Cheng Wu Honorary Chairman / Founder and Chairman of the Board of Acopia Networks.
Mr. Wu also held various executive positions at Cisco including VP of Strategy and Group VP and General Manager for Cisco’s Content and Multiservice Edge Group. Mr. Wu joined Cisco in June 2000 through Cisco’s $5.7B acquisition of ArrowPoint Communications where he was the Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO. Before ArrowPoint, he co-founded Arris Networks, a Massachusetts based company that developed high-density Internet access products. Seven months later Arris was sold to Cascade Communications for $150M.
The highlight of his 20-year career was being named to InteractiveWeek magazine’s “Top 25 Unsung Heroes of the Internet” list in 2000. His better half is Shalin Wu. Boards and Achievements: Key Industry Player award by Massachusetts Telecom Council in 2002; Second largest corporate merger in Massachusetts history; Board member: Massachusetts Telecom Council, Data Power Corporation – www.datapower.com, and Ammasso – www.ammasso.com. Chairman of the Board: Acopia Networks – www.acopia.com. Honorary Chairman of the Board: NECINA.
Wufu Chen An established entrepreneur. He has started more than a dozen companies
Mr. Chen is an established entrepreneur. He has started more than a dozen companies, including Cascade Communications (IPO in Nasdaq, $10B), Cameo Communications (IPO in Taiwan), GaoHong (IPO in China), Xinwei Telecom (IPO in China, near $30B), Arris Networks (acquired by Cascade), Ardent Communications, Navini Networks (acquired by Cisco) and Shasta Networks (acquired by Nortel). The industry has recognized Mr. Chen’s operational and entrepreneurial excellence with numerous awards; such as quoted as “The Germinator” on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the top ten entrepreneurs of 2000 by Red Herring magazine, Life Time achievement award by Optix, and Heavy Weights in Optical Networks by Light Reading.
Mr. Chen is also an established investor as co-founder of Acorn Campus, Genesis Campus, & iD SoftCapital. Forbes Magazine ranked him as one of the top 100 venture investors in the U.S in 2002.
Mr. Chen enrolled in CS PhD program at UC Berkeley, received MSEE from the University of Florida at Gainesville, and BSEE degree from National Taiwan University.
Robert Yung Chairman/Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Strategy Officer for Analog Devices Inc.
Robert Yung, Ph.D. is Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Strategy Officer for Analog Devices. In this position, Dr. Yung plays a key role in widening the reach of ADI’s existing technology, exploring new areas of signal processing technology, and uncovering new markets and applications where the Company can apply these technologies to accelerate its overall growth rate.
Dr. Yung has an extensive background in technology and emerging market development, having served as the chief technology officer (CTO) of Tessera Technologies and of PMC Sierra. Prior to this, he was CTO for Intel in China, the Intel Communication Group, and the Intel Enterprise Processor Group. Dr. Yung has also served as CTO for Sun Microsystems and was a lead architect in Sun’s UltraSPARC microprocessor program. He was a co-founder and partner of GSR Ventures, which specializes in providing equity funding of early-stage technology in semiconductors, wireless, and Internet services. Dr. Yung was named to the National Committee on United States-China Relations as a Fellow during the inaugural Young Leader Forum in 2002. In 2000, he was named to the World Economic Forum’s “Top 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow,” in Davos, Switzerland. Dr. Yung earned Ph.D., MS, and BA degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
Joan Ni, President of Suzhou-Chem Inc.
With a chemical engineering background, Joan established a successful importing and distribution business in 2001 serving the North America food, beverage, supplement industries.
Joan served as board member of Newton Chinese Language School and currently serves as the President of Boston Zhejiang University Alumni Association and as the Director of the American Zhu Kezhen Education foundation. Joan was NECINA’s General Manager and Vice President for 6 years.
Tony Ho, Vice President, Business Development, Segway-Ninebot Group
Segway is the inventor of the namesake Segway self-balancing vehicle. The company is currently publicly traded on Shanghai Exchange (689009). Tony is leading Segway’s effort in developing mid to long term growth opportunities, and building strategic partnership with key players in the micromobility and robotics ecosystem.
