Mentorship Program

Natanel is an experienced MIT trained entrepreneur recognized for founding and leading innovative tech companies in clean energy and digital media. In May 2010, he was globally recognized for his achievement in winning the prestigious MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition after beating 200+ MIT based startups. Previously, he served on the corporate development team of international tech holding firm IDT Corporation and with VC firm L Capital Partners, as well as an adviser to the CEO of India's leading VC firm, Reliance Technology Ventures. His opinions and observations can be followed on his blog at yidvestor.com and his educational background includes an MBA from MIT Sloan in Corporate Finance and Entrepreneurship, and with a BS from Yeshiva University.

Erdin is a Principal at Flagship Ventures focusing on sustainability and global open innovation.
Erdin comes to Flagship Ventures from Ubiquitous Energy, an organic photovoltaics startup that he co-founded while a student at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His work with Ubiquitous Energy was recognized through awards in the MIT Clean Energy Prize and Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest.
Two months before classes at MIT began, Erdin co-founded the MIT Entrepreneurship Review. With a motto of "Where Einstein Meets Edison", MITER is a journal that brings entrepreneurs the latest scientific knowledge in an easily digestible format. The publication grew from a team of three to a team of forty in its first year and became a recognized platform for science and technology entrepreneurship thought at MIT and beyond.
While at MIT, Erdin also served as a teaching assistant for seven courses, including Strategic Management of Innovation and Technology (Profs. Fiona Murray and Alan MacCormack) and From MIT to CEO: Technologists Leading Startup Ventures (Dr. Noubar Afeyan); was a Summer Associate on the energy team at Venrock Associates, working to develop Venrock's investment strategy in energy efficiency; and served as co-captain of the MIT Sloan Soccer Club, a team that won the league championship of Boston area schools in 2011.
For his work in entrepreneurship and contributions to student life at MIT, Erdin was awarded the Patrick J. McGovern Entrepreneurship Award, the Carol and Howard Anderson Fellowship, and the MIT Sloan Peer Recognition Award.
Erdin originally hails from Kyrgyzstan, a former USSR republic, and also lived in India and the United Kingdom before coming to the United States. In addition to an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, Erdin holds a BA (first-class honours) in Development and Peace Studies from the University of Bradford, where he was awarded the International Student Scholarship and the James O'Connell Scholarship for Peace Studies, and an MA in Area Studies of the former Soviet Union from Harvard University, where he studied on a full scholarship.

Joaquín Durán Blasco is a Co-Founder and CEO of Protomex Life Sciences, a medical diagnostics company developing a handheld medical device that will allow for the detection of small molecules indicative of the presence of cardiac disease, cancer, and infectious diseases that are found in low concentrations in blood cells.

For the last 20 years Joe has served as mentor, coach, and personal advisor to CEO’s and entrepreneurs. In recent years, he has served as investor, advisor and active director with dozens of companies, public and private.Joe is currently a director and active investor in Boston MicroMachines and i2Chem. He is a member of CommonAngels and eCoast Angels, and was previously a principal in Walnut Ventures and a Managing Partner of Brookwood Partners, all investment groups for early stage companies. He also maintains an active consulting practice dealing with structuring and negotiation of acquisitions, strategic partnerships and financings, and issues related to dispute resolution.

Bernard is a business leader with diverse experience as an engineer, management consultant, and product expert. His most recent role was Regional Director of Ad Network and Platform at Yahoo!, managing their display ad network and exchange. To drive these two new businesses in the region, Bernard built the team from the ground up. In 2.5 years, he grew revenue to tens of millions USD in 9 Asian countries, supported by 200+ cross functional staff including sales, operations, and product development. Before Yahoo!, Bernard was a management consultant at Bain & Company, where he consulted for clients in China retail, telecom, and private equity sectors. Bernard began his career as telecom semiconductor engineer in the US.

Bernard is currently on the Advisory Board of Turn, a global leader in digital advertising technology.
Bernard left Yahoo! end of last year, responding to his entrepreneurial calling. He spent the last few months launching a publishing platform that focuses on lifestyle content, supported by a network of some of the top fashion and lifestyle bloggers in Hong Kong. He is now in search for his next project, with a few ideas in the education and advertising space.

Bernard holds an M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School of Management, plus a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering as well as a B.A. in Economics from University of Waterloo.

Dr. Datong Chen is a founding partner of Westsummit Capital--a global technology investment fund. He was educated at Tsinghua University in China, followed by Stanford University.

