ATxInspire - War Stories of Tech Trailblazers: Failures, Triumphs and Strategies for Success

Aaron Tan, Co-Founder & CEO, Carro

Aaron is a programmer by training and a venture capitalist by profession. He founded his first startup at 13 and subsequently sold two companies before turning 21.

He was also part of the founding team of Singtel Innov8 Ventures (a global US$300M strategic fund) and invested in over 60 companies globally.

Aaron left the fund in 2016 and founded Carro – SEA’s largest online retailer for vehicles. In 2021, Financial Times named Carro the fastest growing company in Asia Pacific with revenues of over US$1B annually in 2022. Carro has raised over US$700M to date and was last valued at over US$1B by Softbank Vision Fund and several sovereign funds.

Allan Teng, Founder and Senior Advisor, Workato APJ; General Manager & Vice-President, Workato Japan

Allan joined Workato’s Silicon Valley founding team in 2014, helping to set up the business in its early stages. His contributions helped to establish Workato’s foundations and spanned across product development, research and ideation as well as go-to-market strategy.

Upon moving back to Singapore, Allan built up presence in Asia Pacific and Japan from the ground up, and was instrumental in orchestrating Workato's rapid growth in the region. Over the past eight years, Allan served as Workato’s Founder and Managing Director of Asia Pacific & Japan. In his current role, Allan leads Workato’s expansion into Japan, while remaining a key pillar of the Asia Pacific team. Prior to Workato, Allan was the founder of 4 other startups in Singapore.

Lai Shanru, Co-Founder, Shopback

Shanru is one of the co-founders of ShopBack, Asia-Pacific’s leading shopping and rewards platform, and one of Singapore's fastest growing startups. In 8 years, Shanru and team scaled ShopBack to serve over 35 million shoppers across 10 markets, and power over US$3.5B in annual sales for over 10,000 merchant partners. She was named to the Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30 Asia’ List in 2018, for being a change-maker in her field.

Maya Lewis, Vice President Strategy, Sequoia Capital

Maya graduated from Stanford with a BA in East Asian Studies and an MS in Management Science & Engineering. She developed her interest in tech and startups while at Stanford, interning at a 25 person startup for two years while in school. After graduating, she did a short stint at Booz&Co before moving to Uber and then Google. In Fall 2021, she relocated to Singapore to join Advance Intelligence Group, and is now VP of Strategy at Sequoia India and Southeast Asia. She is passionate about user insights and building products that solve real user needs.

Nicholas Tan, Chief Financial Officer, Ace Global Business Acquisition Ltd

Nicholas is a former SEA Games gold medallist and national swimming record holder for Singapore. Since then, he went on to be part of the founding team at Shopee in 2014, and recently become the CFO of Nasdaq listed-spac (NASDAQ:ACBA). Recently, Nicholas is also founding investor of a brand incubation platform called East Ocean. East Ocean accelerates the expansion of international brands such as Gentle Monster, Pinko, Cult Gaia, David Koma, By Far into the China market.

Terence Chia, Assistant Chief Executive, Corporate Group & Cluster Director, Human Capital Cluster, IMDA

Terence Chia has more than 15 years of experience in the Singapore Public Service, where he has undertaken a variety of policy, strategy and operational roles dealing with human capital.

Terence leads IMDA’s Corporate Group, overseeing Finance, HR, IT and admin functions. His team works to ensure that IMDA has effective resources, capabilities and processes to grow Digital Singapore. In addition, Terence’s Human Capital Cluster team formulates, reviews and implements talent strategies for Singapore’s Digital Economy. Terence has Bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics from Stanford University and a Master in Business Administration from IESE Business School.