Jie is a tech startup ecosystem builder with extensive experience in business development, program management, and venture investment. He has advised over 50 startups, facilitated over 9 batches of acceleration programs, and spearheaded international expansion for multiple startups. Jie is also a mentor at Project Invent, Peking University HSBC Business School, CUNY Startup and CUNY Firefly Innovations, accelerator arms of America’s most extensive urban education system, and Operations Advisor at National Realty Club, one of the oldest real estate organizations in the US. Jie received his bachelor’s degree in Physics and co-authored multiple publications in quantum-optics and fluorescent hydrogel. As an entrepreneur at heart, Jie is a passionate follower of DeepTech.

Kun Zhang (Quin) is a tenure-track professor of management at Peking University HSBC Business School in Shenzhen, China. His research interests revolve around technology innovation, startup value appropriation, and digitization strategies. Kun obtained his doctorate in strategy and entrepreneurship from the University of Colorado Boulder. He also holds a master’s degree in management science from the London School of Economics in the U.K., where he focused on optimization and decision sciences for management. He is also an active angel investor in high-tech and bio-pharmaceutical industries.

Lee Lin is a co-founder of RentHop.com and RealtyHop.com. RentHop.com is in Y Combinator (YC)’s 2009 Summer Program and appeared in the Harvard Business School case study titled “Killing Craigslist.” Lee is an angel investor who focuses on pre-Series A and pre-seed investment. He graduated from MIT and is an alumnus of Harvard. Before his entrepreneur journey, Lee worked at top quantitative hedge funds (D.E. Shaw and Two Sigma Investments) and Microsoft.

Yipeng Li is a senior executive in the Chinese consumer industry, primarily responsible for investment, capital markets, and innovative businesses. He used to be the co-founder of “Senior Help” and “Brothers Help” as the first Chinese campus P2P social service platform. Yipeng Li is a cross-border investor and has worked in Jiuding Investment and a family office in Singapore in the telecommunications, consumer, and aviation finance leasing industries. He has a keen insight into the Asian market.

Hannah is a translational cancer biologist. She is passionate about transforming clinical cancer care and is using her cancer expertise in her role as Chief Product and People Officer with Cambridge Cancer Genomics (CCG.ai). CCG is a YC backed healthtech startup building tools to enable oncologists to make the best therapeutic decisions for their patients. They have raised over $8 million in funding. 

Prannoy Nambiar is now a Senior Product Manager at Audible. Before Amazon, he was the Director of Product & Growth at Careerlist, a platform that creates more opportunities for employers, recruiters, and talent, alike. Prannoy also co-founded Bansho, an e-learning platform that provides live learning that boosts confidence in kids and supports busy parents. He is a product leader inclined towards early-stage tech startups centered around the workforce and education. His most recent experience has included developing a go-to-market strategy, establishing a product vision, creating and implementing a product roadmap, drafting product requirements, and conducting user research and segmentation for marketplace platforms.

Elizabeth Tobey has run marketing, communications, support, and community teams for tech companies and startups in both New York City and San Francisco. Starting in the video game industry, she was at the forefront of the community and social media explosion and helped shape early strategies that redefined how companies marketed to and engaged their customers. She expanded the Tumblr Support team to incorporate community engagement and outreach, embedding the department with both product and marketing teams for a holistic go-to-market strategy. At Medium, she was the first marketing hire and defined what engaged readers and writers looked like on the platform and built out content and engagement strategies that balanced storytelling with data science. She is now leading marketing at a startup building research collaboration software for academia and the corporate market. She has successfully brought the company through its Series A funding, redefined its target audience and core messaging, and is currently working on expanding into biopharma and fintech for 2020. 

Michelle is an early-stage startup investor, connector, and communicator. She is passionate about working with founders worldwide to build great ventures. Before joining Lair East Labs, she spent eight years working at public accounting firms in both China and the U.S., including KPMG and PWC. Her experience covers industries such as manufacturing, construction, chemical, consumer goods, real estate, and financial services, with expertise in business strategy, operations management, and corporate finance. 

For more than 15 years, Van has served as a leader in professional services, sales engineering, and product management in Federal and Commercial markets. Specializing in operations and scaling tech companies, Van has led operations and engagement at Unqork, sales engineering team at EVERFI, and established and led global professional services at Yext, a SaaS technology company that IPO’d in 2017. Throughout his career, he has built new organizations, rapidly scaled global delivery teams, and led complex technology initiatives resulting in $1B+ in new revenue. In his spare time he enjoys cooking and cheering on the UVA basketball team.

Jane Tran is a seasoned operator, with 10+ years of experience in product development, strategic planning and process improvement. She is currently the co-founder and COO of Sixfold.ai, the first AI assistant for insurance underwriters. Prior to Sixfold, she was a founding member and COO of Unqork, a $2B enterprise SaaS company focused on enabling the world to turn their ideas into future proof software. She is an LP investor at The Fund XX, an early stage VC focused on supporting and investing in the next generation of female founders. She is also an active mentor for Techstars and Lair East Labs.