Dr. Datong Chen co-founded Omnivision Technology in Silicon Valley in 1995, as well as Spreadtrum Communication in China/Silicon Valley in 2001. His accomplishments in Silicon Valley include the development of the world's first single-chip color CMOS image sensor and the first TD-SCDMA (3G) baseband processor for mobile handsets. Both companies was successfully listed in Nasdaq (OVTI and SPRD).

Dr. Chen now serves as a counsel member of both China Semiconductor Association and China Invention Association. He was previously the chairman of the Tsinghua University Entrepreneur and Executive Club (TEEC).

Dave is an entrepreneur, adviser, and investor. From 2009 - 2011, he was a General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, a Sand Hill Road venture capital firm with $2B under management. He founded five tech businesses, with acquisitions by HP, EMC, and Keynote Systems. He is also the co-founder of Speechpad, the leader in crowd-sourced audio and video transcription and Onepo.st, a site that makes reposting social media content easy. Dave advises a number of companies including SendHub, BandPage, and LiveMinutes. Dave is the author of Why Startups Fail: And How Yours Can Succeed. Dave also blogs actively at vcdave.com. When he is not working with tech startups, he enjoys triathlons, rock climbing, and playing the violin.

William joined Reed Smith as a partner in the Business & Finance Department in 2011. He has substantial experience with public offerings, PIPEs, private placements of securities, venture capital investments, Rule 144A debt offerings, going private transactions, and public and private mergers and acquisitions. William also advises public companies on disclosure and corporate governance issues, shareholder relations, and compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the rules and regulations of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., and the major stock exchanges. William graduated from Fordham University School of Law and Wharton School of Business in University of Pennsylvania.

Bernard Ho is the founder of Public Communication & Strategic Consultancy and CEO of Energy Compression Inc. Before that, he was a senior manager at Intel. He holds degrees from Iowa University, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Yichuan Hu is cofounder and CTO of JinWanKanSha (Chinese Pinyin for "what to watch tonight"), a video recommendation engine based on your personal tastes and social graph. JinWanKanSha attracted over 300,000 users within 3 months, and was acquired by Baidu in November, 2012.

Yichuan received his BS and MS degrees from Tsinghua University, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in the design, implementation and commercialization of large scale machine learning applications.

Myoung Kang consults for high tech startups in Silicon Valley by managing finance, human resources, and legal matters. Her current client list includes Alphonso Labs, Aria Glassworks, Bitplay, Bump, Glooko, Songkick, and TagArray. She is known for creating infrastructure at early stage venture backed startups and has over almost 20 years of experience in the executive role at startups from the initial phase to acquisitions. She has been a part of over $200M of venture funding and acquisitions. Her expertise was also used during her term as a member of the Audit Committee for the City of Cupertino as well as many school organizations. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College, and currently resides in Cupertino, California with her husband and three children.

Cy Khormaee is currently an MBA Candidate at the Harvard School of Business. Formerly he was a Technology Evangelist at the Microsoft Corporation focused on Social Computing. He is a much sought-after public speaker and regularly lectures at universities across the US. Prior to his role as an Evangelist, Cy was a Program Manager responsible for the analytics engines behind MSN.com and Windows Live Messenger ad sales. Cy holds a Bachelor in Computer Science from the University of Washington.

Michael is a co-founder and COO of Sample6 Technologies, a Synthetic Biology startup aiming to improve the health and safety of global consumers. Sample6 is developing integrated systems that can quickly and easily detect harmful and unwanted bacteria in the food, healthcare, and other industries. Michael also co-founded the nonprofit BiotechStart.org to facilitate the dissemination of successful business models for biotech startups, increase awareness amongst prospective founders and help start more biotech companies.

Before starting Sample6 and BiotechStart, Michael completed his doctoral work at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Boston University. While working on his thesis Michael co-developed Sample6’s technology, working with Tim Lu. Michael remains a visiting scholar with the Synthetic Biology Group at MIT and HHMI in the Biomedical Engineering Department at BU. In addition to his scientific work, Mike previously worked at KPMG Consulting and McKinsey & Company in Germany, as well as Flagship Ventures in Cambridge.

At NYCEDC, NYC’s official economic development corporation, Ann Li oversees the development and implementation of citywide policy recommendations to strengthen New York’s position as the global business and financial center.