Tony was a serial entrepreneur and an advisor to a number of early stage technology companies. He was formerly board member and Chief Operating Officer for Fangjia.com, a home valuation website based on big data and vertical search technology. Prior to that he was VP of Product and Director of Business Development for Myvu/MicroOptical, as well as other roles in technology early stage companies. Tony also worked for Procter & Gamble as a Manager in a variety of functions. Tony attended Harvard Business School where he earned his MBA, the University of Toronto, where he earned a Engineering Degree (M.Sc.) in Robotics, and the University of Manitoba where he earned a B.Sc. Degree in Mechanical & Industrial Engineering.Tony was a long time NECINA alumni, and former VP before returning to China. He led the effort in successful launch of the first NECINA Business Plan Competition in 2005.
Chi Kong Shue Chairman and President of SDSC Global Foundation and CentriHall, Inc.
He has also been involved in the hi-tech venture and private equity investments in Taiwan, China and U.S. since 2002. He had been the Executive Vice President at Sycamore Networks (1998-2003) responsible for the R&D of intelligent optical transport & switching systems and Asia market development. Prior to Sycamore, he was the VP at Ascend Communications and a Co-Founder of Cascade, and the Vice President of Engineering. Both Sycamore and Cascade had very successful IPO’s (SCMR and CSCC on NASDAQ) in 1999 and 1994 respectively. Mr. Shue had served at Open Software Foundation and Wang Laboratories, Inc. from 1978 to 1989.
Mr. Shue was born in Taiwan. He received a B.S.E.E. from ChiaoTung University in Taiwan in 1974, and an MS Degrees in both Computer Sciences and Operations Research from the Pennsylvania State University in 1978. He also studied in Sloan Graduate School of Management at M.I.T. in 1979. Mr. Shue received the Asian-American Achievement Award from the University of Massachusetts in 1998 for his contributions to the economic and social development of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He served as the President of NECINA in 2000 and as a Board Director since 1998. Mr. Shue currently holds three U.S. data communication patents and is a member of IEEE and OSA.
Ben Tao Vice President Corporate Development at PTC
Ben Tao is currently Vice President Corporate Development at PTC. In that role, he works closely with Corporate and Segment business leadership teams in formulating acquisition strategies. He worked on a significant number of M&A transactions, especially in the field of Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, and Big Data Analytics, helping transform PTC’s business.
Prior to PTC, he worked as a management consultant for six years, advising clients on a broad range of strategic and management challenges across multiple industries such as high tech, retail, chemical, and private equity. Before starting his career as a management consultant, he worked as a technologist for several leading technology companies including Oracle, Microsoft, and Ericsson.
Ben served as NECINA’s president during the 2014-2015 operating year. He is serving NECINA as one of its board members. Ben received a BS degree in Computer Sciences from Beijing University and an MS degree in Computer Sciences from University of Wisconsin at Madison. He also holds an MBA degree from Babson College.
John Wang China Program Senior Advisor
John Wang is an automotive product design expert and entrepreneur. He has diverse experience in engineering as well as business management.
Since 2008, John has started several companies. He founded Dreamech developing connected car product/service for car owner and service providers. He was the co-founder/CTO of Wiselink Technology, where he built a team of 30 engineers and technicians developing pioneered telematics product in China for customers including China Mobile, Volkswagen China Joint Venture.
Before 2008, John worked for General Motors and Johnson Controls, and his designs and patents have been widely applied to GM, Ford and Chrysler automobiles. Recently, John joined a startup company developing cutting-edge products for high-end and autonomous vehicles.
John also served as 2015-2016 President of NECINA and has been a NECINA board member since 2016. His education includes MBA (Michigan), MSME and BSME.
Mingsheng Hong AI & Big Data Expert, Google
Dr. Mingsheng Hong leads the engineering work of Google's TensorFlow runtime, the AI infrastructure. Prior to this role, Mingsheng worked in Big Data engineering leadership roles at Google, Hadapt and HP Vertica. During his five years at Massachusetts in 2008-2013, Mingsheng was fortunate to volunteer at NECINA and served as its 17th President during the 2012-2013 term. Mingsheng obtained his Computer Science Ph.D. degree at Cornell University, and co-founded the Microsoft CEDR research project, commercialized as SQL Server StreamInsight. Mingsheng has given talks, lectures and demos at industry and academic forums such as TensorFlow Developer Summit, Hadoop World, and Harvard Business School.
