Aravind Ratnam
Lip-Bu Tan
Lip-Bu Tan is Founder and Chairman of Walden International (“WI”), and Founding Managing Partner of Celesta Capital and Walden Catalyst Ventures, with over $5 billion under management. He formerly served as Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. He currently serves on the Board of Schneider Electric SE (SU: FP), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), and Credo Semiconductor (NASDAQ: CRDO).
Lip-Bu focuses on semiconductor/components, cloud/edge infrastructure, data management and security, and AI/machine learning.Lip-Bu received his B.S. from Nanyang University in Singapore, his M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his MBA from the University of San Francisco. He also received his honorary degree for Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of San Francisco. Lip-Bu currently serves on Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)’s Board of Trustees and the School of Engineering Dean’s Council, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s School of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council, University of California Berkeley (UCB)’s College of Engineering Advisory Board and their Computing, Data Science, and Society Advisory Board, and University of California San Francisco (UCSF)’s Executive Council. He’s also a member of the Global Advisory Board of METI Japan, The Business Council, and Committee 100. He also served on the board of the Board of Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) from 2009 to 2021, and as a Trustee of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore from 2006 to 2011. Lip-Bu has been named one of the Top 10 Venture Capitalists in China by Zero2ipo and was listed as one of the Top 50 Venture Capitalists on the Forbes Midas List. He’s the recipient of imec’s 2023 Lifetime of Innovation Award, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) 2022 Robert N. Noyce Award, and GSA’s 2016 Dr. Morris Chang's Exemplary Leadership Award. In 2017, he was ranked #1 of the most well-connected executives in the technology industry by the analytics firm Relationship Science.
John L. Hennessy
John L. Hennessy is the Chairman of Alphabet Inc., Board Member of Cisco Systems, the former President of Stanford University, a co-founder of MIPS Computer Systems & Atheros, and a recent Turing Award laureate for his pioneering development of RISC architecture, alongside David Patterson. Dr. Hennessy was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 2012 and was appointed a Fellow of the Computer History Museum in 2007, among a multitude of accolades for his leadership in the field of computer science, architecture & engineering.
In 2016, he co-founded the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program, which has a $750 million endowment to fully fund graduate students at Stanford for up to three years.
Charlotte Semler
Laure Bouguen
Laure has known since childhood the benefits of hemp, as her grand-parents grew it in Bretagne (France), from legal cannabis sativa variety.
In 2016 - while she was still a business school student - she created a range of unique men skincare products made with hemp seeds oil recognised by the barbers for its impressive soothing effect.
She quickly realized that the exceptional properties of the hemp seeds but also the flowers had the power to solve wellness issues beyond the gender, type of skin or age.
She surrounded herself with agronomy and pharmacy researchers to launch HO KARAN.
Peony Li
Peony runs the investment team at Founders Factory, investing and supporting 250 start-ups across 7 sectors with the backing of 7 corporates (L’Oreal, M&S, Easyjet, Aviva, Guardian, Holtzbrinck and CSC). Having observed pain points these corporates are experiencing from a bottom up view, she is passionate in identifying product-market fit and help speeding up sales cycle for start-ups with corporates and facilitating.
Prior to that, she advised start-ups in Africa, London and Hong Kong and assisted early stage start-ups to raise in total £10m and started her own company in the retail space, changing the way millennial parents consume products and knowledge.
Champion for female founders and a big believer in hardwork, hustle and perseverance.
Oliver Mennell
Oliver Mennell is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NEOM, the wellbeing and beauty brand.
Widely recognised as one of the first and fastest growing wellbeing brands in the UK, NEOM offers natural products that are designed to deliver therapeutic benefits to relieve stress, aid sleep, boost energy or lift mood.
A chance encounter and savvy sales skills launched Oliver’s career in private equity, converting a two-week internship into a full-time role becoming the youngest Investment Analyst at Nikko Principal Investments. During his time spent at the firm, Oliver learnt first-hand about buying, building and selling businesses, an experience that would later prove invaluable when setting up his own business.
Two years later an opportunity arose. Close friend, Nicola Elliott, came to Oliver with the idea of creating a wellbeing and beauty brand that harnessed the power of potent essential oils. Having experienced first-hand the impact stress and anxiety can have in high pressure jobs and noticing a building momentum towards healthy living, Oliver saw a clear gap in the market for a brand designed to address key wellbeing needs. In 2005, aged twenty-three, Oliver launched NEOM with Nicola.
Based in Harrogate and employing close to 100 people, NEOM is a fast-growing multi-channel business with retail sales of over £25m in 2019. Its home fragrance and skincare ranges are sold through leading department stores such as John Lewis, Selfridges and Fenwick in the UK as well as flagship international stores. NEOM has a thriving online business and five of its own retail stores with further openings planned. In December 2017, Oliver led a major growth capital investment from Piper, the UK’s leading investor in consumer brands.
Dr Wensong Zhang
Dr. Wensong Zhang is SVP at Didi Chuxing. He is in charge of the company’s Infrastructure and Platform Department, which focuses on developing tech services for DiDi. His teams lead DiDi’s efforts to optimize the performance of network hardware/software and develop next generation Smart Transportation solutions. One of his main achievements has been the successful founding and development of the Linux Virtual Server project, an open source project to build advanced server clustering software for Linux. Before joining DiDi, Wensong served as the Vice President and CTO of Alibaba Cloud. He was also an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Technology at the National University of Defense Technology.