Her work includes implementing initiatives designed to help support New York City’s financial services sector, expanding opportunities for industry growth such as in carbon finance, and encouraging innovative business ventures from around the globe to launch and operate here in New York City.

Prior to joining NYCEDC, Ann worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, where she collaborated on the Bloomberg-Schumer report assessing the City’s strength as a global financial center and studied issues like immigration policy and litigation risk as factors in market competitiveness. Prior to her tenure at McKinsey & Company, Ann worked at the global consulting firm Oliver Wyman, where she advised financial services institutions on organizational issues and risk management.

Ann is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied at the Wharton School of Business and the School of Engineering, earning dual B.S. degrees with academic distinction.

Dr. Leo Jiang is a Senior Investment Manager of China Electronics Corporation Capital Management, where his investment focus areas are semiconductors, networking systems, software, mobile internet and the "internet of things". Before that, Dr. Jiang worked at various companies, including Honda, Panasonic, and Apple. He holds a Ph.D. in Robotics and a M.S. in Engineering Design from Stanford University.

Michael is the CEO of AngelnVC.com, which is a leading venture investment platform, invested in by the "super angels" in China, including Xiaoping Xu, Kaifu Lee, and Charles Xue. Michael has years of experiences in Technology and Financial industry in the United States. Before he started AngelnVC.com, he was a Vice President and senior technology officer at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Michael has an MBA from Wharton Business Schoo, and a MS in Computer Science from the University of Delaware.

Dr. Yong Liu is a researcher, entrepreneur, business writer and venture capitalist. He is now leading Baidu’s open innovation efforts, including strategic investment and partnerships in the US. Before joining Baidu, Dr. Liu set up Lenovo Technology Seed Fund in 2012 and Lenovo Silicon Valley office for M&A/strategic alliance in 2011. In his earlier career, Dr. Liu served Samsung Electronics, co-founded Dict.cn, and acted as an active business writer. Dr. Liu obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Nanjing University, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Indiana University Bloomington. His research areas include pervasive computing and diffusion of innovations.

Terence Russell is an experienced entrepreneur and scientist. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of Zensei Analytics, LLC, a Boston-based new venture creation and consulting company. He also serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Makoto Life Sciences, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the identification of novel pharmaceutical targets in oncology, urology, and allergic inflammation. Previously, Dr. Russell co-founded Critical Biologics Corporation, a critical care pharmaceuticals company targeting the treatment of severe inflammatory conditions. Dr. Russell also co-founded Vevionics, LLC, an engineering research and design company that develops innovative technologies for industrial process control and measurement. In addition, he was the founder of LifeBeam Technologies, Inc., a high-speed genomics technology company where he was the inventor of LifeBeam’s patented core DNA sequencing technology.

In addition to his entrepreneurial efforts, Dr. Russell has conducted research at Harvard University and Boston University on a wide range of topics; from detectors for biological warfare agents to genetically engineered proteins used in anti-counterfeiting applications. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Boston University.

James co-founded NutraClick shortly after graduating from Harvard in 2008, where he and Daniel Wallace met as rowers. Without raising money from outside investors or VCs, they were able to leverage earnings generated by the business to scale profitably. Together, they worked to assemble a team that could grow as fast as the opportunity evolved. The NutraClick team grew from two to two hundred in under four years. NutraClick’s disruptive value was in merging two business models–online marketing/technology and traditional consumer packaged goods/retail. James focused on strategy, partnerships, and analytics. James believes in hiring the best people, and expecting their best performance. He is a data-driven leader who believes decisions should be based on results, and not on who shouts the loudest.

David Song is a Co-Founder and the President (Int'l) of the Great Wall Club (GWC). The Great Wall Club's mission is to build trust and communication between companies operating within the mobile Internet industry - both in China and in the world at large. David serves as the company's spokesman and carries a strong passion and belief in the mission of GWC.

Prior to GWC, Mr. Song served as Chief Office Director of Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League, Market Director of Chinese Language Council International Promotion of Hanban, and Market Director of Cheng Cheng Investment in Culture Group CO., LTD.

In 2008 Mr. Song successfully organized Olympic Athletes Friendly Match in the Olympic Village during the 29th Olympic Games. The 29th Olympiad holds a very precious place in China's cultural heritage and his opportunity to serve as a representative his country remains one of his proudest moments.

