A truly global team.

Nan Yang

Founder & Chairman

• Former Global CTO – Insurance, Sun Microsystems
• 1,000+ architects & engineers led
• 20+ countries
• Multi-$B global FSI leadership
• Board & investor technology advisor
• AI-native builder

Nan is a global technology executive, enterprise architect, founder and hands-on engineer with 30 years’ experience across industries and international markets — from boardroom to codebase. Nan has led technology strategy, architecture and transformation in more than 20 countries for clients in banking, insurance, capital markets, telecom, healthcare and government.

At Sun Microsystems, Nan was Global CTO for Insurance, Global Chief Architect for Mobile Financial Services, Chief Architect for Financial Services in Asia Pacific and Chief Java Architect for Greater China — leading a global matrix team of more than 1,000 architects and engineers and serving on Sun’s global Financial Services executive management team, which drove multi-billion-dollar annual revenue. Nan was a member of Sun’s original Java Center team and represented Sun on the American Bankers Association Future Technology Committee in Washington, DC.

Nan was chief architect of HSBC’s Java Centre of Excellence — the first of its kind in Asia-Pacific — and of Ping An’s architecture foundation framework (PAFA) and SOA platform, which became the foundation of Ping An’s IT across insurance, banking and securities. Nan also served as technical authority on Hyundai Marine & Fire’s US$30 million migration of its core insurance system from mainframe to open technology, and as chief architect for the enterprise and SOA architecture behind HACTL’s next-generation air-cargo handling system. Clients across Sun and Oracle included Citigroup, JPMorgan, HSBC, Bank of America, Standard Chartered, UBS, ICBC, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, AIG, ING, AXA, PICC, China Life and NYSE.

Nan went on to lead enterprise architecture as Chief Enterprise Architect at Oracle Greater China, and served as Senior Vice President of Global Client Engineering and General Manager, China at Navagate — leading a 200-person engineering organisation across four countries and taking its China operation to profitability within three months. From 2014 Nan held CTO and chief-architect roles across supply-chain finance and fintech ventures, including a Cyberport-funded machine-learning robo-advisor in 2018. Nan has also advised China’s Ministry of Transport on smart maritime administration.

Through Yang Brothers, Nan has advised a major sovereign wealth fund on a UK investment, been engaged by investors to advise an Australian mortgage fintech start-up on business and technology strategy and its product and platform roadmap, and advised US, Chinese and Hong Kong VCs on technology risk across several prospective fintech investments.

Today Nan builds ConexOS, an AI-native global trade operating system, as founder, chief architect and hands-on engineer. Nan holds an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Auckland.

Dr. Tan Yang

Chief Executive Officer

• US$5B+ cross-border M&A
• Oxford PhD
• Public-company boards
• Rothschild Creat Partners · Monitor · Accenture

Tan has more than 20 years’ experience in general management, operations, strategy and investment across Asia Pacific and Europe. Tan has led and completed many cross-border M&A transactions, including China’s largest cross-border healthcare acquisitions, with a combined value of more than US$5 billion; executed the first share-swap between a Chinese A-share listed company and a US-listed company; led negotiations with US and European regulators; and secured CFIUS approval for every deal.

Tan serves on the boards of multiple European and Asia Pacific public companies, and was Managing Director of Jacob Rothschild Creat Partners in Hong Kong, responsible for the China business of the private equity fund co-founded with Lord Jacob Rothschild to invest outbound into Europe and the US. Earlier, Tan was a management consultant with Monitor Group and Accenture in London, delivering major strategy projects for Fortune 500 clients, and Corporate Quality Manager and Six Sigma Black Belt at Siemens in Australia and New Zealand.

Tan holds a PhD in Management Studies from the University of Oxford, and is Honorary Advisor on China for Oxford University and a member of the Oxford China Advisory Group.

Greg Shea

President

• Former President, BlackBerry China
• Former President & MD, USITO
• Canadian Foreign Service
• Hong Kong · Beijing · Nairobi

Greg has spent more than three decades as a leader in the high-tech business community of Greater China and Asia Pacific, and more recently in Africa’s emerging markets. Greg excels at business strategy, drawing on networks across business, government, finance and media to manage risk and maximise success.

