 Suyun, the leader in China’s intra-city logistics market, and with operations in over 110 cities and over 1.2 million registered drivers, the new company became the largest intra-city logistics platform in Asia. Steven is the CEO and is responsible for the development of the overall business strategy.

Simon Loong is the Founder and CEO of WeLab – Asia’s leading fintech company – which operates Wolaidai (我来贷), one of China’s largest mobile lending platforms and WeLend, Hong Kong’s leading online lending platform. The company also partners with leading financial institutions which utilize WeLab’s proprietary fintech solutions. WeLab was named in a KPMG-sponsored report as one of the top 100 fintech companies in the world – #6 in China and #33 globally, and was ranked by Deloitte as #1 fastest growing tech company by revenue in Hong Kong and #4 in China.

Prior to founding WeLab, Simon spent 15 years in retail banking divisions of leading international banks. Most recently, Simon served as the Head of Standard Chartered’s Unsecured Lending business in North East Asia. Prior to that, he was the Marketing Director for Citibank Taiwan and the Regional Risk Officer for Citibank Asia Pacific.

Simon serves as a board member on the Fintech Association of Hong Kong and an advisor on a number of professional organizations including Shenzhen Consumer Council, Hong Kong Trade Development Council and Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. Simon has a Master of Science in Management (MSM) from Stanford Graduate School of Business and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). He was awarded the “InnoStars Award” by Our Hong Kong Foundation in 2018, “Innovation Leadership Achievement in Hong Kong” by The Asian Banker in 2017 and ``CEO of the Year`` by Capital CEO in 2016. Simon was also named as one of the 20 people shaping Hong Kong’s future in the next 20 years by leading Chinese media outlet, YiCai (第一财经).

Professor Witman Hung is currently the Hong Kong Deputy to 13th National People's Congress (NPC) and Principal Liaison Officer for Hong Kong, Shenzhen Qianhai Authority. A seasoned ICT professional and angel investor, Witman has worked in the industry for 30 years. He is the President of the Internet Professional Association, Executive Chairman of Chinese Big Data Society, Vice President of Hong Kong Industry University Research Collaboration Association and Vice Chairman of the Monte Jade Science and Technology Association of HK. Witman was elected as a Director of the Board of the World Summit Awards, an initiative within the framework of UN WSIS. Witman is a Chartered Information Technology Professional and a fellow of the British Computer Society, the Hong Kong Institute of Directors and the Hong Kong Computer Society.

Professor Hung served as a Part-time Member of the Central Policy Unit of the HKSAR Government during 2012-2014, and is currently a Standing Committee Member of the Center for China and Globalization and Adjunct Professor of Jinan University.

In 2008, Witman was selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of Hong Kong. In 2016, he was given the Asia Social Innovation Leadership Award by CMO Asia and in 2017 he was given Light of Civilization 2017 Chinese Cultural Exchange Person of the Year. In 2015 he was appointed as a Justice of the Peace by the Hong Kong SAR Government.

Professor Hung graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic with a Higher Diploma in Maths, Statistics and Computing. He then obtained a BA(Hons) from the University of Bolton, MBA from the University of Hull and MA in Public and Comparative History from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He also obtained a LLM from the Renmin University of China and PhD in Business Administration from Bulacan State University, the Philippines and is currently pursuing his LLD study with the Renmin University of China.

Bertram E. Shi is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is a Fellow of IEEE. His research interests are in bio-inspired visual processing and robotics, neuromorphic engineering, human machine interfaces, computational neuroscience, machine learning, and developmental robotics.

Dennis Lam is a visionary leader, physician scientist, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Being Past President and Secretary-General (SG) of Asia-Pacific (AP) Academy of Ophthalmology (APAO), President & OC Chair of World Ophthalmology Congress (HK 2008), Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis (AOI) Member, President of AP Vitreo-Retina Society (APVRS), SG of Academy of AP Professors of Ophthalmology (AAPPO) and AP Myopia Society (APMS), Council Member of International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO), International Society of Refractive Surgery (ISRS), and World Glaucoma Association (WGA), he has been contributing much to ophthalmological development in Asia-Pacific and beyond.

Dennis Lam is a physician scientist with over 800 SCI publications and serves on over 10 editorial boards, including APJO (Editor-in-Chief). After building up Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, Chinese University of HK to a world renowned eye institute (Chairman 1998–2011), he moved on to establish “C-MER Eye Care Group”, which was listed on the HK Stock Exchange on 15 Jan 2018. C-MER is currently running 1 eye center and 5 eye clinics in Hong Kong, and 2 eye hospitals in Shenzhen and Beijing PRC respectively.

Dennis Lam is passionate about eliminating cataract blindness in China and instrumental to establishing 2 major charity projects in China, “Lifeline Express” and “Project Vision”.

Awards received include: “Top 100 Most Influential Ophthalmologists in the World” by The Ophthalmology for three consecutive years (ranked 18th in 2018), “Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World” and “Hong Kong Humanity Award”. He is also a Congressman serving the National People’s Congress of China since 2008.

Dr. Yip is responsible for overseeing BEA’s business and investments in Mainland China and has been a Non-executive Director of The Bank of East Asia (China) Limited since March 2017. He also serves as a director on the boards of several of BEA’s associates and subsidiaries, namely East Asia Qianhai Holdings Company Limited, Shanghai Ctrip Financial Services Co., Ltd, Guotong Trust Company Limited and Brilliance-BEA Auto Finance Company Limited.

Dr. Yip has extensive experience in the financial industry. Prior to joining BEA, he was Chief Executive Officer of Verdant Capital Group, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and Associate Director of HSBC Global Asset Management (Hong Kong) Limited. He started his career as a Management Consultant with McKinsey & Company in the United States.

Dr. Yip is actively involved in public service. He serves as a member of the Trade and Industry Advisory Board of the HKSAR Government, a Vice Patron and Vice-chairman of the Admissions, Budgets and Allocations Committee of the Hong Kong Community Chest. In the past, he served as a member of various committees of the HKSAR Government, including the Advisory Council on the Environment, the Environmental Campaign Committee, and the Environment and Conservation Fund Investment Committee.

Dr. Yip received a PhD in Economics from Harvard University, United States.