Outside of the business world, David's first love has always been Table Soccer. In 2002 Mr. Song established and developed Table Soccer in China. As leader China’s National Table Soccer team he participated several international competitions in Europe and the U.S.A., ultimately earning the a 5th place individual world ranking and a 2nd place Team Competition world ranking. Although retired now from competitive Table Soccer, David continues to hone his skills at Table Soccer and is always up for a friendly match.

Steve Tang became President and CEO of the Science Center in February 2008 following an extensive nationwide search. He brings to the position a wealth of professional experience in academia, professional services, and private industry. Most notably, Dr. Tang is the first president in the Science Center's history to have not only led a company through venture funding and an initial public offering, but to also serve as a senior executive with a large life sciences company as it acquired and integrated smaller start-ups.

A seasoned life science, energy technology, and management consulting executive, Steve previously served as Group Vice President and General Manager with Olympus America Inc., where he led U.S. operations for the company's $1 billion global Life Science businesses. Before joining Olympus in 2005, he was president and CEO of Millennium Cell Inc. (NASDAQ: MCEL), an energy technology firm he led through its initial public offering in 2000.
Previously, he served as Vice President and Managing Director of the global pharmaceutical and healthcare practice of A.T. Kearney Inc., and was Vice President and Co-managing Director of the global chemical and environmental practice for Gemini Consulting Inc., now known as Cap Gemini. Prior to that, he was the Assistant Director and Senior Research Engineer at the Lehigh University Center for Molecular Bioscience and Biotechnology in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Tang earned a doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University, an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Chemistry from the College of William and Mary. A graduate of the public school system in Delaware, he has resided in the area for most of his life.

Drew Volpe is co-founder/CTO of Locately where he leads product development for Locately's location-based market research platform. Using data from mobile phones, Locately helps retailers, restaurants, and consumer brands understand where consumers are shopping, eating,
and playing, and why.

Previously, Drew was Director of Engineering at Endeca Technologies, a search and information discovery database vendor which was acquired by Oracle ($1.1B) and co-founder/VP engineering of BankFox.com. Drew holds an A.B. in Computer Science from Harvard University.

Matt Wallaert is a social psychologist and serial entrepreneur who works at the intersection of technology and human behavior.  After years of research on paradigms for human decision making, Matt joined his first startup, Thrive, which was quickly acquired by LendingTree.  Since then, he cofounded and ran a successful digital strategy agency, Churnless, which provided product and tech for the government, non-profits, and Fortune 50 companies, and now sits on the advisory board of a number of startups both in NYC and elsewhere.  

A frequent speaker both at events and in the process, Matt is an emerging thought leader on how technology can be used to solve social problems, in particular behavioral challenges.  A native Oregonian and current New Yorker, he attended Li Po Chun United World College in Hong Kong and maintains strong connections with Asia and entrepreneurs around the world.

Before his PE investment career in China, Mr. Wang worked at the People's Bank of China (PBC) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC). He has over 25 years of experience in investments and his investments include ZKML, Zhongyu Game,Yixun Sky, and Yantai Juli. Mr. Wang has rich working experience within ZhongGuanCun, where he has developed both a relationship and credibility with the government, investment institutions, and business ventures. Under his leadership and effort, ZVCA is aimed not only to improve standards and quality but also build an international platform for China's private equity industry.

Victor Wang is the President of Hanhai Z-Park, and oversees the firm’s overall strategy and business operations. Victor is a serial entrepreneur who has managed emerging medical technology companies for over 20 years. Prior to Hanhai Z-Park, Victor founded a Health IT company based in Silicon Valley and served as President and CEO. The company had been a provider and partner for many hospitals, venture funds, and high tech companies. Victor holds a Master of Management degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor in Electronic Engineering degree from the Shenyang University of Technology.

Canice Wu joined as President of Plug and Play Tech Center, after being an Executive in Residence at Plug and Play.

He has over 20 years of experience in developing and scaling successful businesses from concept to market leader. Prior to joining Plug and Play Tech Center, Wu was CEO of Insights OnDemand, providing on demand Business Intelligence Solutions. Prior to Insights OnDemand, he was Vice President, General Manager and COO of CRM and Industry Solutions at Siebel Systems. He came to Siebel from Booz, Allen & Hamilton where he was a management consultant specializing in forming business strategies and market penetration plans for Fortune 500 companies. Canice is also on the board of AAMA.

Canice has a BS and MS in Computer Science from MIT, and an MBA from University of California at Berkeley.  