After an MSc, Greg began in Asia with the Canadian Foreign Service in Seoul and Hong Kong. Greg joined HP in 1997 as China Director of Communications and Government Affairs, oversaw new venture investment at a Siemens–CITIC joint venture from 2000, and became Sun Microsystems’ North Asia Government Industry Director in 2004. Greg was then President and Managing Director of USITO (2005–2008) and President of BlackBerry China (2008–2012).

Since 2014 Greg has advised African and Chinese governments and businesses on ICT projects, and became a partner in Yang Brothers in 2016. Greg has chaired the E-Commerce China Forum under the Ministry of Commerce, led the expert team for the EU–China Information Society Project, and served on the US Government Affairs committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. Greg divides his time between Hong Kong, Beijing and Nairobi.

Frank Lau

Chief Technology Officer

• 25 years at Sun & Oracle
• Former Greater China Chief Architect, Sun Professional Services
• Blockchain & middleware

Frank is a technology leader with 25 years of IT experience, mostly with Sun Microsystems and Oracle. As Greater China Chief Architect for Professional Services at Sun, Frank covered key clients across finance, telecom and education.

Frank is an expert in access management, BPM and middleware solutions, and in blockchain technology. Frank is a graduate of UC Berkeley and holds a master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Santa Clara University.

Jade Ellis

Vice President, Americas

• US$30B structured finance
• Accenture financial services
• Oxford Executive MBA

Jade has more than 20 years’ experience in IT implementation, management consulting, real estate and green building. An experienced manager, analyst and cross-cultural business advisor, Jade is sought after to bring Asian and Western investors, businesses and technologies together.

Jade was an assistant vice president helping to manage the US$30 billion structured-finance department at Countrywide (now part of Bank of America), then the largest US mortgage lender, and has worked for Golden Bridge Merchant Bank of Hong Kong in clean technology. Jade has helped start and grow multiple consulting firms in strategy, operations and IT, after beginning a career at Accenture in financial services. Jade holds an Executive MBA from Oxford, an MPIA in comparative economics with high honours from UC San Diego, and a BA in Economics and Business from UCLA as a Regents Scholar.

Jay Elliot

Advisor

• Former SVP, Apple
• Author, The Steve Jobs Way
• IBM · Intel

Jay is the author of the worldwide bestseller The Steve Jobs Way, founder and CEO of Nuvel, an internet acceleration software company, and founder and chairman of Migo Software, a mobility software company. Jay has more than 30 years’ operating experience with IBM, Intel and Apple.

As Senior Vice President of Apple, Jay was responsible for all corporate operations and overall business planning, reporting directly to Steve Jobs. Jay was a member of the Macintosh development team and oversaw Macintosh software development; during Jay’s tenure Apple’s sales grew from US$150 million to more than US$3 billion. At IBM, Jay rose from programmer on the airline reservation system to managing the company’s 16,000-employee software division, before joining Intel at Andy Grove’s invitation as Director of California operations and working with Gordon Moore to create the Intel Foundation.

Jay also brings deep experience in entertainment and healthcare: as CEO of San Francisco Studios, Jay produced the Academy Award-nominated documentary Berkeley in the Sixties and the NBC series Midnight Caller, and was CEO of New Health Systems, a network connecting physicians and payers to patients and hospitals.

David Piesse

Advisor

• 40 years in insurance & risk
• Lloyd’s of London
• United Nations
• Chairman of Ambassadors, IIS

David is an insurance, risk-management and technology leader with 40 years’ experience across four continents, 30 of them based in Asia. David began in underwriting and broking at Lloyd’s of London and worked in the Canadian energy market before spending seven years with the United Nations as a risk-management and reinsurance consultant, delivering long-term risk and natural-disaster solutions across more than 50 countries.

As Global Head of Insurance for Sun Microsystems in Hong Kong from 2004 to 2009, David created the blueprint for the insurance company of the future and led Sun’s microfinance and Islamic finance programmes. David later served as Managing Director of Ultimate Risk Solutions, providing economic-capital modelling for insurers and reinsurers, and in 2018 was part of the team that took the first commercial blockchain insurance platform, Insurwave, into production.

David is Chairman of Ambassadors of the International Insurance Society and a member of its cyber research council, and received the Society’s Kenneth Black Jr. Distinguished Service Award in 2017. David is a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute and a Chartered Practitioner of the British Computer Society.