Ying Wu, is Chairman of the China Capital Group and previously served as chairman of UTStarcom, Inc. He currently also serves a member of the think-tank Consultant Committee of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the China State Council, and senior consultant on Internet industry for the ShenZhen City Government. He was one of the three main judges at Win in China on CCTV-2 years ago.

Xiaolu Yu is a cleantech investment professional at Tsing Capital. She has 6 years of experience in the clean technology field, including energy and energy efficiency, environment protection and pollution control, green material, sustainable transportation, and new agriculture, among others. Prior to Tsing Capital, she worked in the Energy Department of the World Bank in Washington DC and co-founded a renewable energy company in Boston.

Xiaolu holds a M.S. degree in Environmental Science from Harvard University and a M.S. degree in Physics from University of Toronto.

David Yuan is a Partner with Redpoint Ventures and the head of Redpoint China since launching its presence in 2005. David is based in Shanghai and focuses on investment opportunities and portfolio development. David is currently a board member of China eNet, Leeuu, Gonline, Supertool, Domob, Apple Toon, iDreamSky and Yixia. He has also been involved in Redpoint's investments and is a board observer of 51.com and Innofidei. David led Redpoint's investment in Cgen Media, acquired by Focus Media (Nasdaq: FMCN) and Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU). He was also an early investor in Focused Photonics (China A-Share: 300203).
David brings to Redpoint Ventures over 15 years of entrepreneurial and operating experience with a demonstrated track record of building technology companies both in Silicon Valley and Asia Pacific. He has developed strong domain expertise in semiconductor, wireless, consumer internet and digital media.

Prior to joining Redpoint, David co-founded and served as CEO of iTelco Communications, a technology and solution provider for the next generation of communication networks. Previously, David was a co-founder of Opentel Communications, a facility-based international telecom carrier. Prior to Opentel, David co-founded Genesol Enterprise, one of the first telecom system integration companies in China. David began his career with Intel as a design engineer and a product manager in the microprocessor group.

In summer 2010, Eugene co-foundered TEEC Angel Fund, a supper angel fund investing in both US and China early stage companies in Silicon Valley. Eugene was founding CEO of InnoSpring, a global cross border technology startup incubator in Silicon Valley from its inception to January 2014. Eugene founded JEDA Technologies, Inc., in December, 2002 and serves as President and CEO. JEDA specializes in next-generation SoC design methodologies and provides ESL (electronic system level ) verification automation products for leading edge SoC design companies world wide. JEDA Beijing R&D center was opened in December 2004 at Tsinghua Science Park. Eugene has been working in the networking and computer industry for thirteen years in technical and management positions. Prior to founding JEDA, he was with Juniper Networks from its start where he contributed greatly to the success of many complex ASICs for internet backbone routers. Prior to joining Juniper, Eugene was with Cisco Systems as an ASIC design verification engineer. From 1993 to 1995 while Eugene worked on the Sunfire SMP server project at SUN Microsystems, he co-invented industry’s first hardware Testbench language Vera, which is a part of today’s industry standard SystemVerilog ( IEEE 1880). Mr. Zhang received his M.S.C.E from Syracuse University, USA, and a M.S.E.E and B.S.E.E from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Education
LL.M., Boston University School of Law (Banking and Financial Program)
LL.M., University of International Business and Economics School of Law
B.A., Zhejiang University Foreign Study College (English)

Work Experience
2010-Present Beijing Zhong Lun Law Firm Partner
2004-2009 Beijing Zhong Lun Law Firm Associate
2003-2004 Beijing Yiwen Law Firm Associate
2000-2001 Zhejiang Tiance Law Firm Paralegal
Representative Cases
(1) Project Finance and Commercial Lending
• Since 2004, advised International Finance Corporation on its finance to over 30 projects in China, including power plant, medical care center, education center, cement plants, new energy plants, financial institutions, water/wastewater treatment plants as well as subsequent debts restructuring and security replacement of these projects;
• Advised International Finance Corporation, DEG, Proparco on their syndicated loans to a hydropower project in China;
• Advised Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan on their proposed syndicated loans to three (3) real-estate development projects in China;
• Advised the Export-Import Bank of China on its project finance to an oversea hydropower project and an iron ore mining rail car project;
• Advised Singapore United Overseas Bank on its project finance to a real-estate project in China; and
• Advised four domestic major commercial banks on their syndicated loans to a project in China.

(2) Mergers & Accusations, Foreign Direct Investment and Corporate Matters
• Advised the Government of Singapore Investment Corp on its acquisition of a new energy company in China;
• Advised International Finance Corporation on its acquisition of a city commercial bank, a high-tech energy-saving company in Beijing, a high-tech material company in Tianjin and a chemical company in west region of China;
• Advised Microvast Inc. on its establishment of a joint venture company engaged in business of a E-battery bus driving system with a Chinese bus maker;
• Advised a US multinational energy group on its establishment of a joint venture mining company with a Chinese mining group;
• Advised an Israeli high-tech company on its establishment of a FIE in Shanghai;
• Advised a Spanish public-held company on its acquisition of a Hong Kong investment company, which directly or indirectly holds a number of infrastructure BOT projects in China;
• Advised H&Q Asia Pacific on its transfer of controlling stake in a Beijing company, which operates more than 60 Starbucks outlets in Beijing and Tianjin;
• Advised a well-known International Capital Group on its investments in a medical care center, a guarantee company and a new energy company in China;
• Advised a subsidiary of a fortune 500 company on its liquidation of a Chinese foreign equity joint venture enterprise in China;
• Advised a Hong Kong holding company on its investments in a car sales company, a car service company and a car manufacturer in China;
• Advised a German based subsidiary of a UK public company on its investment in a Chinese high-tech company;
• Advised a subsidiary of Maersk Group on its acquisition of assets of a state-owned company in China;
• Advised an Israel high-tech company on its establishment of a Chinese foreign equity joint venture company in Zhuhai, China;
• Advised a domestic hotel management group company on its proposed acquisition of an oversea hotel management company;
• Advised a subsidiary of DuPont Group on its investment and trademark related affairs in China;
• Advised a US venture capital on its acquisition of a real-estate project in China;
• Advised a US Hotel Management Group on its proposed investment in a hotel project in China;
• Advised IKEA on the construction of a new store in Beijing and a manufacturing plant in Dalian, including land acquisition, land development and construction;
• Advised Hunan Grand Theater on its global bidding for designer; and
• Advised a central State-owned enterprise on its legal due diligence over several subsidiaries home and abroad.

(3) Dispute Resolution
• Represented an international investment fund on its dispute with Chinese partner over management control in a number of onshore invested entities;
• Represented a Chinese bank in a revolving letter of credit dispute with an overseas bank before a high court in China;
• Represented a US company in a dispute with a Chinese company on lease of aviation equipment;
• Represented a major US bank in a transferable letter of credit dispute with a Chinese exporter before a high court in China;
• Represented a Chinese group company in a demand guarantee dispute with an overseas bank; and
• Represented a US steel trading company in a steel sales contract dispute with a Chinese exporter before China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission.

Dr. Zhou received his Ph.D. Degree in EECS from MIT, had over 20 years of experiences in Wireless Communications and Semiconductor industries in both US and China. He held several senior executive positions in Fortune 500 companies including AT&T, Lucent, and Qualcomm. While working for large corporations, he pioneered and built the first IC Fab/foundry in China with technologies transfer from AT&T Bell Labs. He initiated and supported the indigenous mobile phone industry in China with chipsets and reference designs from Lucent and Qualcomm. Leveraging the IC Fab resources and wireless communications technologies, Dr. Zhou help found/co-founded many companies in the USA and China including: MEMSIC, Agere Systems, Top Global USA, and Bellnet Technologies. Dr. Zhou won the first prize in the first MIT 10K Entrepreneurial competition. He has over 20 Chinese and International patents.

Joe has 18+ years multi-cultural and multi-national work experience. In Japan, Joe gained project management and quality control skills by working at Yokogawa Electric Corporation for 2 years. In China, Joe worked as the Vice General Manager of a Japanese company to build the first business branch and manufacturing plant in China, managed the daily operations of both the business branch and the manufacturing plant. In the U.S., Joe started as a software engineer; and then a manager was responsible for the development and evaluation of new business opportunities, including a startup that utilizes virtual reality technology in applications of pain management; now he is a managing director of Eastern Link Capital, a Private Equity firm doing investment in China.

Joe has an MBA degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management. He was in the Sloan Fellows Program in Innovation & Global Leadership, a demanding and accelerated full-time degree program for mid-career executives and entrepreneurs. He also holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University and a Bachelor’s degree in Precision Engineering from Tianjin University, P. R. China.